If you’re like many mums, me included, you probably worry about how to get more variety into your children’s lunch boxes. I recently shared my 3 Top Tips for Achieving Lunch Box Variety, and about how to Cook Once, Make 3 Lunches. So here, I want to share another one of my tips for achieving lunch box variety.
I call it using the same ingredients multiple ways. Here’s how I turn 1 lot of ingredients into 7 lunch box snacks.
That’s a whole lot of lunch box recipes from one lot of ingredients. All these snacks are awesome because they can be frozen and taken out of the freezer and popped straight into the lunch box. By recess or lunch, they will be defrosted and ready to be gobbled.
I stumbled upon this set of ingredients because I am running a Rainbow of Foods class for a pre-school where they have no cooking facilities. As part of my class, I usually get the kids involved in making a cookie or something for their afternoon tea. Having no cooking facilities got me hunting for a no bake cookie. During my search, I stumbled across this recipe for Healthy No Bake Muesli Bar by Wellnourished. I thought I would make this (without the sesame seeds). Rather than make it into a slice, I would get the pre-school kids to roll their own fun balls so it would be a much more tactile experience for them.
When testing the recipe, 3 things became clear. 1) the butter needed to be melted and I wasn’t going to have access to cooking facilities, 2) even if I did, getting kids to roll this mixture with warm melted butter and syrup was not going to work and 3) there was a little too much butter in this recipe for rolling it into balls. I mulled this dilemma over for a while, then wondered what would happen if I didn’t melt the butter but cream it like you do with some biscuit or cake recipes. I reduced the butter, added in some vanilla and then threw in some raisins at the end. It worked! Alas, here is the one set of ingredients and a method for using them to make 7 different healthy snacks. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup pepitas – chopped
- 1/2 sunflower seeds – chopped
- 1 cup dessicated coconut
- 1 cup rolled oats (not quick oats)
- 1 tblspn Chia Seeds
- 1 tspn cinnamon
- 1/2 cup raisins – chopped
- 110 grams of soft butter
- 1/2 cup brown rice syrup*
- 1 tspn vanilla extract
* if you’re family is already on a Sugar Free path, you can reduce the quantity of brown rice syrup.
7 Heathy Snacks
- No Cook (at all) Muesli Fun Balls
- No Cook (at all) Muesli Slice
- Muesli Biscuits
- Toasted Muesli No Cook Fun Balls
- Toasted Muesli No Cook Slice
- Toasted Muesli Biscuits
- Toasted Muesli (use as breakfast or topping for yoghurt)
Method to Make These 7
All these are seriously dead simple to make. Makes about 30 pieces.
- Cream the butter, brown rice syrup and the vanilla.
- Decide the amount of time and energy you have. If you have some time and energy, then I’d recommend you toast the ‘muesli’ (see method for this below) because it gives it a richer flavour. If you are time poor or feeling zapped, then just use the raw ingredients.
- Put all dry ingredients (toasted or raw) in a large bowl, and then stir in the creamed butter, syrup and vanilla. Mix really well. (I am going to get the kids to do this with their hands to make it more fun).
- Decide how you want to present these in the lunch box – balls, slice or biscuits.
For balls, simply take a rounded teaspoon of the mixture and role it into a ball.
For the slice, put the mixture into a lined lamington slice tray, freeze for 15-20 minutes, then remove and slice into the size of slices you wish.
For making the biscuits, follow the ball procedure then place on a lined tray and squash down to form a biscuit – cook biscuit in pre-heat 160 degree oven for 6-8 minutes. Lift baking paper out of the tray and allow biscuits to cool on baking paper on a wire rack.
You could even turn the slice into a baked muesli slice if you wanted (bonus 8th recipe – score!!!).
And if you really wanted to turn it up a notch, you could create another 6 recipes by changing step 1 in the method to melt butter, brown rice syrup and vanilla over low heat. This gives it a whole different colour and flavour believe it or not. Maybe I should have called this post, 1 Lot of Ingredients, 14 healthy snacks!
Dead simple yes! Go forth, make lots of variety. They will last in the freezer for a month or 2.
Method for Toasted Muesli
- Put all ingredients up to and including the cinnamon on a big lined baking tray
- Mix around well (hands or spoon – your preference)
- Cook in pre-heated 180 degree oven for 10 minutes. Use egg slide to pick up and turn over
- Cook for another 5 minutes
- Take out and leave to stand and cool
- When cool, stir through the chopped raisins
If you want to use this as a topping for yoghurt or even as a breakfast cereal, then melt the butter and rice malt syrup and stir through the ingredients before starting step 1.
If you are interested in learning more about my Rainbow of Food Class for your pre-school or Day Care Centre or my Mad Food Science Class for you school, please contact me for an information guide and a chat (belinda@therootcause.com.au or 0401 649 289).