Healthy Wheat-free Pumpkin Cakes

These super-moist, healthy pumpkin cakes will be sure to please your kids! They are wheat-free, refined sugar-free, and yet they still manage to fill the kitchen with the delightful scent of autumn baking, and to satisfy tummies with the pleasant pumpkin taste that goes with the season. My kids enjoy turning their cakes into jack-o-lanterns by adding chocolate chips.

Healthy Wheat-free Pumpkin Cakes

4 eggs
1/3 c. agave nectar
1/4 tsp. stevia powder
1 c. extra virgin coconut oil
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree
2 cups barley flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
** grain-sweetened chocolate chips (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, mix the eggs, agave, stevia, oil and pumpkin with a mixer until well-blended. Slowly add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, stirring until thoroughly combined.

Spread the batter evenly into a large ungreased baking pan (I use a 15-inch x 10-inch x 2-inch Pyrex baking dish, but two smaller dishes could also be used).

Bake for 25 minutes. Cool, then use pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter to cut pumpkin cakes. Add grain-sweetened chocolate chips for jack-o-lantern faces.

Note: These can also be cut into bars and/or topped with a cream cheese frosting (try tinting yours with some natural orange food coloring).

Turtle Salmon Salads

This was a really fun lunch for my kids. As they ate, we read about turtles in our animal encyclopedia. We learned some cool facts. Did you know that the outer segments on a turtle's shell are called "plates?" Did you know turtles don't have teeth? We also found out that they eat fish, birds, worms, insects, and the soft part of plants.



Here's what I used:

Body - wild caught salmon mixed with Trader Joe's regular mayonnaise, shaped into a roundish mound
Plates - organic baby spinach leaves
Head - baby carrot
Eyes - grain-sweetened chocolate chips, cut small
Mouth - tiny piece of raw beet
Feet - cucumbers, cut to shape
Tail - baby carrot, cut into a little triangle shape

I served them with Sweet Mustard Dressing on the side, and organic tortilla chips (which represented desert sand - my boys used them to scoop up the salmon mixture).

Here is a picture of the body without the plates. As you can see, he's already had a few scoops taken out of him at this point, but at least you get the idea of how the base was formed.

Emperor Tamarin Shredded Chicken Salads

This was my husband's attempt to make Emperor Tamarin faces (complete with mustaches). He was going from memory as he put these together, and he thinks the final versions ended up more like orangutans. But our boys were quiet pleased with the end result and talked the rest of the day about their Emperor Tamarin lunches.

Here's what he used:

Head - homemade shredded barbecue chicken (see below for recipe)
Hair - raw, grated beets
Ears - thin slices of organic apple
Snout - sliced apples
Mustache - thin raw beet shreds
Eyes - apple and grain-sweetened chocolate chips
Jungle - organic baby lettuce mix

*Each child got a small container of Sweet Mustard dressing for dipping.

Kid Feed Mommy's Shredded Barbecue Chicken

1 bag frozen boneless, skinless chicken thighs (2 lbs., 8 oz.)
2 bay leaves
sea salt
pepper
organic, refined sugar-free bbq sauce (we like Organicville Original BBQ sauce)

Place chicken thighs in a large stock pot and cover with water. Add bay leaves. Bring to boil, then keep on a high simmer for 40-60 minutes, or until the meat is easily falling apart when you stick a fork in it.

Remove from pot and set aside to cool (you can reserve the broth for use in other recipes, if desired, or discard). Allow chicken to cool until you can comfortably handle it (approx. 15-20 minutes).

With clean hands, shred the chicken and place in a large mixing bowl, removing all fat as you go. Once chicken has been shredded, shake on sea salt and pepper, to taste. Stir with wooden spoon to mix. Then pour on the bbq sauce, to taste and mix with wooden spoon. I do about 1/2 c., but some may like it to be more sauce-heavy. (Because it's expensive, I like to do as little as possible while still acheiving a nice consistency and good flavor.)

Store in covered container in refrigerator. Keeps for several days and is great on salads, sandwiches, or even by itself!

Open-Faced Black Bean and Cream Cheese Sandwich

Sometimes things don't turn out the way I imagined. Originally with this lunch I tried to make panda faces, but as they came together I knew they would never pass for pandas. Since my plan had failed, I tried to work with what I already had to make something recognizable.


I couldn't decide if it was a raccoon or a husky sled dog (one of my boys picked raccoon, and the other boy picked sled dog).

