Fun Halloween Fruit Parfait {with Tutorial}

There is only one day left before Halloween and with Halloween the season of treats and goodies will begin. Since I love yogurt and chocolate I thought combining the two to make a delicious fruit parfait could be fun!

  

Halloween Fruit Parfait:
~ makes four 8 oz desserts

• 4 cups of Orange Vanilla yogurt
• 1 pack of Italian lady fingers
• 8 oz of sweet fresh or frozen sliced peaches
• 8 oz of mini dark chocolate chips as is or melted.

How to make them:

First layer lady fingers into glass.

Add Orange Vanilla yogurt - about 2 tablespoons.

Add three sliced peaches.

Add either chocolate chips or melted chocolate. If using melted chocolate only spread a thin layer on the peaches.

Repeat until your glass is full and end with a layer of yogurt and chocolate chips.

Enjoy!

Best if refrigerated for at least one hour to let flavors combine.

My entire family loves this dessert so I decided to make some to give away as well.

 And of course some for my kids’ lunch boxes.

Happy Halloween!

This post was originally posted in 2012 as a guest post. Since it has been deleted from the original blog I am reposting it on my own blog today.

GF Nut-Free Cereal Bars

I am always searching for healthy afternoon snacks and fun things to pack in the kids' lunchboxes. Since cereal bars are one of their favorite snack right now I was trying to make a fun but healthy and nut-free (for school) version at home.

Searching through all the amazing recipes on Pinterest I decided that it should be an easy, no-bake, whip up quickly before school lets out cereal bar.

And without dried fruit since my kids simply won't eat them.

The end product was a gluten-free, nut-free, crunchy cereal bar with glaze (all cereal bars need a glaze in this house!).

Recipe adapted from Sun-Maid

Ingredients:

1/2 cup WOWBUTTER
1/2 cup honey
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups gluten free rice cereal
2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Whole Grain Rolled Oats (uncooked)
3/4 cup Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mini Chocolate Chips

Directions:

Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper.
Place WOWBUTTER, honey and brown sugar in large microwave-safe bowl.
Heat on high power for 2 minutes until bubbly and heated through. Remove bowl from microwave.
Add vanilla; stir until mixture is smooth.
Add cereal, oats and raisins. Gently stir WITHOUT CRUSHING cereal.
Press warm mixture very firmly into prepared pan. 

Melt two more tablespoons of WOWBUTTER in a small microwave-safe bowl for 30 sec.

Stir until liquid.

Fill carefully into a small Ziploc bag.

Pipe over cereal bars.
Cool at room temperature or refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Lift out of pan, cut into bars.
Store bars in plastic wrap or tightly covered container, at room temperature or in refrigerator.

Makes 16 bars 

(I doubled the recipe and had enough for a 13x9 dish plus a 6x6 (so we could eat some immediately and safe some for school)

French Toast Casserole Muffins

Packing lunches and making bentos every day leaves me with a lot of bread scraps every week. What to do with them? I save them in a big gallon size Ziploc bag in the freezer!

Is that really worth it? Yes! Yes it is because I love making French Toast Casserole {Recipe HERE}

But this time around I had so many bread scraps I had enough for a casserole and some. 

I had a whole large bowl worth of bread scraps. Enough for another dish. I decided to simply make muffins with the left overs with a few changes to my original casserole recipe.

French Toast Muffins with Cinnamon Sugar were the result!

A delicious way to re-purpose those bread left overs or a forgotten slightly stale loaf of bread in the back of your pantry!

Ingredients:

• 5 cups of left over bread (about one gallon sized Ziploc bag full) - cubed
• 4 beaten eggs
• 1 1/2 cups of milk
• 2 tablespoons home made vanilla sugar (or substitute sugar + 1/4 teaspoon more vanilla)
• 1/3 cup of pancake mix
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• cinnamon sugar to taste
• if desired butter for crispier muffins

Instructions:

• Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
• Rip or cut all bento bread scraps into same size small cubes.
• Spray muffin tin with oil or use aluminum or silicone muffin cups (paper muffin cups will get soggy!)
• In large bowl mix eggs, milk, 2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar, and vanilla together.
• Then add 1/3 cup of pancake mix and mix well until only a few lumps are left.
• Carefully add the liquid to the bread cubes and coat well ( I use my hands to make sure it is evenly coated).
• Let bread mixture sit for one minute.
• Spoon with a tablespoon into muffin cups. Fill about 3/4. DO NOT OVERFILL! They will rise!
• Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar to taste and add a small piece of butter on top if you like your french Toast muffins to be crispy on top (can be omitted).
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 - 20 minutes or until brown and crispy.
• I serve mine with applesauce or fruit (or even a drizzle or maple syrup).

