Healthy

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What to do with half a banana

Think back to the last time your children asked for a banana, but then only ate half.

What did you do with the uneaten banana halves?

You could eat them yourself of course, except that you just ate a full banana, and you don’t really fancy two more half bananas right now.You’re trying very hard to not be a human garbage bin.

You could put the banana halves in the fridge, except this will make them brown and slimy, and you know from past experience that they’ll end up being thrown out a few hours later. You hate to waste food like that!

So, what do you do? Here’s a couple of ideas that have worked for us…

 

Banana Iceblocks

Easiest Homemade Iceblocks Ever...

Stick craft stick / popsicle stick in the bottom of the bananas, put them in the freezer, and wait. Voila! You’ve made banana ice blocks! Perfect for a hot summer’s day. Both my kids (and their cousins) love them!

Banana iceblocks

 

Coconut banana bites

Add desiccated coconut to a container. Chop up the banana into bite size pieces.

banana and shredded coconut

Add the banana to the container and shake until it’s all covered with the coconut. Then pop in the refrigerator to enjoy later.

Cover pieces of banana in dessicated coconut and refridgerate for a tasty snack

Somehow, the coconut stops the banana from feeling gross and slimy. It’s quite a tasty treat!

 

Wholemeal Banana Pancakes

This is our favourite. I pop peeled bananas in the freezer to make wholemeal banana pancakes later.

wholemeal banana pancakes

I use this simple recipe, except nowadays I always make a double batch as my kids’ appetites have grown over the years. This usually means leftovers, which is great as they are perfect to add to their school lunch boxes the next day.

What to do with half a banana Three easy, healthy and delicious ideas

 

OK, now it’s your turn. How do you use up your banana halves? Share in the comments!

 

We have more yummy and healthy(ish) ideas on our Food for Kids page, including:

You might also like our Fun & Healthy Food for Kids board on Pinterest.

 

xx Danya

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Cheese Monsters - healthy party food

We made these cute little Cheese Monsters for my nephew’s 5th birthday party. Healthy party food ftw!

A sharp knife (a filleting knife is perfect), a few googly eyes in different sizes, some non-toxic kids PVA glue, a tiny bit of wool for hair and a couple of packets of mini Babybel cheeses all come together to make a plate of monsterlicious treats. Continue reading Cheese Monsters

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Fruit mummies! A fun and healthy snack for Halloween (or a Spooky Sixth birthday party).

Mummified fruit for a healthy Halloween snack
Oops, I’m a bit behind in bringing you details of my daughter JJ’s 6th birthday party. She chose a “Spooky, Scary, Sixth Birthday” party theme, which is a little unusual for a May party, but who says you can’t have Halloween twice a year? Fun!

One of the items we served was this bowl of cute Fruit Mummies.

They were quite easy to make (see below). I especially loved that they could be made a few days ahead of the party, so it doesn’t add to the last minute prep panic. In fact, these photos were taken calmly a few days before the party, (so I didn’t have to worry about trying to grab a last minute shot while the party guests were arriving!)

I also love that our fruit mummies provide a healthy snack option that everyone could eat, including party guests with various food allergies. (We had friends coming who were allergic to eggs, dairy, nuts, gluten, food colouring, deadly nightshades and more…)

And afterwards, anything that wasn’t eaten wasn’t wasted. We just put the left over mummified fruit into our regular fruit bowl to eat the next day.

Fruit Bowl Mummies - healthy Halloween snacks for kids
 

How to make fruit mummies

  • Fruit
  • White streamers
  • Googly eyes
  • Non-toxic, clear-drying glue
  • Sticky tape
  • Scissors

 

Cut the steamers into strips about 40cm (15in) long. Our streamers were quite wide, so I also our strips in half lengthwise, which doubled the number of strips.

Wrap a strip around a piece of fruit, securing with stickytape. Glue a pair of googly eyes on to the opposite side as the tape.

Tip: If you are using fruit where the skin will be removed (like a banana or mandarin), then you can also glue the googly eyes to the skin of the fruit, so that it looks like the eyes are peeping out through the bandages.

Tip 2: You don’t have to use the same sized googly eyes. Mismatched googly eyes can add to the spooky look.

JJ helped me make a couple. I made the rest, simply because we had a party worth to do! But they are easy enough that preschoolers and up could make them (especially if you use fruit like bananas, mandarins or oranges where it doesn’t matter if a tiny bit of glue gets onto the skin.)

I’ll be bringing you more ideas from JJ’s birthday party shortly, but in the meantime, you might also like the Spooky Oranges that we made a few years ago. Or you can check out our Halloween page for more ghoulish ideas.

