Chances are you have a birthday on your summer calendar, which means you may be serving your child cake in the near future. The problem with most store-bought or box cake varieties is that they’re packed full of artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and sugar. You can celebrate your favorite people and serve them cake too – just serve a fun, tasty alternative birthday cake that is actually good for them too. Here are my five favorite healthier alternatives to the birthday cake and believe me, your children will devour them.
We are in full summertime mode at Casa de Sweet Greens. Which means we are eating ice pops – lots and lots of ice pops. Most of ice pops that you will find in your local grocers’ freezer section are packed full of artificial colors, flavors and sugar. And the “healthy” ice pops are super-duper expensive and come in a lot of wasteful packaging. Instead, we are making our own batches of whole fruit ice pops using fresh, local produce that we purchase from our local farmers. Our first batch of the summer – organic citrus-mango-banana ice pops. They are creamy, refreshing. delicious and our first batch is almost gone! Read on to learn how to make these yummy ice pops this afternoon and you can click the print button at the button to print the instructions out too!
What you will need:
1 whole organic mango
1 whole organic banana (ours was frozen)
1 organic lemon wedge sliver
1 whole organic orange
1 whole organic apple
agave nectar (optional)
blender or food processor
ice pop molds or a ice pop maker
Step 1: Peel and Cut the Fruit To give your ice pops a creamy texture, you will want to peel the fruit. Then, cut it into smaller chunks for easier processing.
Step 2: Blend the Fruit Place all of the fruit chunks into a blender or food processor and blend well.If the fruit isn’t sweet enough you can add a teaspoon of agave nectar.
Step 3: Pour the Fruit Pour the fruit mixture into your favorite ice pop maker or ice pop molds and freeze.
Step 4: Enjoy! Enjoy a yummy, refreshing, healthy frozen treat!
Summer vacation is here and you know what that means – you’ll have children coming in and out all day long grabbing frozen treats and lots and lots of drinks. Save your money and the environment this year by making homemade refreshing fruit-infused water for the kiddos. By making these beverages in mason jars, you can store a lot of them in the fridge and your child can easily grab a fruit-infused cooler anytime. I have a stack of these at Eben’s eye level in the fridge, making it easy for him to grab on the go! They aren’t filled with sugar like fruit juice, but still provide enough flavor to please kids, mine included! Jump over to Inhabitots to learn my top three favorite fruit and vegetable infused water recipes.
Cupcakes are my favorite treat for birthday parties, especially when they have organic ingredients and whole fruit inside. For my son’s 11th birthday party, I decided to try a combination of local, organic fruits that are in season here in Florida. We thought that lemons and blueberries would be a great combination and it turns out we were right, they were a hit! I think I received more compliments on the cupcakes than the birthday party itself! Read on to learn how to make these super yummy organic lemon blueberry cupcakes for your next party and find one-page printable recipe here.
— I made a second batch of these to take to a birthday party over the weekend and again a huge hit! You will love them!
Eben has a love-hate relationship with yogurt. One week, he will love it, the next, he won’t touch it. Are your kids that way too? Last month, when we went to Universal Studios, Eben asked for Dippin’ Dots as his treat. That is when I had an idea – if I freeze his yogurt into bite sized dots, I bet he would devour them. I was right, I made a bowl of organic yogurt bites last night and he ate the whole bowl in one sitting! Read on to learn how to make these easy organic yogurt bites for your little ones.
What you will need:
organic yogurt
icing bag
glass pan
Step 1: Mix the Yogurt Using a wooden spoon I mixed strawberry and blackberry yogurt together.
Step 2: Make Yogurt Bites Using an icing bag, pipe bite sized dots onto a glass pan.
Step 3: Freeze the Yogurt Bites Place the glass pan in the freeze for 30 minutes, or less if you would like a softer texture.
Step 4: Eat and Enjoy! Remove the yogurt bites from the glass pan with a spatula, place in a bowl and eat immediately!
