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Healthy Kids party food

and recipes

Giving healthy kids party food can go against all your principles, unless you get hold of some delicious alternatives.

My friend Miriam and I gave very different kinds of parties for our 3 year olds and party boxes, drinks, cakes, and platters all formed part of our serving of healthy kids party food. But we both also chose food according to our healthy eating principles.

Miriam’s party for Jade was at her home for a smallish group of moms and kids (8 moms, 12 kids - Dads were given the day off because Miriam’s husband were out on a job). Her food was planned so that kids and moms could eat off the same buffet of platters while kids play informally with toys, in the inflatable swimming pool and on the grass. She had a beautiful simple birthday cake and at the end of the party each kid received a small party pack to take home.

My party for Benjamin was at a model train station where the 23 kids could ride the model train as often as they like while parents chat or go on the rides with them. Kids received party boxes with all they needed while I set out a few platters of eats for parents with self help tea and coffee. I made an intricate party cake, a steam engine pulling a coal wagon. No extra party packs were handed out at the end. Both parties were very successful and in spite of their difference, our food had much in common.

Drinks

We always have plenty of fresh water with lemon or mint available. Miriam had lovely fruity teas while I had a little 250ml fresh grape juice for each kid with his box. Parents could make their own coffee or tea. I made sure to include a caffeine free chicory alternative for coffee drinkers and fresh lemon verbena leaves (my mom’s idea) for herbal tea from my garden. Even if nobody drank of these, they could raise some awareness just by being on the table as options.

Miriam’s fruit tea:

Mix a litre of cold pressed fruit juice with cooled herbal tea (rooibos or honey bush are yummy local teas to use) It stretches the juice and your rands. Cold pressed juice is best because there is no heat involved that kills all the good stuff like enzymes in the juice.

Party platters

No healthy party presentation is complete without the platters of fresh fruit and vegetable crudités.

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Fresh fruit platters:

Miriam served bite size pieces of nectarine, naarjie, kiwi fruit, apple and banana symmetrically arranged on a square platter accompanied by a dip of Vanila flavoured yoghurt mixed with fat free cottage cheese. (Vanilla flavouring is usually synthetic and there are some people who are allergic to it. Make your own by adding honey and natural vanilla to plain yoghurt).

Petro served larger than bite sized pieces of fresh sweet melon, pine apple, kiwi fruit peaches and naartjie wedges. (our parties were obviously in the same month, because the same fruits were in season. This is a good tip: don’t serve refrigerated foods that have been stored. The fresher the better and the cheaper.) These were arranged on a circular plate accompanied with a dip of creamed cottage cheese and yoghurt mixed with hney ( no sugar no flavourants or colourants).

Vegetable platters:

Carrot sticks, sweet pepper strips, cucumber sticks and cherry tomatoes served on a a platter decorated with mixed organic lettuce leaves (from our own gardens) and accompanied with a dip. Miriam’s dip was yoghurt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, mayonaise, tomato sauce, garlic, seasoned with Ina Parman’s preservative free veggie stock powder (sauces like mayonnaise and tomato sauce should be home made, but if not , check for the minimum amount of additives).

She also added hard boiled eggs and cheese pieces (probably mozzarella – we steer clear from hard yellow cheeses) which adds something special and helps to get the kids’ tummies full.

Petro’s dip was humus based, but I had to cheat because I had no Tahini. Here is the recipe: a tin of chick peas (water and all) juice from one lemon, half an avocado pear, one garlic clove, half a teaspoon of cumin seeds crushed in a mortar with pessel, and, instead of the usual half a cup of tahini, I used 2 table spoons each of chutney and mayonnaise (I wish I could say it was home made, but both of these were shop bought and while both had some additives, I always make sure I get the brand with the least junk in it). Wizz it all up in a food processor until smooth and whalah!

Cracker platters:

We both had platters of health crackers such as rice crackers, provita’s (I like the multi grain version because of the reduced wheat) rye crackers and corn chips (we always try to find one with natural flavourings, or stick to the original version). Miriam always serves her crackers with a block of delicious cream cheese topped with a sweet chilli sauce (She confessed: “The chilli sauce I actually never checked for ingredients, funny enough.., it's just the one I know people always use and it's just fantastic. In fact, now that you mention it - I think I must try and design a sweet chilli sauce sometime soon! Glenn (husband) does a really hot one, but since I'm a wimp I think it’s worth while trying to make my own)

She also whipped up a most delicious salmon pate with a tin of salmon, onion, garlic, dill, lemon juice, yoghurt, bit of tom ato sauce, fat free smooth cottage cheese and seasoning. (Like any artist she too looses herself in the creation momentarily, so this may not be a complete list, and amounts are left up to you to improvise.. That happens to you too? We are all artists in some respects aren’t we?) . I did not serve anything extra with my crackers – they could go with either of the two dips I already provided.

