Kellogg's Asks- Are You Heart Healthy?

Last year was not my best year as far as healthy living is concerned but this year I have been giving a lot of thought to leading a healthier lifestyle and have taken steps to improve my own diet and exercise regime. Together with my family, we have been trying to eat more healthy food an lead more active lives.

Later this week we are going to share a very exciting campaign from Kellogg's, the Kellogg’s Breakfast for Better Days™ Campaign (which is an amazing initiative aimed at keeping school children who are not all fortunate enough to start their days with any sort of breakfast well nourished so that they can learn effectively but more about that later). In the meantime, here are some tips that they have shared about being heart healthy.

 

February was the month of love, but looking after the heart is an all year long thing. Are we looking after the heart that really matters? Here are their top tips for a healthy heart:

Start your day right- take the time to  eat breakfast in the morning as skipping breakfast can often lead to overindulgence on unhealthy, convenience foods that may be high in saturated fats, putting you at risk for coronary heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Keeping Things Moving-  the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 25mg a day offibre intake per adult. Diets rich in fibre can help to lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure and protect against strokes and diabetes. The Kellogg’s All-Bran range is high in natural wheat bran fibre provides up to 43% of your recommended fiber intake.

Keep Active- Physical activity can dramatically reduce your risk of developing heart disease and can also be a great tool to combat stress.

Set Goals- Slowly change your daily habits and set small goals like taking the stairs over the lift or cutting down on your weekly sugary treats.

Amazing Healthy Chocolate with Just Three Ingredients

Have you ever had an intense chocolate craving but no chocolate in site? I am a chocoholic of epidemic proportions and for moments like these, I have come across the most amazing, super easy recipe for chocolate, with just three ingredients. Usually, this would spell disaster, but fortunately this recipe is actually a fairly healthy one.

The three magic ingredients are:

1. COCONUT OIL

I never knew how good this  stuff was until after my son was born, when I discovered its multiple uses as an anti-fungal, antibacterial for everything from nappy rash to thrush in babies. (My son had thrush when he was a few weeks old and the stuff prescribed by the paed did little to help but the coconut oil cleared it quickly). It turns out that eating coconut oil has all sorts of health benefits, from aiding cholesterol to appetite control. Use organic, cold-pressed virgin coconut oil for best results.

2. CACAO (OR JUST REGULAR COCOA POWDER)

Rich in antioxidants, this stuff is actually good for you. If you do not have cacao, use the best quality you can find as this will affect the taste of the final product. I like the Cadbury Bourneville or Nomu variants.

3. HONEY

 We all know how good honey is for you (in moderation of course).

HOW TO MAKE IT:

Melt the coconut oil on low heat until liquid and then immediately remove from heat. It melts very quickly so a few seconds should do it. (In summer it should be liquid already so I would imagine this step can be skipped). 

Mix equal amounts of the coconut oil, cocoa and honey until well combined (okay that is what my sources told me but I found this a bit sweet so I will half the amount of honey next time). I have not inserted quantities because you can do as much or as little as you want- it is fast so you can even do a teaspoon of each for a quick snack.

Shape as desired. You could mould the chocolate in silicone moulds, mini cupcake cups, ice trays or however else you wish.

You can get fancy and sprinkle with nuts, dessicated coconut or anything else that tickles your fancy.

Here is mine before setting (with a bit of fine almond chunks added). It was a bit gloopy and messy in the cupcake holders and a bit trickled along the side.

Stick in the freezer to set for an hour and voila... decadent dark chocolate, with a bit of an exotic coconut-y taste.

While I am the type who could (I am embarrassed to say) scoff down an entire slab of chocolate if I did not control my urges, this recipe is super rich, so I found myself eating just a tiny little bit before being satiated. My kids loved it too (I did not tell them it is healthy chocolate).

Inside Jozi Wahm's Kitchen- Easy Kiddies Fun Food

I am always looking for creative ways to get my kids to eat healthy foods. This sometimes needs a bit of creativity. For previous ideas see Margy Vally from the Olive Branch Cookery School's enticing recipes see here. 

Today I am going to share a couple of the quick, easy staple favourites in our household:

Smiley Sandwiches

While regular sandwiches covered in salad bits tend to get wasted, these smiley sandwiches get gobbled up every time. These are very simple to make. 

I take a roll (when I do these smileys,the kids do not notice if I sneak in wholewheat seeded rolls) and cut them in half. Then I spread with a layer of cottage cheese (or a cheese spread, as used in the above picture).

Next, we arrange the various salad bits to make a face, depending on what we have available (eg. lettuce hair, pepper nose, tomato mouth, cucumber eyes etc, there are dozens of variations). Noodle wanted freckles on the ones in the picture, so we sprinkled with poppyseeds.

