Tag Archives: healthy snacking

Cooking with Kids, Dairy Free, Kids Nutrition, Recipes, Snacks, Special Diets, Vegetarian, Wheat Free

Gingerbread energy balls

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One of the questions I get asked a lot is for healthy snack ideas. Walking around the shops there is a plethora of snack items but so many of them are expensive items that you can make yourself in batches with a little knowhow and patience. Energy balls are one such item. Often sold for £1.50-£1 a portion, these can be made a lot cheaper at home. See my analysis below.  Whilst there are a lot of energy ball recipes out there on the internet this one is so delicious that I had to share it. I love having snacks  like these to hand for instant snacking and even better, these freeze well. My boy also loves making these with me.

Perfect mid morning snack for me between clients and an afternoon snack for the kids at a much better cost than buying from the shops.

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Gingernut Energy Balls

Ingredients

  • 100 g unsalted cashew nuts
  • 100 g dates
  • 25 5 oats
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

Recipe Notes

Blitz up the cashews, oats and dates in a food processor or grinder. I do this in batches as my grinder is smalll. You may need to stop grinding and stir it around a bit from time to time.

Put the mixture into a bowl, add in the ginger and stir.

Now roll into balls and roll in the sesame seeds (if wanted).

Store in a tin, the fridge or freeze.

 

Costing = £2.20 for 10 balls (5 portions for an adult)

100g cashews £1.10

100g dates 66p

25g oats 27p

1 tbsp sesame seeds 9p

1 tsp ginger 8p

 

Baking, Cooking with Kids, Dairy Free, Recipes, Snacks, Special Diets, Wheat Free

Peanut Butter Cookies and Smart Snacking.

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Snacking sensibly for me is a must. I need bucket loads of reliable energy to get me through my day. An average day for me involves 3 kids, much pilates and 1-2-1 dietetic clients. I don’t sit still for long, so crashing mid afternoon is not an option, especially as that’s the school run and my hungry time of day. So one thing I teach my clients and work on myself is balancing my snacks.

Yes fruit is fabulous, however it doesn’t keep me full for long or sustain my energy. So I pair it with protein or a wholegrain, higher fibre carb. Or if I’m feeling outrageous, I mix all three.  For me it is not about the calories or the macro’s but the balance. 

Satiety is the feeling of fullness that persists after eating. It affects the length of time between eating events and possibly the amount of energy consumed at the next. Protein  is filling and can help stabilise blood sugars. Fibre rich foods require more chewing so psychologically take longer to eat, they can displace other energy rich food and slow gastric emptying. 

Some of my favs:
Apple, cheese and oatcakes
Dried apricots, almonds and 25g dark chocolate
Oatcakes with nut butter and banana

Then there are these peanut butter cookies. Perfect with fruit and they take just 10 mins to bake. These make me feel like the perfect mum on those days I manage to whip the mix up before the school run and have them ready 10 mins after the kids walk in the door! Better still the kids can make them – I haven’t let them loose on this recipe yet.

 

Peanut Butter Cookies
Yields 8
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Prep Time
5 min
Cook Time
10 min
Prep Time
5 min
Cook Time
10 min
175 calories
13 g
23 g
11 g
7 g
2 g
38 g
75 g
5 g
0 g
9 g
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size
38g
Yields
8
Amount Per Serving
Calories 175
Calories from Fat 98
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 11g
17%
Saturated Fat 2g
10%
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 4g
Monounsaturated Fat 5g
Cholesterol 23mg
8%
Sodium 75mg
3%
Total Carbohydrates 13g
4%
Dietary Fiber 3g
11%
Sugars 5g
Protein 7g
Vitamin A
1%
Vitamin C
0%
Calcium
4%
Iron
6%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your Daily Values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
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Ingredients
  1. 100g peanut butter
  2. 150g granola
  3. 1 egg
  4. 1/2 tsp baking powder
Instructions
  1. Mix all the ingredients together.
  2. Bake at Gas Mark 5 for 10 minutes.
  3. Store in an airtight tin, they are best eaten on the day.
Notes
  1. I used my own homemade granola (recipe on the blog) which is wheat free and gluten free if you tolerate oats or use gluten free oats.
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calories
175
fat
11g
protein
7g
carbs
13g
more
Dietitian UK https://www.dietitianuk.co.uk/

Dairy Free, Dietitian Advice, Gluten Free, Nutrition Education, Snacks, Special Diets, Vegetarian, Wheat Free

