Carrot and oat muffins

I found this one on Kidspot.com, an Australian website that's a bit of a favorite at the moment. Even though it's Australian...

I particularly like the look of this one because it's got no refined sugar in it - the sweetening is done by  unsweetened (!) apple sauce, which you can make yourself, if you like.

3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce (see below for how to make this)
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup grated carrots
1 cup wholemeal flour (Nuttiwheat?) (or half plain flour, half wholemeal)
1 cup rolled outs
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp bicarb
1/4 tsp cinnamon (or more, you can never have too much cinnamon!)
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Mix the dry ingredients together
Mix the wet ingredients together
Mix the two mixes together - don't over mix, apparently the batter should be a bit lumpy.
Spoon the mixture into a greased muffin pan, and bake for around 20 minutes at 180 degrees, or until tops turn golden.

I reckon some raisins, sultanas, or craisins would feel right at home in these muffins - possibly even some pineapple chunks?

If you want to make your own apple sauce, core and cube a few apples, add a cup of water, a slice of lemon (with its skin on), bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add more water if you need to, and when the apple is soft, remove the lemon slice and puree. You could do this the slow way with a sieve, or the quick way with a stick blender :-)

These guys are apparently great for freezing, and have the double bonus of being sugar-free, and of sneaking fruit AND vegetables into that lunchbox...

Fruit kebabs ftw...

A mail from the lovely Pick n Pay landed in my inbox this morning, all about 'getting kids to eat their greens'. I'm lucky enough to have boys who love broccoli and carrots, and one who loves salad (please don't throw things at me), but I get that there are parents out there who struggle to get the good stuff into their kids.

The Pick n Pay mailer suggested fruit kebabs as a way to get kids to eat more fruit - there's a bit of a mission in preparing them, but you could do a few days' worth at a time and keep them in a plastic container in the fridge - use them for lunch boxes or afternoon snacks at home.

These are some of the fruits the mailer suggested:
Different melons - either buy what's in season, or refer to your friend Woolies for the prepared versions
Strawberries
Pineapple pieces
Red and green grapes, for variety
You could even include a piece of feta or two - I'm always amazed at how well that works with watermelon.

If you're worried about sending pointy sticks to school, how about using discarded chopsticks from Chinese takeaways? If they're too long for your lunchbox, snap the ends (where they were joined) off, and push the fruit on from the not-so-sharp end of the chopstick. This way, you get bonus points for re-using/recycling too.

Well, well, well Weetbix

I came across this bit of inspiration on Australia's Kidspot.com, and was quite blown away - we crush tennis biscuits, cream crackers, chockits and nuttikrusts to bake with - but I'd never thought of crushing Weetbix. This recipe looks like a winner for adding a bit of healthy fibre and dried fruit to a lunchbox, as a 'dessert'. It's probably not the healthiest overall - there's a fair amount of sugar in it, but I reckon it at least ticks the 'interesting' box.

120g melted butter
1 1/2 cups of crushed Weetbix
1 1/2 cups of self raising flour
1/c cup of caster sugar
1 cup of sultanas
2 tbsp of lemon juice
1 1/2 cups of icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Mix the crushed Weetbix, flour, sugar and sultanas.
Pour the melted butter over these, and mix well.
Line a baking tin with baking paper, and pour the mixture in. Press it down firmly, so that the mixture comes together nicely.
Bake for around 15 minutes.
While the mix is in the oven, mix the icing sugar and enough lemon juice to make a runny icing. Once the slice comes out of the oven and has cooled a bit, let your kids drizzle the icing over. Cut it into bar shapes, wrap them individually in wax paper, and freeze for up to three months.

You could ring the changes with this one by using craisins instead of sultanas, or a mix of dried fruit. You could also grate in some orange or lemon zest for a citrusy zing, and possibly even some peanut butter if your'e so inclined?

I've not made this one yet, but it's top of the list for a baking session before the school holidays are over.

Cheese and bacon rolls

One of my favorite meals at the tuckshop in high school was bacon rolls - they were hot dog rolls, with bits of bacon cooked in mango atchar, topped with cheese. These look like they come close to this - and like they're both delicious and freezable. I found them on a couple of Australian websites - Big Oven and Kidspot.com.

Dough:
2 1/2 cups of self raising flour
2 cups of plain yoghurt

Mix them together, and knead for about 5 minutes until properly mixed. If the dough seems too gooey, add a bit of flour.

Then:
Roll out the dough into a rectangle.
Cook a pack of bacon bits until they're crispy, and spread out evenly over the dough.
Sprinkle as much grated cheese as is decent (because you can never have too much cheese) over the bacon - one of the recipes suggests three cups of mozzarella. I reckon a mix of mozzarella and cheddar, or even emmenthaler, would work.
Start rolling the dough rectangle up, from the long side.
When you're done, cut 2cm pieces off, and lay them out on a greased baking tray.
Bake them at 180 degrees for around 20 minutes, until they're looking and smelling fabulous.

You could also spread cheese and Marmite on the dough before baking. or tomato paste and cheese, or olive tapenade and parmesan for a more grown up snack. Or do a half-and-half of different fillings, so that you get double the variety for half the effort... The options are endless, I reckon.

This looks like a recipe that could be frozen for a week or two, so make a batch on a Sunday, and send the first samples to school on Monday. Freeze the rest separately, and haul them out as you're ready to ring the changes.

I made these for supper the other night, and served them with a salad. The recipe makes around 14 rolls, and my boys were thrilled at the thought of having them in their lunch boxes!

(I edited this post on 7 Jan 2013, after I made the rolls for the first time) 

In the beginning, there was an empty lunchbox...

and the mother stared at it in fear and trepidation.

Until the school lunchbox pushed its way into the morning routine, the mother had no idea that something so small and simple, so plastic and plain, could cause fear to grip her heart daily, adding to the never-ending cycle of parental pressure already in place.

As if there wasn't enough maternal guilt already in the picture, now she would have to make sure that every day her darling had a nutritious, healthy, colorful, multi textured, multi vitamined masterpiece to open each day at break time. Would her lunchbox masterpieces stand up to the scrutiny of the seriously snippy teacher? Would they withstand the scorn of the other mothers - the stay at home moms with hours to spend on preparing winsome masterpieces each day, while she was dashing around from appointment to appointment, from shop to shop, and managing her daily juggling act?

And most importantly, would she be able to stand the rejection, the outright dismay, if her darling brought the lovingly created, beautifully crafted, perfectly packed lunch home... untouched?

Dear readers, I'd like you to consider this blog an online recipe book for moms who are desperate to do something creative for their children's lunch boxes, without cookiecuttered sandwiches, love letters or carved cucumbers.

I faithfully promise never to ask you to use a cookie cutter on a sandwich, or to cut heart shaped bits of watermelon. I also promise never to suggest you send soup to school with your child, or that you are a bad mother for, on occasion, resorting to a peanut butter sandwich. Because a change is as good as a holiday, even if it is an easy one.

I'll let you know if and when I've tried a recipe, but for the most part, I'm going to make this a collection of cool lunch box stuff I find out there on the Internet - the kind of stuff that I know I'd be able to make and freeze to haul out in the morning, the kind of stuff I reckon my boys would love to eat. If you've got anything that you'd like to add, please feel free to comment - I'd love to hear from you. Mostly about the lunches that your kids love - but anything else that you've got to add too.

Bon appétit!