Healthy Banana Cream Pie Smoothie (Vegan)

 Doesn't this look delicious? I love making my daughter healthy smoothies for breakfast or snacks, and I'd like to share a recipe for a vegan banana cream pie smoothie that's healthy! She helped me make it, like usual, so I also added the label "Preschoolers in the Kitchen" because this is one the kiddos can help grab the ingredients for and push the button on the blender!

Ingredients:
- 1 ripe organic banana
- a graham cracker (blend 1/2 into the smoothie, then save the other 1/2)
- 1/2 cup organic almond milk
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup vegan vanilla yogurt
- 2 ice cubes

Blend all the ingredients together in a blender, and pour them into a cup. Then sprinkle some graham cracker crumbs on top, and stick part of the graham cracker into the top.

My daughter liked drinking this with a straw, so you might wanna add one!

Star Wars Bento

So, I'll say right away that this isn't perfect by any means. My food pen got messed up a bit with the bread for Yoda's face, but my daughter didn't care and thought it was adorable. That's how kids are! :)  

I made this Star Wars Bento for my daughter on May the 4th and told her (may the forth be with you). So this is a bento that's great for a fun way to spruce up lunch on that holiday, but many kids would love to see this in their bento box anytime of the year.

For the Yoda sandwich I lightly toasted two pieces of bread, and then put them on a chopping mat and used a sharp knife to very carefully cut out the shape of his head. Then I put some nut butter and jam on it and closed it up. I got out my green food pen and tried my best to give him his facial features to make him look more like Yoda.

I also made some light-sabers for her dessert and added them into the bento box. I put two in a compartment by themselves, but also two next to Yoda. To make the lightsabers you just need some pretzel sticks (I used Glutino Pretzels), and some vanilla icing and food coloring in the colors you'd like (I used neon pink and neon green per my daughters request). All you do is put a little bit of the icing into two small bowls and then add in a few drops of the food coloring to each, stir it in, then roll one half of the pretzels through it. And you have lightsabers. As you see I crossed them over each other. I also put the folded up paper towels and put them under the sandwich and cheese words so they'd be higher up and visible for a picture and more ascetically pleasing for my daughter.

For the cheese words that say "Star Wars" I used a piece of dutch goat cheese and these cutters 

Then I just threw in some fruit (strawberries and raspberries), could be anything.

And there you have it, it's that simple!

Butterfly Book PB&J

For National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day I made my daughter a special sandwich! I made her one that looked like a book about butterflies.

Beautiful right? Looked even more like a book that would open in person!

First, I lightly toasted two pieces of bread. Then I used spread some organic peanut butter on both pieces of bread, then used my PopChef to cut a butterfly out of one piece of the bread. Then I spread some organic jelly on the piece of bread without the butterfly. Then I put both pieces together, and pushed down around the edges to make the crust easy to cut off. I cut all but the left side off, well I cut a tiny bit of the left side of the crust off, and then folded it over and pushed down hard to make it stay. Those are the only steps you need to take to make a butterfly book pb&j!

Princesses on the Avocado Dip Pirate Boat Snack

I originally got this idea from this recipe. It is posted on a list of 15 healthy snacks from Super Healthy Kids, a wonderful resource for recipes! I changed the recipe a bit, and expanded on the idea in a new way for my little girl so I decided to share it.

So, as you can see if you clicked on the link they were serving an avocado dip served in the halved avocado skin to look like a boat with a pirate flag stuck in and chips around it. I did this too, but made the pirate flag myself with black construction paper, white crayon, Sharpie, and scissors. Then I stuck it onto a bamboo skewer and put it into the dip. I also added Little People Disney princesses around it. The princesses were taking over the pirate ship!

My recipe for the avocado dip:
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 TBSP organic salsa
- 1/2 TSP freshly squeezed lemon juice, maybe a bit more depending

First you cut the avocado in half lengthwise and then you scoop all flesh out, and the pit of course. Reserve the half of the skin that you want to be your boat.

You put all the ingredients in a blender and blend them up until they are smooth. I had to do a bit of mashing of mine too because I didn't blend it too much since I wanted to leave some avocado bits in there too. Their recipe called for 1 TSP light sour cream. I opted not to use that as we try to be dairy free more often than not and I just didn't think it needed it. If I would have had some organic goat's milk yogurt I would have used that happily though, would have made it a bit creamier. But it was delicious just how it was.

