H is for ...Hungry...

Ack!  Nothing like a weekend of marking and report cards to put a girl behind!  No, not my marking and report cards, my husband's.  He has only left the computer desk to eat all weekend.  And he finally finished last night just after 10 pm.  So, I have been single-parenting and doing Daycare paperwork all weekend.  (and now he is reading this over my shoulder and calling it "the fictional world of Kim's Blog" because he did use his laptop for some of his work, while I was sorting tax paperwork for Daycare, and my dear daughter decided it was time to play on the Webkinz website!)  Needless to say, it has been very difficult to get near the computer!
However, here I am and H is for Hungry!  (If this were a "P" post, it could be Paperwork)

As soon as the kids get in the van after school, I can tell by their voices if they ate all their lunch.  Whiny and impatient means one of two things: 1. They didn't like what was in their lunch and therefore didn't eat it or 2. There wasn't enough of something, either food or time.  "Baby Bear, did you eat your lunch?"  "Well, yeah," is the mumbled response.  "Did you eat all of your lunch?"  And she launches into some sort of elaborate excuse as to why she didn't eat all of something ..."Why not finish it now?"  Some days, when we are running to skating, I pack her an extra lunch or a yogurt-protein shake and a granola bar.  She eats on the drive from the school to the rink.  The key with her hunger (and with most of the members of our family it seems) it ensuring there is a source of protein in that snack.
An oatmeal cookie and an apple is a great snack, but unless I have added some protein powder (or at least a good dose of skim milk powder) to the oatmeal cookie dough, that snack will only hold her through about half of her ice time.  That means we are dealing with a grumpy bear again when we return to the rink to collect her.  And (as all parents I am sure would agree) one of my pet peeves is, "Can I have some money for the machine?  Pleeeeeeeassssseeeee!"  Just like my father, I never have any money when this question is asked.  Or I only have a twenty dollar bill.

Nutrition experts will tell you that your young athlete needs to be eating those complex carbohydrates, like those found in whole grains and fruit and veggies.  And yes, that is very true, but my children are both the same, without that added bit of protein at snack time, they won't make it to the next meal (not in a good mood anyway).  I am not talking about a piece of steak!  But rather a whole grain roll-up with a smear of peanut butter and a banana, or a half a cup of cottage cheese, a rice cake and an apple.  This is where those dear little "cheese strings" come in handy!  I cringe at all the packaging, but the serving size and the portability make them a staple in our house, for things like lunch boxes, long car rides or as part of a quick snack before soccer or baseball, or skating.         

Happy Packing!
                                  

A is for...Apples for your Health!

     A is for.....Apples!  How could I not start the first day of the challenge with that basic wholesome (no packaging required!) old Lunchbox standard.  Apples are fantastic!  Lovely and red (or green or yellow), crunchy and sweet.  Kids love them and Mums do too.  They are a great portable snack in their own right.  but then there are all the great things you can do with apples for lunch box treats as well as after school or breakfast foods.  Before I stopped including peanut butter on my Daycare menu, sometimes we would have apples and peanut butter and rice cakes for snack.  There is something delicious about a piece of apple with a smear of peanut butter across it that just says "yum".  We still have apples and rice cakes for snack, we just have cheese instead of peanut butter.
I don't even want to think about how many apples we eat our way through in our house each week (well, maybe I do...5 for lunches, and then 4-5 for snack for daycare and then another 2 for those who like to snack after school...I feel like Friendly Giant, lining up the chairs..."and here's one more for two to curl up in", but I digress, I am sorry...) Sounds like it adds up to about 10-12 in a day...times that by 5 days...Add a few for the weekend...And I think it is time to buy an apple tree or two!  (of course I think even one of the smaller trees needs about 4 years to produce its first fruit...And a big one takes something like 7 years!)

And of course, there is always a recipe!  This one comes from Dietitians of Canada "Great Food Fast" that was published in 2000.  You can still buy it, or find it in your local library.  When I was a kid, my Mum used to make something called "snackin' cake" from a mix, and this recipe (which also tastes a whole lot better) makes me wonder why my mom used a mix at all, 'cause this one is that easy!

 Lunchbox Applesauce Cake

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray or grease an 8 inch square baking pan.
Cake:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (fine grind if you can get it)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp nutmeg and 1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup applesauce

Frosting (yes, this one is so good, but you can add the frosting too if you want, it makes it a bit "special")
2 Tbsp butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp milk or cream
1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Cake: Sift together in a medium bowl flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.  Set aside.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, blend eggs, oil, sugars on high speed for one minute or until mixture is light and fluffy.  Stir in applesauce; blend at medium speed for 30 seconds.  Add dry ingredients; blend at medium speed for 30 seconds or until well combined.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean when inserted into center of cake.  Cool in the pan.

2. Frosting:  In a medium bowl of an electric mixer, blend icing sugar, butter, milk and vanilla at high speed for 2 minutes or until light and fluffy.  Add additional milk as required to reach desired consistency.  Spread frosting on top of the cake.  Sprinkle with cinnamon.
Sometimes when I make this cake, I leave off the frosting all together and just sprinkle some icing sugar over the top.  It always goes over well.  Easy to make and very inexpensive!

Thanks for stopping by!  And if you want to check out some more "A to Z blogging" I have included one of the blog links for the letter "A":  "allison writes" is the "A" blog 
Happy Packing!

Was that really the best price?