You can use regular bread to make 'Minions' (cover bread with a piece of pre-sliced cheese and cut cold meat or cucumbers for the eyes and mouth. Alternatively, flower or butterfly shapes on the bread have also proven popular.

Crunchy Munchy Muesli

This is a quick and easy breakfast idea. I take plain yoghurt (our family loves the Lancewood double cream one) and add a generous drizzle of honey and some muesli (I like the Vital one because it is tasty and comes in a convenient strip of little packets, which works for us since we do not have muesli daily).

The top was decorated with a grape face with banana hair.

Eggstatic Eggies

I make sunny side up eggs in various shapes (mainly hearts and teddy bears). When cracking the egg, it is poured into a cookie cutter which is placed in a hot, lightly greased pan with a flat surface and left to set for a minute or two. Season as desired. You could also separate the whites from the yokes and have separate yellow and white eggs. 

Hint: use a metal cookie cutter as plastic may melt and hold the cutter down firmly until the egg white starts to set, otherwise it will ooze out of the bottom and not hold its shape. If it does ooze, you can salvage thus by using the cutter to shape once cooked, but it looks much neater if you can avoid oozing.

I serve with toast, also cut with cookie cutters.

Oaty Snacks

For an easy toddler snack, I take leftover jungle oats (about a cupful) and add a mashed banana. I add lots of cinnamon, drop spoons full in a greased baking tray and bake for about fifteen minutes. You can add a bit of honey to sweeten, but my kids don't seem to mind when I omit it. Grated apple can also be added for variety.

(These work well as teething biscuits).

Fun Food with The Olive Branch Cookery School

You may have gathered from previous posts that I am always on the look out for fun and interesting ways to present food to encourage Noodle and Squish to eat a healthy and varied diet. 

I was in luck. At the recent Mom Blog Meet, we were privileged to witness a demonstration by Margy Vally on how to make quick, easy and fun kiddies foods. As an added bonus, most of these are simple enough for me to get Noodle involved in helping me to make them.

Margy Vally of The Olive Branch Cookery School

Margy is the executive director and chef of the Olive Branch  Cookery School in Fourways, which hosts a variety of exciting cooking classes in their spacious and well equipped kitchen.Her lessons, which were done together with her son, were humorous and spontaneous. These fun dishes were created using some of Nuk's new range of toddler feeding utensils (they no longer just do baby stuff).

Some of the lovely recipes which she shared with us are set out below. 

She did some fruit skewers on sticks (something we have been doing at home for a while). This is not quite a recipe, it just requires cutting or balling fruit and placing on a skewer.

 

She also did some frozen yoghurt lollies. Her recipe is below, but I often do the same, taking a short cut by substituting the fresh fruit with a pouch of baby food fruit (like the Ella's Kitchen pouches we were gifted with on the day).

Frozen Mango and Yoghurt on a Stick

Ingredients:

300g full cream yoghurt plain
2 medium mangos, peeled, pitted and cut into chunks.

Method:

 

Place into a processor and blitz until smooth. Pour into ice cream moulds, put a lolly stick into each mould and then freeze until required.
N.B. You could also use strawberries or plums.

I grew up with the spicy Indian version of egg bread, beda vari- which is similar to the Western version but more savoury and typically includes salt and various spices such as chillies, cumin and coriander in the egg dip (try it, it is yummy!). As a teenager, I thought it was bizarre when I saw people in restaurants drizzling syrup over their French toast and it is only in my adult life that I discovered that not all egg bread is spicy and salty. The one below certainly is not.

 

Eggy Toast with Syrup and Banana

Ingredients:

2 slices bread white or brown
1 egg, beaten, seasoned with sea salt
20g butter
cinnamon and sugar
Drizzle of Syrup
1 banana, peeled and sliced

Method:

Cut out shapes you desire. Dip into the beaten egg. Melt butter in a frying pan and gently fry
until golden. Place onto dish sprinkle with cinnamon sugar , drizzle with syrup and topped
with sliced banana.

Frozen mango and yoghurt lolly and Eggy Toast with Banana (divided bowl by Nuk)

My children are not too fond of lettuce, but perhaps Margy's recipe below could sway them otherwise.

Chicken and Corn Lettuce Boats

Ingredients:

60g chicken, cooked and diced
30ml mayonnaise
Squeeze of lemon juice
10g frozen sweet corn
½ tomato, diced
½ red pepper, diced
1 spring onion, diced
sea salt and black pepper
6 iceburg lettuce leaves

Method: 

Mix all filling ingredients together and place into the lettuce leaves. Make a little sail for your boat with a napkin and cocktail stick. You could use Tuna or salmon instead of chicken

Chicken and corn lettuce boat

I cannot wait to try the below recipe, which I am sure will be a hit in our household. I did not catch a picture of this one, but a fish shaped cutter is used to shape into a cute little fishy.