Once it was ready I carefully spooned it into the better boat looking side of the avocado skin. Then I stuck the bamboo skewer pirate flag in and placed the chips around it. For the final touch I added the Little People Disney princesses.

My daughter absolutely loved this and devoured it!

Spring Bento Box

Since today was the first day of Spring I put together this Spring Bento Box for my daughter. 

To make it I used her laptop lunchbox, and my PopChef.

In the first section I have two flower shaped organic pb&j sandwiches, topped with sun shaped dutch goat cheese. I also added a heart shaped dutch goat cheese, all made with the PopChef. I folded up a paper towel and put it in that section to prop up the sandwiches a little bit so they could be seen better. Also because a paper towel is needed with lunch.

The second section has a special treat in it. Annie's Organic fruit snacks. They were perfect for the theme being shaped like bunnies.

The third section has Annie's Organic bunny shaped mac and cheese.

The fourth section has raspberries and halved green grapes.

Delicious and Healthy Breakfast for Kids

I know most parents are always looking for new ideas for healthy meals to feed their kids, especially breakfast since it's the most important meal of the day. Look no further than this post for a lovely breakfast idea for your toddler or preschooler. 

On the divided plate pictured above there is sliced organic strawberries, vanilla soy yogurt, and what I like to call Chocolaty Hemp Heart Banana Slices.

Here is my recipe for them:
- 1 organic banana, sliced
- Trader Joe's Cocoa Almond Spread
- Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods Hemp Hearts

Step 1:
Take a slice of banana, and use a butter knife to coat one side of it with the cocoa almond spread.

Step 2:
Pour some hemp hearts into a small bowl, and roll the coated side of the banana in them so they stick to the cocoa almond spread.

Healthy Toddler Breakfast

This is a lovely healthy breakfast idea for a one or two year old toddler. It has things from the grains group, fruit group, and calcium group. 

The grain is gluten free Arrowhead Mills Puffed Rice cereal. The fruits are organic strawberries, and organic blueberries. The calcium rich food is dairy free yogurt (trader joe's cultured coconut milk blueberry flavor).

Healthy Bento Lunch for Kids

Looking for a simple lunch to throw together in the bento box on your way out? Here's a quick idea!

Sandwich made with the square FunBites sandwich cutter. You could put anything you want in it, anything your kids like. I did peanut butter mixed with flax seeds and chia seeds, with some organic concord grape jam.

Then I put in a kiwi. Next spot had skewers of strawberries and honey goat cheese. Other spot had some organic baby carrots and beet hummus in the dip container. Since she didn't need any utensils in the utensil spot I added a Baby Mum Mum.

Healthy Valentine Snack

Don't these look delicious? 

When it's close to a holiday I like to make my daughter meals and snacks that get her excited for the coming up holiday. She loves eating skewers, and we usually do strawberries and honey goat cheese, but I did these strawberry and kiwis.

The heart skewers are what make them Valentine's adorable, and you can find them at Dollar Tree, along with some cute Valentine's cupcake liners.

Strawberry Chia Seed Pudding

Here's a super quick make ahead breakfast for even snack for your preschoolers lunch that you prepare the night before. It's super healthy and will give them (and you, I love this stuff) a natural energy boost. 

Ingredients:

- 1/4 cup chia seeds

- about 5 big organic strawberries, plus 2 more for adding in later

- 1 cup of almond milk

- 1 tbsp organic honey

Put the milk and 5 strawberries into a blender and blend it until the strawberries are all blended into the milk. Pour the strawberry milk into a bowl and then add in the honey and the chia seeds. Stir together, then plop in the dices of the other 2 strawberries. Cover and put in the refrigerator overnight. It will be a delicious pudding by morning. 

Spinach Muffins

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup pureed organic spinach
- 1 tsp all natural vanilla extract
 - 2 brown eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut or sunflower oil
- 1/2 cup of organic cinnamon applesauce
- 2 cups of white unbleached flour
- 3/4 cup raw sugar
- 2 tsps baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt

All you need to do is steam the spinach and puree it, then add the next 4 ingredients into the blender as well and keep pureeing until they're all mixed together. Meanwhile, put the remaining ingredients into a bowl and mix them together. Add the ingredients from the blender into the ingredients in the bowl and mix them together until they are just combined. Fill muffin tins with liners up 2/3 of the way full and bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

It's so fun and educational to have your kids help out in the kitchen as well. We did this as a preschool baking lesson.

