kid friendly recipes (m)

[Idahoveggiemom]

I am needing some kid friendly recipes that contain no sugar. I have to provide the snacks for our church nursery since my son is the only vegan in there and the worker has been giving him cheetos, chips and cookies. I have worked extra hard at making sure he stayed away from the sugar, dairy and such. So, I am buying a pin that says "Im a healthy happy vegankid, No meat, eggs or dairy please." That way it will help remind her. She gave it to shut him up basically knowing good and well I was agains it. Anyways, I am needing some good finger snacks. I've got a few ideas, but don't want to bring the same thing all the time! Any help would be appreciated!

[Erin Pavlina]

Raisins
Granola Bars
Luna Bars
Trail Mix or nuts (if he's old enough for them)
Grapes (if he's old enough)
Graham crackers
Veggie sticks (carrots, celery, etc.)

[Christa]

Again, if he is old enough, maybe some popcorn with nutritional yeast or something on it that he likes.

Also, you could make some mini muffins (we have some tiny muffin tins that make cute little muffins), if you have time.

If you are not too opposed, you could buy those vegi sticks that are made out of potato flour and other vegis and look like long skinny Funyuns (sp?) - they are vegan, but not low in fat. Maybe some vegan chips or cookies if they are insistent on giving him those things anyway - at least you could send healthy ones.

[frenchie]

banannas "sticks" rolled in sesame seeds
Mother's Peanut Butter Bumper's cereal
apple wedges
pretzels
peanut butter & bannana finger sandwiches

[go4green]

I would be so mad, if somebody gave my child food they knew she couldn't have. These are all great ideas, I know I will have to pack food even when I leave my daughter alone with her grandparents ( they live far away, so we haven't done that yet).

I just called and, Tropicana orange juice is vegan, even the calcium fortified one. Apparently they have some smaller packaging, kid targeted, fortified o.j. that's also vegan.
All tropicana juice is vegan except the smoothie-gelatin.

Beware! Minute Maid fortified orange juice contains animal products.

Corn chips
Homemade fruit cups, there are even some canned fruit (pears and peaches) that are sweetened with fruit juice, time saver.
There's a company that makes sugar free popsicles that are just fruit juice.
Applesauce squeez tubes, (hmmmm, can't remember that company either maybe walnut acres)
A chunk/stick of that packaged ready to eat baked tofu (instead of the meat sticks others feed toddlers, it looks the same:)

Can't wait to try some of the other ideas people have posted!Good luck~Jenna

[Erin Pavlina]

Regarding Minute Maid orange juice... we called their 800 number several months ago to discuss the source of their calcium fortification. It was from limestone... vegan. Do you have information to the contrary?

[go4green]

Calcium lactate on the ingredients label, a derivative of lactic acid, usually animal derived. Minute Maid's is from limestone? I "thought" that Calcium carbonate, was derived from limestone??? Sorry, I obviously need to look into it more, thanks for correcting me. ~Jenna

[vegma]

I called Minute Maid a few weeks ago and they assured me that there were no animal products in the orange juice, but I couldn't get details...

[Butterflynjesus]

I have lots of recipes but wonder what the age is first. One thing I make the kids love is peanut butter balls. We put a vegan high fiber flake cereal in a baggy & crush with a rolling pin. This is mixed then with grated carrots & creamy peanut butter. The kids love to roll them up into bite sized balls & eat wtih chilled soy or rice milk. Hmmmm

Sometimes when I want to make it extra special I'll dust with a tiny bit of vegan powdered sugar but we almost never do that. You of course are trying to stay away from sugar.

I like Barbara's organic Go Go's grahmn crackers but they do have sugar. (not refined)

We keep Stretch Island organic fruit snacks on hand. There sugar free & are healthier then those fake fruit roll ups. Are you trying to find things to keep on hand at church or to bring with you?

I have learned that I can't avoid sugar all together (I don't even do that) but I can avoid refined sugars for the most part & so I'm sending in newmans O's (like oreos) that are vegan, organic & don't use refined sugar. I figure if he can have one at Children's Church & not feel left out It's all good. I have to keep them hidden cause he'll want them for breakfast though so I understand wanting to limit sugars. If he likes chips I have a recipe for baked chips using sweet potato & regular potato.

Banana rolled up in vegan crushed grahmn crackers are good too. Or how about fruit kabobs? Yummmy

Good luck!

[lijahbaby]

speaking of minute maid ,they have a new o.j fortified with D3.Am I wrong or is all D3 animal derived?

[Idahoveggiemom]

I know I should have put his age and the range of kids I will be providing snacks for. I want to take the snacks for the entire bunch of kids. My son is 15 months old (the youngest one there) up to 3 years old.
I know that I can't totally avoid sugar, but refined sugar is what I am trying to mainly stay away from and white flours. I have found him to do pretty well with avoiding refined sugar and bleached white flour.
Thank your for your ideas. I've searched and searched online for some vegan recipes and they are far and few between so I decided to post here. Thanks!

[Erin Pavlina]

Lijahbaby... D3 is sheep derived, yes. We want D2.

Idahoveggiemom: have you been to www.vegweb.com? They have an extremely large collection of recipes there. I've found some gems there.

[go4green]

I just have to say that vegweb's recipe section is awesome! I like that it has a section for various vegetables. Say I have some brocolli in the fridge I need to cook, click on brocolli and bam! 10+ vegetarian recipes for brocoli or bok choy or whatever you might have in the fridge. What a terrific resource!

...back to the o.j. I was pretty happy with Tropicana's response to my questions, for me, if Horizon is not available, I will stick with Tropicana.

Butterflynjesus, I hope you post baked chips using sweet potato & regular potato recipe, sounds yummy.

Idahoveggiemom, I love all the recipes I have read here, it's wonderful that you are doing this for your childs group~Jenna

[alexis]

i used to make snacks for the little kids in my mom's sunday school class. Some of the things they like are oatmeal cookies with lots of raisins for sweetness, apple slices and peanut butter and tiny sandwiches cut into small animal shapes. Baked sweet potatoes and steamed sweet corn kernels are pretty good snacks too and some how kids find them very interesting.

[capersmama]

A huge "snacky" hit around my house is peanut butter tortillas.

The tortilla is thin enough for smaller hands to grasp.

[go4green]

Did anyone mention "Veggie Bootie"? My 1 year old loves it and it's high in calcium (for a snack food) and no sugar:)

[GranolaMommy]

Table for Two (by Joanne Stepaniak) has some good simple things.

Some particular choices from there are Crunchy Fruit crisps (basically apple slices, pear wedges and banana quarters with nut butter smeared on one side and dipped in crisped rice cereal.)

Another is Flying saucer "candy bars" which use rice cakes, nut butter shredded coconut, raisins and a carob fudge sauce recipe from the book)

Trader Joe's makes healthy vegan cereal bars (like nutragrain) in apple and strawberry flavors.

Banana bread
mini tofu "egg salad" sandwiches and baby carrots

[bachlva]

Everyone has great ideas... I need to go check out vegweb.com too...

I just want to ditto that I would be SOOO irritated [to put it nicely] that someone gave my child food they *knew* he was not to be eating [b/c I told them]. Ugh! There are so many good things to eat & give kids to eat besides junk! I will never understand why people give kids junk. But then, it's usually b/c they eat junk themselves.

Sorry to rant on! But if more people at least ate *healthy* [vegan or not], we wouldn't have to make and bring all our food to other people's houses all the time! Grr.

baked tofu is a good idea [as a meat substitution], it's processed, but is good for finger food and easy for others to do... I think that's key - you have to make it easy for people or they won't do it.

Good luck!