ENJOY!

Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious Mix Review { +GIVEAWAY}

Happy Halloween!

We made some delicious Halloween treats with our Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious Mix . Mac-n-Mo's is a low sugar, no sodium, gluten free, vegan, no preservative, Kosher, Non-GMO Project Verified baked goods company. 

Mo created her Morselicious Mix and Morselicious Treats out of love, for her diabetic father, Mac, who survived a quadruple bypass surgery in 2010 and has to comply to a strict diet. Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious Mix is a completely natural mix of brown rice, almonds, unsweetened coconut, flax and spices. This mix can be used to create anything from delicious baked morsels, muffins, cakes, to cupcakes and casseroles. The possibilities are endless!

I wanted to create a treat my kids would love but that would still be healthier then the average Halloween treat. I love the idea of morsels since they are easy to eat, mess free and fun for young and old.

My Chocolate Banana Coconut Morsels were absolutely delicous and made for a great hostess gift as well!

Chocolate Banana Coconut Morsels

Ingredients:

1 bag of Morselicious Mix
7 TBS Water
1/2 cup of mashed banana
2 tsp honey
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp oil
1/2 - 3/4 cup of chocolate chips depending on your taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix well and form into small balls. Bake 15 - 20 min.

Would you love to win a bag of Morselicious Mix to create your own goodies and Mo’s “12 Days of MORSELICIOUSness” e-cookbook?

Enter here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Open to US Residents only. Winner will be notified via email and has 24 h to respond before a new winner will be drawn.

No Bake Oatmeal Cocoa Cookies

The other night we all wanted needed cookies after dinner and I was browsing the internet for a simple and quick cookie recipe when I found these delicious sounding Oatmeal Cookies from Quaker Oats. Simple ingredients. No baking and done in under 3 min. Yes! Yes! and Yes!
3 min later these were cooling by the window:

And they were delicious but too sweet for my taste. How could they not with 2 cups of sugar in the recipe. However, I did not want to give up on them since they were so simple, so good and had ingredients that I always have on hand. So I decided to make a healthier version and try and see how they would come out.

I cut the sugar in half and replaced the white sugar with light brown sugar and swapped out the butter with margarine. Well, and added a few things.

Look at these cookies. They were even better! My family - yes, including the kids - liked the new version better since it tasted more like cocoa and we all agreed the first cookies were just too sweet.

So here is the new and improved recipe:

No Bake Oatmeal Cocoa Cookies:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 stick of margarine
• 1/2 cup of 1% milk
• 1/3 cup of cocoa
• 3 cups of quick oats
• 1/2 cup of mini dark chocolate chips, divided
• 1/2 cup of slivered almonds

Lay out parchment or wax paper for cookies to cool on.

Add brown sugar, margarine, milk, and cocoa to a medium sized pot and bring to a boil. Continue to boil for 3 min under constant stirring. Remove pot from heat and add quick oats, slivered almonds and 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips to the pot and vigorously stir until all ingredients are well combined.

Immediately, using a teaspoon, spoon mixture onto parchment paper - just like cookie dough. Top cookies with a few mini chocolate chips each and enjoy. 

Day 2: Egg Sandwiches & Switch It Up Sandwich Link Up

Happy Monday!

Today is Day 2 of our "No peanut butter challenge" and today's lunch is inspired by our elf Christopher. He came December 1st from the North Pole to finally be able to see the kids he has been making toys for all year. He loves hiding over night and my kids love looking for him in the morning. Christopher has gotten into the snack cabinet already twice and so I thought it would be fitting to make an elf lunch today :)

Here he is this morning with some snatched yogurt raisins...

But back to lunch:

Today's lunch is apples, veggie sticks and elf egg sandwiches packed in our EasyLunchboxes. I added a small mini bottle of ketchup so everyone can add it if they'd like. We also packed drinkable yogurt and ice water and Christopher snuck a chocolate snowman into everyone's lunch ;)

{Recipe}

4 large eggs

1 Tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon of cooking oil

{Instructions}

First, I scrambled the 4 large eggs with 1 tablespoon milk in a small bowl. Meanwhile I heated a small amount of oil in a medium size pan. Once the pan was hot, I added the egg and turned the heat to low. I cooked the egg until the egg was set, turned it over once and made sure it was cooked properly. I then let it cool on a cutting board and used a cookie cutter to cut the egg in shape.