Snowman Sandwich

With the cold weather and snow falling down I thought I'd make my daughter a super cute winter themed lunch. It was very simple to make and made her so happy! 

To make this you'll need:
- 4 slices of bread
- a sharp knife
- sandwich spread (I used three different spreads, one for each layer of the snowman. Peanut butter, sunflower seed butter, and chocolate almond spread).
- a carrot
- mini chocolate chips (I used gluten free, dairy free)

I just used the sharp knife to cut out two parts of the snowman with the first two pieces of bread. The other two pieces of bread for the bottom of the snowman. Using a sharp knife you can get some pretty good circles, but they're not perfect you have to take your time and be careful. Then spread the butters/spreads on each part of the snowman. Spread some on the outside for a scarf, then add the mini chocolate chips for a face and buttons, and a sliced piece of carrot for a carrot nose.

Healthy Candy Corn Parfaits

With all the candy and treats floating around the month of October, it's nice to have a healhty snack that is still tasty and Halloween themed! Look no further, than the Healthy Candy Corn Parfaits recipe below. 

    (I got those little serving tumblers in a pack from Party City)

Ingredients:
- Banana
- Butternut squash
- Organic maple syrup
- Dairy free vanilla yogurt, or plain if your kids like that. (Trader Joe's has cultured cocont milk, soy yogurt, and goat's milk yogurt.)

Step 1:
- Bake your butternut squash in the oven. There's some different ways to do this. I put the oven at 350 degrees, slice the butternut squash in half, scoop the seeds out, and then put both halves open side down in about an inch of water in a baking dish. Bake it for about an hour, until it's tender.

In the meantime, you can puree your bananas in the blender or food processor.

Step 2:
- Rinse out/wash the blender or food processor so you can also puree your butternut squash. Mix in some maple syrup to the butternut squash puree to give it some extra sweetness. You don't need to use a lot.

Step 3:
- Put the ingredients in the tumblers or whatever cups you have in candy corn order. Yogurt, butternut squash, then banana puree. Cover and refrigerate for a little while before serving.

Healthy Red Dinner

If you're doing colors of the week units or just looking for cute healthy ideas for dinner here's one that's all red themed! Kids will delight in seeing a favorite color on every part of their meal. 

In the first section there is one ravioli from the Lobster Ravioli sold at Trader Joe's. In the second section is a few strawberries sliced up. The third section has a piece of bread cut in the shape of a heart with roasted red pepper hummus spread on it. Very healthy with lots of different nutritious benefits in each section and it's adorable. Would look so cute in a bento box, which I can not wait to get!

Toddler Play Date Food

I'm going to share a little plate of food that is ideal for one year old toddlers to share together when having a play date. Could be a picnic play date specifically, or just for grazing if it's close to breakfast or lunch time.

So, here it is.

The first section is one of my famous toddler fruit salads.

Toddler Fruit Salad Ingredients:
- Sliced strawberries
- Quartered green grapes
- Sliced kiwis
- Wheat germ

Put all the cut up fruits together, and sprinkle with wheat germ.

The next option is dices of fresh avocado.

Last but not least, the protein portion is tofu. Just cold tofu cut into cubes for them to eat as finger foods.

Such yummy and HEALTHY options that are sure to delight the children and their parents.

Granola Stuffed Strawberries

Looking for a new breakfast for your toddler to mix things up a bit? Look no further! This is a new favorite around our house. A favorite of mine to make (it's fun and feels fancy), and a favorite of my daughters to gobble all up! It also makes me happy because she hates oatmeal, but will eat oats in the form of granola just fine. Nice filling breakfast to have before heading out on morning errands, activities, or whatever you've got planned for your child.

Ingredients for the Granola Stuffed Strawberries:
- Strawberries, prefferably organic (however many your child will eat)
- Granola (we use triple berry organic granola from Trader Joe's)

For the vegan dip:
- Cultured coconut milk yogurt
You can use any type of yogurt you want such as soy, almond, homemade, whatever. If you're not concerned with being dairy free cow's milk yogurts will work as well. The cultured coconut milk from Trader Joe's really does pair well with these though.

Step 1:
Wash the strawberries, then slice off the leafy tops.

Step 2:
Use a knife to poke a hole around the edge of the inner white part of the strawberry, then go all around it with your knife so you can pull out the white part without cutting the rest of the strawberry. You're just trying to get that part out of the middle so there's room to stuff them.