Ah, another impending trip to the grocery store.  It involves the usual chores of checking the fridge, the pantry, the freezer and the opinions of other household members (the cat's request was that Grandma and Grandpa's dog be removed from the house and returned to wherever she came from...apparently, he wants to go back to eating on the floor and hanging out in the big play room during daycare time...In a few days, Emmy, it will all be back to normal, and you can run away from the lego cars to your heart's content...In the meantime, go back to enjoying your newfound Cat-tertainment of the fish swimming in the aquarium)...But I digress...
   When it comes to packing lunches, in our house, we try and take a "litterless" approach whenever possible.  Sandwich boxes (I like the Lunchbots stainless steel ones), thermoses, containers for yogurt and cookies, carrot sticks and dip, water bottles.  You know the drill.  We have some great sandwich containers: beyond the stainless steel Lunchbots, we also have Tupperware sandwich boxes, and some snackTAXI's.  They are great when you need to take your lunch, but don't want to carry around the bulky box afterwards.  They are fabric velcro closing snack or sandwich bags (2 sizes), that have a nylon easy-to-clean lining.  All great gear for saving on garbage creation and for saving money.  Saving money, because we all know that it is cheaper to make your own snacks and pack them than it is to let someone else pack them and sell them to you prewrapped and then boxed up in groups of  5 or 6 or 24!  However, while I stand firm on the pre-packaged "Lunchables" or lean cuisine type meals, I do give in and stock (both for their enjoyment and my sanity) cheese strings or Babybels, applesauce, granola bars and small yogurts (the deal being that the yogurt and applesauce containers have to only be used for lunches and that the empty containers come home to be washed and used for daycare paints, glue or other craft helper uses).
    So, I did a little homework this week and investigated where you get the best value for your dollar (and your nutrition) when buying the standard lunchbox fillers.  The yogurt was the easy one:  watch for the sales, as long as you have a few different brands that your family will eat, and aim not to pay more than 0.50 per serving.  Most yogurts are the same, when you compare similar fat contents.That and the sugar content, those are the decisions that you have to make for your family.  The ideal being about 2% mf (for younger children or teens who are maintaining a healthy weight, go 1% or no fat for adults), and the lower the sugar the better, staying away from artificial stuff.  Best is creating your own: plain yogurt and adding your own fresh or frozen fruit, and using honey or maple syrup as your sweetener (if you brought back a bottle of vanilla extract from your last trip to Mexico, add that too!  Mmmmm!).  Bottom line, the less ingredients in your yogurt, the better, both health-wise and taste-wise.  However, if your family will only eat somebody's 2% fruity yogurt, go for it and feel good that they are eating yogurt.  Yogurt (plain or fruit filled) will give your loved one a serving of dairy (and for your kids, that means you are only looking for one or two more servings to meet the RDA).
   Granola bars is another one: we buy Nature Valley crunchy ones or the Kashi chewy ones (altho these are probably the most expensive if you go regular price).  Comparing sizes and prices and nutrition values, Kashi gives you the best bang for your buck.  The key?  The same as the yogurt: the fewer ingredients on the list, the better.  And the Kashi ones had no added palm oil, and I could pronounce and recognize everything on the ingredient list.  However, regular price around here, they go for 4.99 a box (so 6 bars), when you compare with other store brands, you can get the same number of bars for half the price.  The Nature Valley crunchy bars (the ones in the green package containing 2 bars), sell at reg price around here for 3.99 a box, but regularly go on sale for 2 for 5.00 or even 1.99 a box.  They too have a reasonable ingredient list (pronounceable and recognizeable), and average about 4g of fat per bar (so 8 per package).  My suggestion?  Buy what your kids will eat (because it's no deal if it goes in the garbage), but stay away from long ingredient lists (and I won't mention the one big name that I left off of here, that tends to be a big seller because they advertise that they have "Peanut Free" bars...they are filled with puffed rice and all kinds of other ingredients...their bars are smaller than both the other brands I mentioned earlier and when you compare same size servings, they have more fat and sugar, and less fibre).
   The third and last item I compared was Applesauce...Unsweetened (albeit they make a variety of mixed flavours like berry apple and peach apple etc)...Motts, Presidents choice and Compliments (owned by Sobeys) were the three brands of applesauce cups I compared, all unsweetened, and all offered similar nutritional information.  The big thing for me was that as far as I could tell, both Presidents Choice and Compliments are really Leahy (available some places as Applesnax).  Mott's is a US company that began in New York State as a Cider company.  It has been through a variety of changes over the 100 plus years of existance and is now owned by Cadbury-Schweppes out of England.  See their website for more info http://motts.com/ 
Leahy is a Canadian company, based in Franklin, Quebec.  Growing up in the Chateauguay Valley, Franklin was (and still is) "Apple Country", and therefore close to my heart.   Leahy offers both organic and regular unsweetened apple products (both of which are available as Compliments and Presidents Choice across Canada), and are made with Canadian apples.  Price-wise, both of the store brands are slightly less expensive than the name brand, altho Motts is the one available at Costco. Both of the store brands are availabe in larger jars (700ml) and if you go to Zellers, you can find Applesnax (Leahy) in both organic and regular unsweetened varieties in the large jars.
So, while Motts may be the name brand on the shelves, in this case my heart is with the store brands, and my daughter's taste buds are too. 
To read more about Leahy, http://applesnax.com/EN-CA/index.html
The Leahy company is also Apple Boost another interesting concept:
http://www.appleboost.com/index.php

Now, to get back to that grocery list!  But first, take Grandma and Grandpa's doggy for a walk!
Happy Packing!