Chilean Easy Peelers

Caterpillars, dealers, healers...
All rhyme well with Easy Peelers.
A juicy citrus to stave off munchies;
They're great for packed school lunches.
We know our rhymes are silly,
But we have fun with fruit from Chile.

Now that Eddie started a new school, he begged me to allow him to have packed school lunches rather than hot meals. He is slowly settling in in this big school environment, and so far I haven't been pressuring him into eating school lunches. I might at some point encourage him to eat school meals on some days.
He loves simple homemade sandwiches or wraps, with ham and cheese. I also add a yogurt on a stick to his lunch box, a cheese string, a drink, a pack of fruit rolls and a piece of fruit.
He chooses which fruit to have, it is usually an apple or a clementine.

Easy peel clementines and mandarins are a great source of vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and water, which helps to keep you hydrated. Chilean easy peelers are now in season, and are widely available at the moment, from September to November.
What we like about easy peelers is their juicy sweet taste and convenience. They are portable and easy to peel. Children won't need help to peel this fruit, especially in the school environment. A lovely snack for a lunchbox or after school.

Did you know that last year the amount of Chilean mandarins sold in the UK reached over 2,000 tonnes, that's a pretty big mountain of fruit. Eddie and I tried to imagine just how big a mountain of 2,000 tonnes might be.
Another bit of useful information: Easy peelers are a great source of water; in fact 87% of their nutritional composition is water.

If you've been at school around playtime, you know it is a total chaos. Many a time, when I arrive to school to help with reading, and the kids run around like mad, screaming, throwing leaves at each other, fighting. It's a wild-wild world. They all look red in the face, hot and flushed.
No wonder they are all thirsty after the playtime. Having plenty of fluids is paramount to stay hydrated. And if you have a piece of fruit which gives you more water, it is even better.

Eddie comes home tired and peckish after school. He likes to relax on the sofa, watching his favourite shows on TV, with a few selected snacks including mandarins on a little table nearby.

It was an Inset day at school yesterday, and Eddie and I watched Witches together. We liked the film more than the book for one simple reason - it has a happy end, while the book ends on a sad note.
We were sitting on the sofa, wrapped up in a duvet, and at times we felt like throwing the mandarin peelings at the screen, when witches were getting particularly nasty.

This post is an entry for the BritMums #ChileanEasyPeelers Challenge, sponsored by Chilean Citrus Committee.

Disclosure: we received 10 easy peelers to sample and give a seal of approval. All opinions are our own.

Choc chip oat cookies for Flora Lunchbox Challenge

Making a healthy balanced meal for a child's lunch box might not always be easy, if you have a fussy eater. It's even more challenging, when you have a child with special needs.
As you might know from reading my blog, our older son Sasha is an autie. Children with autism often have restrictive diets due to their condition. With Sasha it is literally either a familiar food he would agree to eat or nothing. People who have no experience of autism sometimes give unsolicited advice, feeling superior "If he is hungry, he will eat, he won't starve". Actually, he will.
Last year he stayed for four days on a residential in Bristol with his class. I packed some food with him. They stayed in a hostel, without a fridge, so it was impossible to send enough food to last for four days, and the teachers were hoping he'd be eating with the others when they were going out. I was worried that he wouldn't eat, and he didn't eat much. He had chips and some of his sandwiches, but that's about it. He came home thinner than he left.
When Sasha was younger, we went through a long line of specialists including visits to the nutrition clinic in the children's hospital. When they asked us about the foods he wouldn't eat, I said it would be much easier to say what he would eat. In the end, we decided that though limited, his diet is not that bad, as he does eat some fruit and vegetables, and I cook a "super soup" for his dinner, which is packed with vegetables and pulses.