Fishy Cakes

 

Ingredients:

200g cooked hake (free from skin and bone)
200g mashed potatoes
1 yolk
1 egg
25g flour
50g fresh white bread crumbs

Method:

Combine the fish, potatoes and egg yolk. Add salt and pepper. Make into fish shapes. Coat with flour, egg and breadcrumbs. Deep fry for 2-3 minutes. Add a frozen pea for an eye. Could also be crab, salmon, or other white fish.

Every child loves crumbed chicken. I do a similar version to the below, but oven baked and with more spices.

Chicken Goujons

200g chicken breast cut into 10cm thick long strips
50g cake flour
2 eggs, beaten
100g fresh breadcrumbs
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
A squeeze of lemon juice to taste
salad leaves to serve

Method:

1. Season the chicken.
2. Coat chicken with flour, then the beaten egg and finally the breadcrumbs.
3. Heat up a frying pan of oil and gently fry the Goujons until golden brown
4. Mix the lemon juice and mayonnaise and seasoning.
5. Serve with the Goujons and a few salad leaves.

The below is great for lunchboxes (I vary the ingredients though and use cherry tomatoes from my garden as Noodle does not really like regular tomatoes).

Rainbow Salad

2 tomatoes, large diced
1 cucumber, large diced
lettuce leaf, shredded
1 yellow pepper, de-seed, cut into large dice
2 carrots, peeled and cut into batons
½ cup full cream yoghurt
2 tablespoons chopped basil
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Method:

Place yoghurt in a bowl and mix in the basil and parsley
Layer your vegetables one at a time in a see through container. Put a container at the side to dip the vegetables.

The Might Mice below is a clever variation on the usual baked potato recipe. Margy says the secret is to bake rather than microwave the potatoes (which I must confess that I am sometimes guilty of).

Mighty Mice

4 large potatoes, washed and pricked
200ml cooked savoury mince or 200g can tuna drained
25ml butter
10ml milk
salt and pepper
100ml cheddar or mozzarella cheese grated

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C Place the potatoes onto a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
2. Cool the potatoes, cut in half horizontally.
3. Scoop out flesh and place into a bowl add the butter, milk, salt and pepper and mash well together.
4. Stir in the mince or tuna. Place mixture back into the potato skins and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for a further 15 minutes.
5. Make your mice faces on top of the potato while it cools down enough to be eaten. Use raisins for the eyes, salami for ears, red pepper for mouth, spring onions for whiskers, parsley for hair and anything else you may have.

Mighty Mice Potato Boats

Bon appetit! 

Jozi Wahm's Guide to Getting Kids to Eat their Veggies

Noodle and Squish have both always eaten very well, but recently it has been a bit of a battle to get Noodle to eat healthy foods, especially vegetables. (She always used to love vegetables but her friends have convinced her that they are yucky so I need to reverse this mindset). Fortunately my kids both love fruit so I have no problem convincing them to eat these.

I always thought I was cultivating fairly healthy eating values and awareness of different foods until I discovered last week that Noodle thought that potato chips grew on a chip tree (probably my fault- while I seldom make french fries, when I do they come straight out of a McCain's bag and Noodle has never seen me chop potatoes up for this purpose).

I thought I would share some of the tricks that I use to get my family to eat their veggies (and other good stuff):

1. Grow your own vegetables and herbs. I have a small herb and vegetable garden outside my kitchen door and while Noodle will usually not eat tomatoes, she will happily pick nibble at the cherry tomatoes that she picks herself from the garden. They take up virtually no space and are easy to grow.
2.  Salad skewers- because everything tastes better on a stick. (Fruit skewers work just as well).

   

   Child-sized salad skewer with cucumber, bell pepper, cherry tomato and cheese served with a yoghurt and herb dip

3. Food art- smiley faced sandwiches or food plated in animal, heart or flower shapes- the internet shows endless possibilities.
4. Vegetables cut into unusual shapes are more appealing to children than if they are in their usual form.
5.  Peas, carrots and broccoli can all go unnoticed if pureed and added to pastas, soups or curries.I take all my slightly overripe bananas, peel them and chuck them in a container in the freezer and then offer them as ice lollies once frozen or use them in smoothies. Berries also work well frozen.
6.  Speaking of smoothies, carrots, cucumber and even spinach can slip unnoticed into these. 
7. Children will eat anything on a pizza, covered with some cheese. Use wholewheat flour for the base.