Make your own healthy “graze” snack boxes

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So snacking, it’s one of those things I definitely do. I tend to eat my 3 meals and at least 2 snacks a day. Which means my snacks need to be healthy, well most of them! Currently I am breastfeeding which makes me quite hungry at times. It is those moments when I have children clamouring for me, a baby wanting to feed and I know I need to eat that I need a ready to grab and go snack. That moment when it could be biscuits. Although I do eat my share of those too, I’ve recently discovered a wheat free dark chocolate and stem ginger cookie… dangerously nice. So to keep me on the straight and narrow I’ve started making snack boxes. This is something I often recommed to clients and many find them so useful. You can literally make a pile up for the week and take one to work each day, keep them in your bag or just on the worktop if you are at home.

Here are some of my favourite combos:

Cranberry.almond.choc
15g Dried cranberries, 15 almonds and 10g dark chocolate

 

Pecan,apple.edam
15g pecans, 15g dried apple, 1 tbsp dried edamame beans

 

Cashew.mango
15g cashews, 15g dried mango, 1 tsp mixed seeds

 

Brazil.apricot
5 brazil nuts, 3 dried apricots, 1 tsp mixed seeds

Here is me trying out Facebook Live and showing off my not so great phone video skills:

Love to hear your healthy snack box combos. Leave me a message/comment so I can steal your ideas too 😉

I tend to buy my nuts and dried fruit in bulk online (it is cheaper per kg but costs a bit up front) and I store a supply in the cupboard and a supply in glass jars on my shelf. Which looks pretty and also means we all see them and are more likely to eat them instead of reaching into the biscuit tin. 

“Keep healthy food – In plain sight so it is in your mind to eat it”

A good example of this is my toddler boy who often asks for “prawns” and points at the jars… he means prunes! 

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Baking, Gluten Free, Snacks, Special Diets, Wheat Free

Banana Oaty Bars

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 Mini-Disaster in our house usually means…. there is no flapjack left, we are out of milk, Miss K cannot find a very important item (insert “really not important in the grand scheme of life but a calamity to her”), or a section of the train track has come apart. I quite love the fact that these really are regular disasters in the eyes of my small ones. How simple life can be!

Today’s disaster led to a distraught 2 year old.

 1. The flapjack tin was empty

2. There were not enough oats to make more.

Super Mummy to the rescue. I rarely make the same recipe twice anyway 😉

So I adapted my semi-famous banana and sultana flapjack recipe by adding flour. It comes out less of a flapjack and more of an oat bar. Dense, oaty and firm – no crumbly texture here. A really good option to have with a cuppa, for lunch boxes or to feed a snacking child. They are sweet but not too sweet, if you know what I mean. The oats provide that wholegrain goodness, the banana and sultanas pack in the fruit and there is just a hint of honey and butter to bind it all.

It’s falls into that territory of “Is it a flapjack? Is is a cake? It is a bar?”

You know what? I can’t decide but all that really matters is it is healthy and yummy!

Dietitian UK: Banana Oaty Bars

Banana Oat Bars (wheat free, gluten free)
Yields 12
Quick, easy oat bar recipe that is healthy and great for hungry children.
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Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
20 min
Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
20 min
118 calories
19 g
9 g
4 g
2 g
2 g
43 g
1 g
5 g
0 g
1 g
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size
43g
Yields
12
Amount Per Serving
Calories 118
Calories from Fat 36
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 4g
6%
Saturated Fat 2g
11%
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0g
Monounsaturated Fat 1g
Cholesterol 9mg
3%
Sodium 1mg
0%
Total Carbohydrates 19g
6%
Dietary Fiber 1g
6%
Sugars 5g
Protein 2g
Vitamin A
2%
Vitamin C
2%
Calcium
1%
Iron
3%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your Daily Values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
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Ingredients
  1. 100g oats (gluten free if needed)
  2. 100g plain flour (I used a gluten free blend)
  3. 100g sultanas
  4. 1 mashed banana
  5. 2 tbsp honey
  6. 50g butter
Instructions
  1. Mix the dry ingredients together, by hand or in a food processor/stand mixer.
  2. Melt the honey and butter together in a bowl and then add along with the banana.
  3. Mix well, I left this for a few minutes in my stand mixer.
  4. Press into a lined, greased baking tray, cover the top with foil for half of the cooking time to stop the sultanas getting burnt.
  5. Bake at Gas Mark 5 for 20-30 minutes.
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calories
118
fat
4g
protein
2g
carbs
19g
more
Dietitian UK https://www.dietitianuk.co.uk/