When we travel, feeding my autie becomes more of a challenge. In Italy, for example, he refuses to eat the local bread. For all the variety of wonderful breads in Italy, they really don't make good sliced bread. So, it might look strange, but one of our suitcases is packed with several loaves of Warburton's bread, as well as enough tuna pate to last a week. Sasha loves tuna pate sandwiches. I don't know what would we do without it.
I have tried all the other possible pates - chicken, mackerel, trout, salmon etc etc - he would sniff them and put back on the plate. Back to tuna pate then.
Tuna pate sandwiches are his staple food, he has them for breakfast, he has them in his lunch box. He has them for his birthday, he has them for Christmas.
It always makes me sad that when we tuck in into our Christmas dinner, he just wants his tuna sandwiches.

To make his lunchbox a bit more interesting, I add some home bakes, like a slice of carrot cake or a multiseed muffin, a few choc chip cookies or a cupcake.
Thankfully, his school is understanding. I often read online about the school lunchbox police who do not allow children to have any sweet foods in their lunchboxes.

Sasha loves my bakes. When I make a batch of cookies, I have to ration them, as he would gobble them up in one go (that happened once or twice when I wasn't quick enough to hide the cookies).

When it comes to cookies, I love baking with Flora. If I use plain butter, my cookies often tend to end up quite flat and spread out. Flora keeps the cookies in a good shape, and they taste delicious too.

For Sasha's favourite choc chip oat cookies you will need:
100g soft margarine
100g caster sugar
65g jumbo oats or one MOMA porridge sachet
165g self-raising flour
1 egg
50g of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
Sometimes I also add 1tsp of vanilla essence.

I have tried different kinds of chocolate in this recipe, from Menier cooking chocolate, either milk or dark, to Sainsbury's Basics milk chocolate, so you can make it as budget as you like.
Cream the margarine with sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the flour, oats and the beaten egg, mix well, forming the dough. Knead lightly on a slightly floured surface, roll out to 6-7mm thickness, cut out the biscuits with cookie cutters, place them on the trays lined with parchment paper or foil and bake for about 15 minutes until golden at 180C. Don't overcook, they are still very soft when you take them out.

These cookies will keep well in a cookie tin for a few days, that is if they will last that long.
They might not be the healthy food exactly, but they are made with oats and Flora light, so actually they are not bad at all.

Flora has developed an inspiring Lunchbox Guide for healthy eating habits. This guide is a helpful source of ideas for creative and healthy lunchbox meals including this lunchbox builder:

Image credits: Flora

There is a page of top tips for fussy eaters, a 5-day lunchbox plan  + a 5-day lunchbox plan for vegans and much more.

This post is an entry for the #FloraLunchbox Linky Challenge, sponsored by Flora. Check out their lunch planner and recipe ideas here.

Disclosure: We received a Flora lunchbox and a £5 Tesco voucher to spend on the ingredients. All opinions are ours.

Stave off the munchies with Forest Feast and Acti-Snack

Summer holidays are rapidly coming to an end. I am sooo not looking forward to early hectic school mornings. I usually prepare children's lunchboxes in the evening to save those precious morning minutes. Sasha takes a lunchbox with him to school every day, Eddie once a week, as I want him to eat the school lunches. He is such a fussy eater, but is more inclined to try new foods when his friends are happily eating them. He refuses to eat any roast, so Wednesdays are his lunchbox days.
Parents sometimes struggle with the contents of their children's lunchboxes. On one hand, they have to be healthy, on the other, not too boring. There are perfect families of course, where children will happily eat kale crisps baked with pink Himalayan salt, broccoli quinoa hemp milk smoothie with spirulina and frogspawn aka chia pudding for dessert. Alas, mine would run a mile if I have offered any of the above superfoods.
Thankfully, they love dried seeds, nuts and fruit as well as freeze dried berries. For us, it's usually a mid-afternoon snack.
If your children enjoy seeds and nuts, then you might consider adding small bags of seeds, dried fruit and nuts to school lunchboxes. Forest Feast is a range of delicious, premium quality dried fruit and snacks, which are perfect for kid-friendly lunchboxes.
Their products include Snack Pot Berries & Raisins, Exotic Dried Mango, Whole Yogurt Cranberries. These products are available online and from most leading supermarkets including Waitrose, Tesco and Asda.
Forest Feast, the premium quality dried fruit and nut snack company is encouraging parents to fill their children's lunchboxes with healthier kid-friendly snacks this school term.

