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5 healthy back to school lunch box ideas

Recipes, health, Lunch, Uncategorized, Vegetarian

This year has been a very strange and difficult one. Going back to school is no exception to this, it will be different than it has been in past years. There will undoubtably be rules around social distancing, more hand washing and different ways of interacting with friends. All of which will be new and perhaps a little intimidating to children.

One way you can inject some fun and familiarity into their day is with their lunch! A packed lunch is a little bit of home that children can look forward to each day. Have fun with it and get creative, there is much more to a packed lunch then a cheese sandwich!

Here are some simple suggestions to get you started

  1. Pack a burrito bowl box – Add cooked rice, chicken or black beans (or both) top with guacamole and salsa and some grated cheese. Throw a few tortilla chips in and you are done!
  2.  Quesadilla- instead of a traditional sandwich make a quesadilla. It may sound tricky but it is very easy to put together, Fill half a tortilla with your desired filling (the choices are endless, beans, chicken, roasted veg) add some grated cheese to hold it all together. Place the filled wrap into a heated dry frying pan and crisp the shell on both sides, cut into wedges and put in the lunch box. These quesadillas go well with sliced avocado, chopped carrots or sweet potato crisps.
  3. Pasta salad- use cold pasta and pesto as the base to the salad. Depending on what your child likes to eat add some toppings. I find cucumber, cherry tomatoes and black olives go well. Add some chopped vegetables on the side.
  4. Peanut butter and banana wrap. Smoother a whole wheat wrap with natural peanut butter and a whole banana to the middle of the wrap, fold it and cut in half.  A great side to this is fresh berries and natural yogurt.
  5. Do a breakfast for lunch swap- Have a hard-boiled egg, mini pancakes, fresh fruit and natural yogurt instead of a traditional lunch. This one will keep the kids smiling!

Don’t be afraid to have fun and get creative with your children’s lunchboxes. Get your children involved with brainstorming ideas, they may come up some great ideas you haven’t thought of yet!

Simple breakfast

Recipes, Breakfast, Vegetarian

Enjoy!

Print Recipe

Simple breakfast

Easy. full of protein and great taste
Prep Time10 mins
Course: Breakfast
Keyword: breakfast, delicious, morning, Simple, vegan
Servings: 1
Cost: £2

Ingredients

  • Crunchy peanut butter
  • Sourdough bread
  • Banana slices

Fresh spinach, beet and bean salad

Recipes, Salads & Dressings, Vegetarian

This is my go to salad. Easy to make, packed with nutrients and really tasty! This salad makes a great lunch to take on the go.

Print Recipe

Fresh Spinach, Beet and Bean Salad

Prep Time20 mins
Course: Salad
Keyword: delicious, fresh, healthy, vegan, vegetarian
Servings: 2 people
Author: Jennifer Nunez
Cost: £5

Ingredients

  • 1 bag spinach
  • 1 cooked beets
  • 1/2 red onion
  • 1 large tomato
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • 1 can kidney beans
  • 1 lemon (juice)
  • 1 tsp dill
  • 2 pinch salt

Instructions

  • Chop onion and squeeze in lemon to soften the onion
  • Add a pinch of salt to onion and lemon
  • Clean and chop all other vegetables
  • Add to a large bowl.
  • Top with beans, onion mixture and dill

Instant Pot Vegan Corn & Red Potato Soup

Recipes, Instant Pot, Soups & Stews, Vegan, Vegetarian

I love making soup in my Instant pot. It took a while for me to get used to using the different settings and figure out how to create the food I enjoy, but once I did there was no going back. With the instant pot I can create flavourful, quick meals that are also very healthy. The instant pot requires little or no oil when cooking enhancing the healthiness of your dish. Unlike making a soup on the stove top I can put ingredients into the instant pot, set the timer and walk away! A great way to cook a nutritious meal on a busy night!

Print Recipe

Instant Pot Vegan Corn & Red Potato Soup

Easy, warming vegan soup
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time4 mins
Course: Soup
Keyword: delicious, fresh, Simple, soup, vegan, vegetarian
Servings: 4
Cost: £5

Ingredients

  • 3 cobs Fresh corn with corn kernels removed (reserve a small amount for garnish)
  • 3 small red potatoes
  • 1 medium onion (sliced)
  • 4 cups vegetable broth
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp Tabasco (or other hot sauce)
  • salt (to taste)
  • pepper (to taste)
  • 2 tbsp nutritional yeast to add cheese-like flavour (OPTIONAL)

Instructions

  • Put corn, onion, potatoes, vegetable stock and seasoning (except for nutritional yeast) into an instant pot.
  • Close and seal the lid and set for 4 minutes on manual (high pressure)
  • When done release steam manually (open the vent and let steam escape) add nutritional yeast and adjust seasonings
  • For garnish, sliced salad onion and reserved corn kernels
  • Enjoy!

Enjoy!

Vegan French Toast

Recipes, Breakfast, Vegan, Vegetarian

Delicious for a lazy day brunch. Extra yummy 😋 when topped with berries, soy Greek yogurt, and pure maple 🍁 syrup. This French toast is quite is easy to make and quantaties can easily be increased to feed a larger crowd.

