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We’re all familiar with the frustration of trying to get our kids to eat healthy food. It can sometimes seem like no amount of nagging and threatening will succeed in getting them to eat that broccoli. It’s the perennial agony that we dread every day. However, help is at hand! With a pinch of creativity and a dash of ingenuity, you can create exciting, nutritious foods your kids will devour with gusto. So whip out your apron, get your cookware at the ready and try some of these unique ideas. Your biggest problem could be quarreling over who gets to lick the cooking utensil afterward!
Make Muffins in the Air Fryer!
If you’ve jumped on the bandwagon for the recent air fryer craze, then you’re probably enjoying delicious, fat-free french fries and the like. What you probably don’t realize is how many different things you can cook in there. Even muffins! Yep, that’s a crazy idea until you discover your chip air fryer is a mini thermo-fan cooker that uses less energy because it is smaller than an oven. Nothing could be easier to make than a muffin mix. You just have to add a few household ingredients to the ready mix powder you can buy in almost any food store.
When you get more inventive you can make a basic muffin mix with baking powder, flour, egg, milk, oil, salt and sweetener of choice. There’s almost no end of yummy ingredients you can add to these delicious and healthy treats. That’s where the kids’ fun really begins.
Prepare Instant Peanut Butter in 5 Minutes
Have a competition to see how many peanuts the kids can shell in 10 seconds. Then run them through the food processor for four minutes until they become a creamy liquid. TIP: Take 10% out when they are still small chips if you like your peanut butter crunchy. To make the most divine peanut butter ever, add honey to taste and a sprinkle of salt. This is the peanut butter they eat in heaven.
IMPORTANT: Check with parents about nut allergies before allowing friends to join in the fun.
Chill Out With Frozen Yoghurt Grapes
This simple, yet ingenious idea will become a perennial favorite. Remove the grape stems and discard imperfect fruit into a convenient kid’s mouth. Now, rinse the grapes, stick toothpicks partly in them, and freeze them on a non-stick baking sheet. After a couple of hours take them out the freezer and dip them in yogurt – any yogurt will do.
Add any sprinkle coating the kids fancy. Some of those peanut chips mentioned above could prove a great hit. Pop these delicious and healthy treats back into the freezer to ice the yogurt. We kid you not! You will soon be making the next batch of frozen yogurt grapes!
Make Scrummy Avocado Ice Cream Cones
Make up a batch of salsa by simmering up chopped fresh tomatoes, a small onion, a few mild chilies, some fresh coriander, lime juice, and a little water. When the flavors are well blended, remove from the heat, allow to cook, then chill in the fridge. Next, split some ripe avocados, remove the pits and add the delicious contents to the salsa.
Whip this up a little before putting the mix back into the ice cream cones. Serve with whole-wheat biscuit ‘spoons’, and watch those little faces light up. Include paper serviettes on the side for sticky fingers and faces.
These moreish snacks are not only delicious and healthy treats for kids. Their simple, fun preparation can help prepare them for a lifetime love of cooking.