My younger son always takes an apple with him for a mid-morning snack, but on the days when I volunteer at school I have noticed a variety of foods children have at snack time - all kinds of fruit, whole or cut into slices, boxes of raisins and other dried fruit.
Last year we were asked not to send anything with nuts to school, as one of the children had a severe nut allergy. But after this child left school, the prohibition was lifted.
Snack time at school is an important chance for young minds to refuel for the rest of the day, at least until lunch time.
"Snacks can play a significant role in the diet of children as, due to their small size, they may only be able to eat a small amount of food at a time. However, it is important to choose the right snacks so that children are getting the nutrients they need to keep them going through the busy school day right through to their afterschool activities", said Ann Woods, Product Development Manager of Kestrel Foods Ltd, owners of the Forest Feast brand.
"Parents want to pack snacks for their children that are both nutritious and energising but also delicious enough that kids will eat it. Forest Feast has created a premium range of dried fruit and nut snacks that are made to enjoy on-the-go so our products are the perfect healthier snack option for busy parents".

We like individual packets of snacks, as they are handy to carry in a bag, whenever we're out and about. While I am not a strict dictator when it comes to eating, or rather not eating, sweets, I do prefer when Eddie eats healthy snacks like raisins or nuts.

Forest Feast Yogurt Cranberries are whole cranberries with a yogurt flavoured coating. They are juicy and quite sweet. Both my younger son and I liked the flavour of tangy cranberries in the creamy yogurt coating.

Calorie-wise, a 60g bag of cranberries comes at 281kcal or 469kcal per 100g. It's probably quite all right for an active kid, but if you're a grown-up and counting calories, an apple at an average 95kcal might be a better snack option.

A few other stats for comparison (I'm just looking at the bags of products which my older son likes in his lunchbox - not altogether, I hasten to add) - a 30g of Kettle Chips Cheddar flavour is 152kcal, Mini Cheddars is 128kcal, Original Hula hoops is 122kcal, Walkers Crisps Bacon Flavour is 130kcal.

Forest Feast Exotic Dried Mango is a PREDA Fairtrade product. It is naturally fat-free, free from any artificial additives and preservatives. Sweet pieces of dried mango are a delicious way of sneaking one of five-a-day into children's lunchboxes. They are available in five single portions at £2.99 per box or in a 130g share pack at £2.75.

Let's look at the calories: typical values are 332kcal per 100g. One single pouch is 25g, so comes at a very reasonable 83kcal per small bag.
Mango slices in a share pack are bigger dried cheeks of mango, while mango in Singles packs are of a chopped variety.

Mango is sourced from the Philippines through the Fair Trade partners.

Preda Fair Trade assists small scale farmers to improve production, encourages organic and chemical free farming, opposes genetic manipulation and guarantees a better deal for the farmers.
I'm very fond of dried mango, and this product didn't disappoint - the mango pieces were chewy soft, sweet and flavourful.

Acti-Snack is another brand which might be a contender as a lunchbox material. It was designed to meet a variety of sports nutrition requirements. They have developed five unique mixes - Sweet & Sour Mango, Fruit, Nut & Seed, Fruit & Nut, Nut & Soya and Nut Mix, all of which are gluten free, free from artificial additives and preservatives.
Products are available in slim-line, impulse pack - ideal for running belts or saddle packs - as well as re-sealable multiple serving packs. Single portion packs might be easily added to the lunchbox contents.

Acti-Snack Sweet & Sour Mango is an exotic dried mango with tender green mango slices. These delicious sweet snacks are gluten free, additive free, fat free and are a good source of vitamin C & fibre.
Vitamin C contributes to normal energy-yielding metabolism and the reduction of tiredness and fatigue.

I used one of the single pouches to add to the muffins I baked the other day - pear multiseed muffins.