Cakes and sweets

Both our cakes were rich chocolate cakes. Miriam’s plain single layer round cake was decorated with hearts and flowers. She made the hearts by placing heart shaped pieces of paper on top of the cake and sprinkling rice milk powder over it and then removing the paper revealing the hearts. She found fresh delicate flowers in her garden to round off the decoration.

See Miriam’s recipe: LINK PICTURE

Here is her comment about her cake:

"Birthday cake is normally smooth - So the perfect, slightly rounded top of the cake that was ckracked in one place, I now cracked all over to make it consistent. Then, when I found out I didn't have caster sugar (deja vu), the best I could come up with was rice milk powder. And since I've always got lime geranium in the garden I used the leaves and flowers to garnish. The green wilted really quickly though, but if it gets served quickly it's all fine."

My train cake took team work between me and my husband. I baked chocolate cake of three types. Two chocolate cakes, one batch with wheat flower, one batch with rye flour and a rice flour swiss roll. We constructed the cake from these shapes.

Instead of the ghastly butter icing that usually provides the solution for decorating a cake to look like the thing you want, I tried something different. Most of the cake was just the bare chocolate cake, but a few key surfaces were spread with a thin layer of apricot jam and sprinkled with blue vermecilli (Benjamin’s choice of colour for his train). The rest were done with accessories: rice cakes with yoghurt topping for wheels, a Icecream cone for a chimney and wafer biscuits for the sides of the coal wagon. The coals themselves were date balls (see sugar free, dairy free, wheat free but delicious recipe).

The unhealthiest part of the cake was the wafer biscuits. I cringed when I read the list of ingredients, but I did not have a better idea.

Why do we like using chocolate cake for birthday cakes? Easy, a good chocolate cake makes icing redundant and without icing a lot of sugar and fat is cut out.. Also, you can use brown sugar and brown or wheat free flours because their colour and density adds to the richness of the cake. Take note: it must me a dark moist chocolate cake with a lot of cocoa, not one of those where the cocoa just colours the batter slightly. Finally, parents love it just as much as the kids do.

Party packs/boxes

Miriam’s going away party packs . A personalised brown paper bag with popcorn, two balloons still to be blown up and bubbles. Great tip: minimise the food by giving more toys.

My party boxes served a different purpose. They were intended to contain all the party food the kid would need and each could take home what he /she did not finish at the party. I bought white loaf shape cake boxes and for a week Benjamin drew or painted on some each afternoon to decorate them for the party. This was my mom’s idea and was wonderful for involving him in the preparations. Gerhi drew wheels on each and wrote each child’s name on a box. They were lined up behind the steam engine as trucks.

Inside every party box were:

• A packet of dried fruit large raisins, crisp banana chips and pine apple squares, no sulphur dioxide. (I had them made up by the dried food stall at our local farmers market , R3 a bag and cheepr than crisps)
• A guava fruit roll (some sulphar dioxide here unfortunately)
• 2 pieces of peanut brittle (some sugar here)
• A marshmallow (the toasted coconut kind – no colours or flavours added)
• A fresh naartjie (tangerine)
• A packet of home made popcorn (Miriam was braver than I was, hers had no salt on it)
• A Pair of plastic sunglasses

My mom asked me before hand if I was not scared of criticism by either the parents or the children (she recalled some rolling eyes and uncertainty of her friends and nasty remarks by some of my friends at paries when we were little). I said I did not care. It is time someone takes a stand and do it with conviction. Kids so often don’t eat much at parties anyway, for whatever reason.

As for parents...my concern was more that they will feel criticised, especially since we had been to so many of their kids’ parties over the last few months. Still, I had to do what I had to do. In fact, as was the case at Miriam’s party, so many moms congratulated us and said they would steal some of our ideas. It is so important to start a community awareness around health and healthy treats: so let your kids party food become a topic for discussion and conversation. It must start somewhere.

Petro Janse van Vuuren