Healthy School Treats

 

Yikes.  A lot of life happened.   Super cute that my last post was "How I fed my baby during his first year".  Baby is now in preschool and I am still nearly as anxious that I am going to destroy him by feeding him the wrong food.  Something I am well aware I am worrying too much about but we all need something to spend our time on.

I have wanted to make it back to writing and sharing recipes so many times.  In fact, I have drafted many posts and later deleted them.  So, I figured, let's start with baby steps.  Healthy School Treats.

Birk just finished his third year of "preschool".  And guess how many schools hes been at?  Four.  Oh, man.  And, I have been so lucky to find schools with good, healthy food policies.  Amazing teachers.  I have loved his schools SO much.  However, the thing I still can't get on board with is school treats.  There are holidays, celebrations, and 75 birthdays each semester, and they so often bring with them a hugely celebratory treat.  I am ok with Birk celebrating a relevant occasion with dessert, but I just don't think that needs to happen at school.  It seems that there is one per week!

However, instead of being a party pooper, I thought that I could at least come up with some healthy school treats.  I have sent these three different treats to school with great success.  And these were tested on a group of 3-6 year olds who are used to getting real treats for other birthdays and holidays.  The three are:

1.  Berries - strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries.  The kids liked them so much, they requested the leftovers for their second snack.  Seems simple, maybe a little expensive for some, but a huge hit.

2.  Frozen yogurt covered banana - these were super popular.  The teachers said the kids had so much fun eating these.  See recipe below and photo above.

3.  Raspberries with a dark chocolate chip inside.  I got this idea from Annie's Eats, as she puts these as a treat in her kid's lunch boxes sometimes.  I sent these for valentine's day in a tiny paper cup.  A serving was 3, because raspberries are very expensive.  But sometimes when a treat arrives in a small portion, it tastes so much better.  The kids also loved these.  See photo below!

Next time, I will return with adult human food. 

Frozen Yogurt Covered Bananas
makes 3 pops (math for more)

1 banana (make sure they are ripe!  not green but not mushy yet.  )
1 cup of whole milk yogurt
1-2 tbsp of honey
sprinkles (I like these)
3 Popsicle sticks

Cut the banana into three equal pieces.  Insert a popsicle stick into each piece and set on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Make sure the baking sheet can fit in your freezer!

Whisk together yogurt and honey in a bowl or a cup suitable for dipping.  Taste and adjust sweetness to your liking (doesn't need to be very sweet, though, because bananas are so sweet).  Dip each banana on a stick into the yogurt mixture and return to baking sheet.  Once finished dipping, sprinkle with sprinkles.

Place in freezer uncovered overnight or until completely frozen.  Once they are completely hardened, you can put them in a freezer safe bag until you are ready to deliver to school.  They can all be placed in a gallon size bag together, they do not stick for me (as long as they aren't allowed to melt and refreeze!).