I’ve also added our Halloween pinterest board below for more inspiration…

xx Danya

Fruit Mummies - healthy Halloween snack for kids

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Tips to encourage healthy eating habits for kids

A friend of mine asked my opinions on healthy eating for kids, and I jotted down these ideas for her. It’s quite a list apparently!

These are roughly in priority order (high fibre, low sugar and no artificial colours is a huge factor in deciding what goes on our weekly grocery shopping list). We try to use this list as a general guideline for our daily eating habits, but we do make exceptions for birthdays etc.

Have a look through below and see what parts you agree with.

Tips for encouraging healthy eating for kids

(Related: see all our Food for Kids posts here)

Continue reading Healthy Eating Tips for Kids

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2

We’re usually an eat-the-whole-fruit type household, but recently Bee had been asking about juice, and how it is made. We had some regular and blood oranges in our fruit bowl, so we made some freshly squeezed orange juice for a little afternoon fun in the kitchen.

Life Skills Squeezing Regular and Blood Orange Juice

Bee, who had just turned three, is fiercely independent. She loved taking charge of the juicing process, almost as much as she enjoyed drinking the juice afterwards. She’d squeeze a little bit, and then pour and drink it, and then squeeze some more.

Making orange juice

Drinking the fruits of your labour

We also added some of the orange pulp back into our drink – it’s tasty and high in fibre!

Enjoying the orange pith - waste not, want not

Then we tried the blood oranges. They’re in season for such a short time, we always grab some whenever we can.

Three year old squeezing fresh blood orange juice

Comparing regular orange and blood orange juice

It was fun to directly compare the size, colour, texture and flavour of the two types of oranges, side by side. Such striking colour!

We’re all about trying a wide variety of delicious food in our house. We have a little rule about new foods or “foods that the kids are still learning to like” – they don’t have to like it, and don’t have to finish it, but they do have to taste it, every single time it is served. Otherwise, how will they know if their tastebuds have learned to like it yet? (This rule has really helped the kids to “learn” how to like lots of veggies that they initially rejected. That, and serving as a starter before their main meal, when their appetite is at its best!)

So, whilst Bee initially baulked at actually drinking the blood orange juice, she did give it a try, and discovered that the actually rather liked it! Not as much as the regular orange juice, mind you, but enough that she went back for a second and third sip. Win!

Once Bee was finished with her orange juicing fun, I went back and rejuiced them, extracting a lot more juice that I got to drink afterwards. Double win!

Don’t throw the orange peel away afterwards – did you know you can use it to make an orange skin bird feeder to encourage some wild birds into your backyard?

And, here are some of our other fresh fruit ideas:

 

xx Danya

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Rainy day healthy snack for kids

Here’s a fun ‘rainy day’ healthy snack idea that little kids can help make (Bee was a 2.5 year old toddler here), using blueberries for storm clouds, cheese for rain and a multigrain wrap for the umbrella.

You can sing along to some wet weather nursery rhymes while you munch. Here are a few of our favourites:

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring
He went to bed with a bump on his head
And couldn’t wake up in the morning.

Continue reading Rainy Day Healthy Snack for Kids

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Healthy snacks for kids: fun cheese flower snack plate that children can help make. Perfect for Spring!

toddler-made cheese snacks
My northern hemisphere friends may be knee deep in ‘fall’ leaves right now, but in Australia, it’s the middle of spring. Flowers are blooming everywhere, including on our snack plates!

Toddlers can help cut multigrain wrap flower shapes

This post contains affiliate* links.

 

To make a healthy cheese flower snack like ours, you need

  • multi-grain or sourdough wrap
  • cheese slice
  • blueberries
  • cucumber
  • flower cookie cutters in graduating sizes
  • knife
  • chopping board

Continue reading Cheese Flowers ~ a healthy snack that kids can help make!

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Healthy Nursery Rhyme Snack - Cheese Humpty DumptyI’m having so much fun coming up with healthy snacks for the kids. It’s slightly addictive! Remember the Incy Wincy Spider cheese snack we made a few weeks ago? Well, I *may* have been coerced by tiny little people into making about a dozen versions of this since then. So I figured it’s high time we added a new nursery rhyme character to our repertoire. This time, it’s Humpty Dumpty!

Sing along if you know how the nursery rhyme goes….

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
couldn’t put Humpty together again.

 Healthy Cheese Humpty Dumpty Snack

To make our healthy Humpty Dumpty snack, we used:

Continue reading Humpty Dumpty Healthy Snack for Kids

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