Step 3:
Use a small spoon (baby spoons work great) to stuff the strawberries with the granola. Try to get it in as deep as you can, it's okay if some overflows onto the tops of the strawberries.

Step 4:
Get it ready for presentation. I put my daughters inside of some heart silicone baking cups that would be perfect in a bento box. We haven't gotten ours yet though, so they're just placed on a paper plate. Add the yogurt of your choice onto the plate, bento box, or in a bowl.

Step 5:
Present and watch your child gobble it all up!

Making a Healthy Rainbow Pizza Together

My daughter loves helping out in the kitchen. We love making new, fun AND HEALTHY things together. This time we decided to try a rainbow pizza. I'd seen a few recipes, but ultimately created our own (and no we don't have a blue, indigo, violet on this pizza rainbow).

I think it's so important to allow kids the opportunities to work with you in the kitchen. They can learn so many skills they will need their whole lives like measuring, mixing, preparing, etc. For the rainbow pizza my daughter was actually able to be a lot of help. She sprinkled the flour on the pan, spread the pizza sauce on the crust, sprinkled the cheese, and added on the toppings.

This is what it turned out like once it was finished!

Healthy Rainbow Pizza with Kids:

Ingredients:
- Flat bread pizza crusts (we get the frozen kind from Trader Joe's) you could make your own, or even use another type of pizza crust I suppose. Flat bread is delicious though.
- Pizza sauce (make your own, or use one with minimal processing and ingredients, the more veggies in it the better!)
- Shredded cheese. (we're dairy free and we used a soy cheese mixture)
- Broccoli florets, chopped
- Yellow pepper, chopped
- Orange pepper, chopped
- Grape tomatoes, cut in half

For the temperature to bake it at and cooking instructions such as those you should refer to the instructions for your pizza dough.

Of course for the toppings you spread on the sauce, sprinkle on the cheese, then put the toppings on in a rainbow order. Don't forget to let your kiddo be involved as much as possible!

Healthy Dinner

Need some new ideas for healthy toddler or kid meals? I will be posting some!

This is a favorite meal for my kiddo. Both her and I feel good about her eating it and think it's very tasty!

This meal has a grain, protein, and fruits that have various health benefits.

- Cooked cous cous
- Fried tofu
- Sliced strawberries and kiwis fruit salad (with wheat germ, that I forgot to put on before taking the picture).

All of this is pretty simple to make. To fry the tofu I just cut extra firm tofu into strips or dices and then coat them in grapeseed oil before putting them in the pan. Then I just cook them until they are a bit firmer on both sides.

I bet your little one will gobble it all up!

Teddy Bear Picnic

So, as some of you may know, Teddy Bear Picnic Day was on July 10th. We did have ours that day, but we've been so busy I haven't gotten a chance to post about it. I'm going to do so now for ideas for next year, or a teddy bear picnic any day! My daughter liked it so much we'll definitely be doing it more than once a month.

Guests:
Invite your child's peers if you'd like (we did but they couldn't make it). What's important is that every child at the picnic has a teddy bear attending with them.

Food:
I made sandwiches of sunflower seed butter and honey in the shape of teddy bears. I also cut slices of dutch goat cheese in the shape of teddy bears. I gave some bears from a package of Full Circle Organic Animal Crackers. I also had out some frozen pineapples that were our bees. July 10th is also Bee Day.
We also had some gluten free pretzels and special cookies for a treat.

Set up:
I put out the Teddy Bear Picnic book on my daughters picnic table. The food was on picnic table printed paper plates, and there was also napkins of the same print. I found them both in the $1 section of Target and they really added to the picnic theme. Also had a drink of course. And my daughter brought her teddy bear of choice with her to eat.

We read the Teddy Bear Picnic book several times, as well as listened to the song. Our favorite version is on the Little People CD, but there is several on Youtube.

Banana Dessert Breakfast

Around here, we like to occasionally make breakfast a little bit like a dessert by adding a fun and unexpected treat to it. Here's my recipe for a Banana Dessert Breakfast that works well as the main entree or a side.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 a banana

- Almond butter

- Chocolate chunks

All you need to do to make this is take a banana and peel it, then slice it carefully down the middle longways. Once you've got your half of the banana ready you spread almond butter over it, as much as you'd like. Finally, you top it off by adding some chocolate chunks on top across the banana in a row.

Your little one will most likely delight at the sight of chocolate on their breakfast and gobble it all up!