While the egg was cooling I used the same cookie cutter and cut two elf sandwiches for each child. Two plain bottoms and two tops with the embossed elf. Pictured are only 3 sets of bread but I had enough for 5 sets of elf sandwiches and my daughter and I had the other ones for breakfast.

Then I layered the sandwich. Here I added a piece of egg and a piece of ham, also cut in shape with the cutter.

How cute are these?

My kids were so excited for lunch today!

I also found this cute and very matching Lunchbox Love note from their Christmas Volume to complete today's lunch :)

And now it is your turn!

What did you pack for lunch today or in the past that is different from the 

"Peanut butter, Nut Butter, Nuttella, Jam" sandwich? 

I would love to see it!

You can link up all week!

Please don't link up more then 2 lunches per day!

Be nice and visit some of the other links :)

and Have Fun!

Pumpkin Waffles for Lunch

We returned yesterday from visiting family and after a long trip in the car we needed a quick dinner and an easy lunch box idea for the next day. I remembered that MOMables.com had a Pumpkin Pancake recipe but when I checked my pantry I did not have all the ingredients. So I improvised ;) Find the recipe below!

 But first, today's lunch:

I packed left over Pumpkin Belgian Waffles lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar, a small containers of cashews and a fruit&veggie fruit snack and grapes. I also packed a drinkable yogurt and ice water.

Ready for a quick and easy Pumpkin Recipe?

{Recipe}

feeds 6 hungry people

1 box of Belgian Waffle Mix 

1 can of organic pumpkin puree

1 TBS vanilla sugar or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

a pinch of nutmeg

I mixed the Belgian Waffle Mix according to instructions.

I then added the pumpkin puree and mixed it well.

Lastly I added the vanilla sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Enjoy with powdered sugar.

TIP:

I always make one mini waffle first to test and see if I need more cinnamon or vanilla :)

And if you don't know about MOMables.com yet, please check them out and get a free week of menus!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

If you still need a quick and easy lunch idea for your kids why not try to make a pizza pocket Turkey! I made those for my kids and they loved choosing their own filling. Also a great idea for Thanksgiving left overs! Just fill with turkey, cranberries and stuffing, yum!

I packed our EasyLunchboxes with apples slices and grapes for lunch and made pizza pocket turkeys. I followed my earlier tutorial but instead of rectangular pockets I used a circle cookie cutter and made 8 large circles. I filled one circle with the desired toppings (1 tablespoon pizza sauce, turkey pepperoni and cheese for example) and pressed the second circle gently on top and used a fork to seal the two together. I used two cans of dough for five large pizza pockets and five turkey neck breadsticks and still had some left overs for a few mini breadsticks.

They needed about 15 min at 350 degrees to bake. 

In the meantime I cut eyes and wattles out of pepperoni and then stuck them to the hot breadsticks.

Did you like this lunch? Then please visit BentoforKidlet for another cute turkey pocket lunch idea:

Happy Thanksgiving!

{Linking up here:}

Things I used to make this lunch (may contains affiliate links):

Fast and Easy Mini Pizza Pockets

Today was another dreary and rainy fall day and since I was up early I decided to pack something hearty for lunch. I still had a tube of Pillsbury recipe creations and decided pizza pockets would be fast and fun!

I unrolled the dough and cut it in 8 rectangles. I then added a small amount of pizza sauce (a staple in our house) and some mini turkey pepperoni to the dough. I topped it with cheese, folded them over and used a fork to press the dough closed.

Very easy and fast and you can fill these pockets with anything you have in the fridge - ham and cheese for example.

I put them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. The house smelled so good when they were done and the kids were excited that they got to bring a special lunch today.

Doesn't this look good? Since we had a three day weekend I was a little short on fresh food and packed freshly popped popcorn, apple sauce, the mini pizza pockets and an organic Jammy Sammy. Since my youngest son lost his first tooth yesterday I also added a small sweet treat:

 a Choco Hail Merry Macaroon! They are so so good and raw, gluten-free and vegan!

If you have not tried them before you should. So good and good for you ;)

I added a cute tooth pick since we celebrate all lost teeth.

Update: The Pillsbury Recipe Creations contains food dye. I did not see this until after I posted. I have looked and found several dye free alternatives including Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Crust with Whole Grain. If your child needs to eat food dye free - please substitute!