Print Recipe

Vegan French Toast

Delicious breakfast to start the day
Prep Time20 mins
Cook Time10 mins
Course: Breakfast
Keyword: delicious, morning, vegan
Servings: 1
Cost: £3

Equipment

  • Frying pan

Ingredients

  • 2 slices seeded sourdough bread
  • 1 cup nut milk (I use unsweetened almond milk)
  • 1/2 tbsp chia seeds
  • 1 pinch cinnamon powder
  • 1 pinch salt

Instructions

  • Mix all ingredients together (except for the bread) and let it sit for 10-20 minutes to thicken slightly
  • Heat up a pan
  • Add a teaspoon of vegan butter to the pan
  • Dip bread into mixture for a few seconds and put onto hot pan.
  • Cook until golden and crispy

Enjoy 😊!!

Guilt-free Butter Coffee

Beverages, Recipes, Vegetarian

How to make butter coffee a nice and guilt-free treat to sip on

When my friend first told me about butter coffee a few months ago I wanted to choke. My instinctual reaction was immediate horror.

Butter, in coffee? I thought to myself. Ewww gross!

“No, I swear it’s not that bad,” my friend said when he saw the look on my face.

Intrigued, I watched as my friend stuck a metal spoon in a jar of coconut oil. He stirred around the coconut oil and then took the spoon back out. I briefly saw shimmering coconut oil within the spoon before my friend twisted the spoon and dumped the oil into steaming hot coffee.

He now swirled the coffee that was now mixed with coconut oil. The oil floated to the top of the hot coffee and made little shiny tan bubbles. My friend withdrew the metal spoon out of the hot coffee. The hot coffee had made the metal spoon hot.

My friend then took the hot metal spoon and put the tip of the spoon on the top corner of a stick of butter. He sliced downward with the spoon, cleanly slicing the corner of the butter stick.

He then plopped the small piece of butter in the coffee which was steaming and whisked the coffee with the spoon. After a minute of whisking, my friend asked me if I would like to try it, and I said I would.

I sipped on it.

Not bad.

Butter coffee is nice, but not a game changer

After my friend left, I became very intrigued with butter coffee. I found a few good articles online for both the pro’s and con’s of butter coffee. Here’s an interesting article about some of the purported scientific benefits of butter coffee.

  • Slower caffeine absorption means less jitters
  • Extra taste
  • Good gut bacteria

On the other hand, I also found a few potential downsides. If you are curious about butter coffee, I’d suggest reading those two articles to get a balanced perspective.

Here are my thoughts

Butter coffee can be a nice guilt-free treat. At first I was worried about calories, but after some experimentation I feel totally fine because the number of calories is minimal.

Sure, some articles online recommend 1-2 tablespoons of butter, or around 200 calories. But to me this amount is excessive. Two tablespoons of butter simply doesn’t taste that much better. When I add butter to my coffee, I use around half a tablespoon, or around 50 calories.

For the coconut oil in terms of calories I use one small spoonful, which comes at around 25-50 calories. So total amount of calories is about 75-100.

Not bad.

A little treat here and there is fine.

This is the main reason I’d recommend butter coffee – because a little treat here and there is fine. As a bonus, this little treat happens to feel decadent and luxurious too.

All I know is that when I sip butter coffee it feels like I immediately just want to savor the drink. Admittedly, sometimes I splash in a bit of coffee creamer for additional flavor too. Yet just the butter and oil are fine by themselves too.

What about the seemingly magical benefits of butter coffee?

If you read some of these articles about butter coffee you might hear all sorts of things:

I don’t know about all those things. I would not recommend butter coffee as some sort of enhanced Coffee 2.0.

The only thing I notice is that butter coffee starts to impact me slower – which might lend itself to less jitters.

When I normally drink coffee, I start noticing the effects of energy and focus about 30 minutes after I finish my cup. With butter coffee, I notice the effects later maybe around 60 minutes after I drink.

I feel like the effects of butter coffee are more subdued and spread out over time. My focus, for example when on butter coffee, seems to last a bit longer when drinking butter coffee versus regular coffee.

But honestly the differences between coffee and butter coffee are minuscule. They affect me both pretty much the same.

But I love exploring food related themes so even if minuscule, it’s the exploration and discovery that counts! This idea about the journey and exploration and discovery is why I started blogging about food in the first place.

Overall, there are other drinks out there that might surprise you, like a nutritious kefir drink.

Go ahead and try butter coffee just for the heck of it!

Print Recipe

Guilt-free Butter Coffee

Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Vegetarian

Ingredients

  • 1 cup hot coffee
  • 1 tsp. organic coconut oil
  • 1 tab unsalted butter

Instructions

  • Start with hot coffee, coconut oil, and butter. I am using grass-fed unsalted butter and organic coconut oil.
  • Take a teaspoon full of coconut oil and put it in the coffee. Stir it around. You’ll see some glimmering bubbles from the oil.
  • Then use the hot spoon to slice off a tab of butter. Stir it all together.

Optional:

  • Instead of using a spoon to blend the oil, butter and coffee together you can also use a food processor. This is what I usually do. If you use a food processor, the spinning blades will mix in more air and oxygen. There will be more froth.