Acti-Snack Fruit, Nut & Goji Berry is a mix of nuts and dried fruit. You will find whole almonds and pieces of walnuts here as well as dried sultanas and goji berries. It is gluten and additive free, high in Vitamin E which contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress, Biotin (good for normal energy-yielding metabolism) and Copper which contributes to maintenance of normal connective tissues.
It is a tasty mix, though perhaps more suitable for grown-ups' tastes. Eddie loves sultanas, but dislikes goji berries, and is not over keen on almonds either. It's all a matter of personal preference, of course.

He was more enthusiastic about Acti-Snack Fruit, Nut & Seed which contains dried apple juice infused cranberries and cherries with raisins and oven roasted hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds and cashew nuts.

Acti-Snack Fruit, Nut & Soya is a healthy mix of almonds, pumpkin seeds and soya beans with dried apple juice infused cranberries. I wasn't sure what dried soya (edamame) beans would taste like, but they are pleasantly crunchy. I probably would have preferred them to be salted, but then it would make them less healthy.

This mix is gluten & additive free, high in protein & fibre, vitamin E and biotin, there is no added sugar either.
25g or one small handful equates to a single portion.
For a supercharged breakfast add a handful as a topping to cereals or porridge.

What do you put into your children's lunchboxes?

Disclosure: We received a selection of healthy snacks for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are ours.

A lunchbox for my fussy eater

There are some very creative Mums who put their heart and soul into preparing imaginative themed lunchboxes for their children. I'm not one of them. I love looking at Eats Amazing Instagram feed, she is truly creative.
My problem is my guys won't eat food they don't want, even if it's cut into fancy shapes and decorated with pirate flags, battle droids' templates and charming little doodas. When it comes to food and lunchboxes in particular, my guys are a real pain.
It's ironic that with a foodie Mum, both of my sons are very fussy eaters.
I have tried cutting sandwiches in fancy shapes. Eddie would look with great interest, comment on how cool they look, and then would push the plate back to me.
In our case, the plain look works better.
The summer is fast approaching its end, and soon we'll have to start the hectic mornings again. I always feel like a senior officer in the barracks, waking everyone up and barking orders "Wake up! Time to get ready for school! Breakfast! blah-blah"
I try to add different foods to my sons' lunchboxes, I truly do. But they are definitely not an Instagrammable material, as they are more or less the same.
Eddie eats school lunches most days, but when they serve the roast on Wednesdays, he asks for a lunchbox.
What does he usually have? He has an apple for a mid-morning snack. Any other fruit is looked upon as an alien food.
Let's have a peek inside his lunchbox:
A Dairylea lunchable with crackers, ham and cheese, a few carrot sticks, a Yolly (a raspberry or strawberry yogurt on a stick), a Babybel cheese (red or blue), a drink and a Yo Bear Snack (preferably green or purple). He sometimes asks for a plain butter sandwich: just a slice of buttered bread and nothing else. It has to be cut into triangles, and none of them teddy bear or Hello Kitty shapes.

Eddie likes Jelly Pots and Hartley's Fruit in Jelly pots (which we discovered earlier this year), and I buy them often enough. He usually eats one in the afternoon as an after-school snack, but I wonder if we could try introducing them to his lunchbox.

Hartley's Jelly Pots have started a new campaign, Hartley's Your Lunchbox. This campaign aims to inspire parents and children as a motivation tool to get more creative with their children's lunchboxes.

It also encourages families to collect special edition green lids from across No Added Sugar Pots (115g). Once you collect 12, you are invited to claim a free Hartley's lunchbox and stickers to decorate it. The sticker alphabet will help you personalise the lunchbox with a child's name, or any message they would like to display on it.

If your child loves jelly, Jelly Pots are the perfect size for children's lunchboxes. The range of flavours is wide, so you can always find those you like the best.

What do you put into your kids' lunchboxes?

This post is an entry for BritMums #HartleysYourLunchbox Linky Challenge, sponsored by Hartley's Jelly.

Disclosure: We received a lunchbox, stickers and two pots of jelly to take part in the challenge. All opinions are ours.