Here's what I used:

Face, ears, nose and whiskers - brown rice bread, cut into desired shapes (there is a small piece cut for the nose and placed on top of the face piece to give the face more dimension; the ear pieces are also cut separately and set on top of the face piece.)
White fur - Spread cream cheese all over the face bread piece.
Brown fur - Spread black beans (or beans of your choice) in the desired pattern on and around the face and on the nose bread piece.
Eyes - grain-sweetened chocolate chips

Toucan Salad for Kids

My creative husband designed these awesome Toucan salads for our kids. I've never seen them so happy to eat greens!



Here's what he used:

Beak - 2 organic pink lady apple slices
Head - piece of buckwheat cake
Eye - grain-sweetened chocolate chip
Body/Feathers - organic mixed baby lettuce
Legs/Feet - baby carrots, cut to desired shape
Toucan's food - homegrown red clover sprouts

*Each kid also had a little bowl of natural salad dressing for dipping.

Variations on a Lion Lunch

My husband came up with this "lion in the jungle" lunch for the kids over the weekend. After they ate their lions, he added a "river" (not pictured) which was made out of homemade sweet mustard dressing so they could dip the jungle leaves into the river.



Here's what he used:

Face - wild caught Alaskan salmon mixed with Trader Joe's mayo
Eyes - grain sweetened chocolate chips
Snout - carrots
Ears - carrots
Whiskers - shredded Tillamook cheddar cheese
Jungle - organic spinach leaves
River - sweet mustard dressing

Today I served my own variation of the lion lunch for the boys. I like my husbands version better because it's a more balanced meal. Mine is way too carb heavy for my liking, but they enjoyed it (of course)! I used my husband's river tactic to help them eat their jungle leaves.


Here's what I used:

Face - brown rice bread
Mane - organic round tortilla chips (Trader Joe's) and shredded Tillamook pepperjack and cheddar
Eyebrows or Ears - Tillamook cheddar cheese
Snout - Tillamook cheddar cheese
Whiskers - shredded Tillamook cheddar cheese
Mouth - carrot
Eyes - whipped cream cheese
Pupils - grain sweetened chocolate chips
Jungle - organic spinach leaves
River - sweet mustard dressing

Tiger Cheese "Sandwich"

A cheese sandwich is even more delicious when it looks like a tiger! It wasn't long after our elephant tuna sandwiches that my boys asked if they could have tigers for lunch.


Here's what I used:

Face, ears and snout - brown rice bread, cut into desired shapes
Stripes - Tillamook cheddar cheese
Eyes - cream cheese
Pupils - grain-sweetened chocolate chips
Whiskers - cucumbers
Tongue - spaghetti sauce

Elephant Tuna "Sandwich"

My kids love animals, so they are bound to eat any food that resembles an animal (as I so happily discovered during the Easter season when they ate bunny faces and egg bunnies). My 3-year-old asked me to make him an elephant. Tuna was on the menu for lunch that day, and I decided to use the tuna in my elephant creation. Would they eat it, I wondered? Sure enough, they devoured their Elephant Tuna Sandwiches. I even replaced the "eyes" a couple of times so they'd eat more veggies.


Here's what I used:

Face and trunk - brown rice bread
Ears - tongol tuna mixed with natural mayo
Eyes - cucumbers
Pupils - grain-sweetened chocolate chips
Mouth - apple slice

Jack-O-Lantern Cookies

October is here! This time of year I start thinking about the great scents and tastes of the season. Pumpkin is one of my favorites. I enjoy coming up with special treats for my family to match the time of year. Last year I made these jack-o-lantern cookies and will most definitely make them again.

To make the cookies, use the Sugar Cookie recipe from Sweet Savvy and cut them out with a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter. Once you have baked the cookies, you can use any frosting recipe you like. I prefer to use a simple cream cheese/butter recipe:

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 c. butter, softened
4 T. honey or agave
1 t. vanilla

Beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Beat in honey or agave. Add vanilla.

Color the frosting to your liking using Seelect Natural orange flavoring.

You can frost the cookies and leave them as plain pumpkins, or you can use grain-sweetened chocolate chips to create the jack-o-lantern faces.

Healthy S'mores

In honor of Labor Day, I thought I would share our family's alternative S'mores recipe. This recipe was created two years ago for a 4th of July barbecue and is now a tradition for holiday meals. We've even done these over a barbecue pit at the beach.

Healthy S'mores

Mi-Del graham crackers
Bananas, cut into marshmallow sized chunks
Grain sweetened chocolate chips

Prepare "chocolate bars" in advance by melting grain sweetened chocolate chips on the stove top (a double boiler works best), then pour into a wax paper lined Pyrex dish and refrigerate until hardened. Break into chocolate bar sized pieces.

Roast banana chunks over an open fire or grill on a BBQ until they reach desired doneness.

Piece together your S'more by sandwiching a chocolate bar and a roasted banana between two graham crackers.