Homemade Banana Nut Fruit Bars

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In an effort to start eating less processed foods {even "healthy", organic processed foods}, I went searching for a recipe for homemade Larabars. We LOVE Larabars. BUT. They are expensive and when you need at least 2 to feed the kids, it can add up quickly. I wanted a cost effective way that didn't use 800 ingredients. I came across a few recipes, but really wanted to use what I had on hand so after seeing that I could dry bananas and use those, in addition to dates, I set out to create this recipe.
You'll need to dry your bananas first. I'm not sure how store bought dried bananas would work because these need to be somewhat sticky and help hold the bar together.  Set your oven to 170 degrees {that's as low as mine goes}. Cut your bananas into slices lengthwise and place on a drying rack. 

Place drying rack on top of a cookie sheet to catch any bits that may fall off during the drying process. Place in the oven and allow to dry for 8-10 hours. I started my batch at 2pm and turned off the oven at 10:30pm and left the bananas in the oven overnight. They were the perfect consistency in the morning. Recipe: Homemade Banana Nut Fruit Bars What You'll Need: 3 bananas (dried first - see above for drying instructions) 1/4 c or approximately 8 small dates (this is the type we use from Costco) 1/2 c sunflower seeds 1/4 c other nuts (almonds, cashews, hickory nuts, peanuts, etc.) Blend dried bananas and dates in food processor until they form a sticky dough. It should clump into a ball.  Blend in sunflower seeds and other nuts {we used peanuts this go round} until finely chopped. Turn out onto wax or parchment paper and form into a ball with your hands. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and press the dough into the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate for 1 hour.  Cut into desired size.  We used peanuts this time because it's what I had on hand. You could also form these into balls instead of bars.  Based on the ingredients I used, these bars cost about $.31 a piece. When making 6 bars this saves me almost $1 per bar based on the price of Larabars at our Trader Joe's. Worth it! Follow The Iowa Farmer's Wife on Instagram, Twitter, & Pinterest

Insta Meals Monday: Broccoli Slaw Salad

I got this recipe from a meeting I went to about a month ago and adapted it for our family. I left out the Ramen noodles, the seasoning that comes with it and Bacon Bits, and revamped the sauce to include Bragg's Liquid Aminos. The sauce also called for a 1/2 c of sugar which I omitted. 

It still turned out AMAZING. This is seriously my new favorite side dish...and who I am kidding? I'd totally eat it as a main course. We've paired it with portobello mushroom burgers and gluten-free pizza.

The Recipe: Broccoli Slaw Salad

What you need:

1 pkg broccoli slaw (I found organic at Trader Joe's for $1.99)

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese (or cheese of choice)

1/4 c shelled sunflower seeds

1/2 c slivered or shaved almonds 

1/4 c rice vinegar

1/4 c olive oil

1/4 c Bragg's Liquid Aminos 

Mix broccoli slaw, cheese, sunflowers seeds and almonds in a large bowl. Pour sauce ingredients into a small bowl and combine. Pour sauce over slaw, stir to combine and serve! 

We eat it immediately, but it's also delish leftover or chilled for a few hours. 

To be honest, I didn't even know they MADE broccoli slaw until I tried this salad at the meeting. Now I'm hooked! You'll never know you're eating broccoli! 

**If you're unfamiliar with Liquid Aminos, it's a great gluten-free alternative to soy sauce. 

Portobello burger: grilled on a skillet and served with roasted red peppers, avocado, spinach and cheese with pesto as the sauce on an Udi's gluten-free bun. Yum.

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Insta Meals Monday: Introduction & Raspberry Sorbet

Today, I'm delighted to bring you the first post in my series: Insta Meals Monday. Let me share a bit of the background that led me to this series. First off. A confession. I, The Iowa Farmer's Wife, am addicted to Instagram. There. I said it. And I have definitely fallen into the Instagram trap of photographing my food. And after several encouraging nudges (and a few phone calls from Auntie Rosita) I decided to designate Mondays as Insta Meals Monday.

Now, before you get too involved, there are a few things you should know.

1.) All meals will be vegetarian. 

2.) All posts may not be complete meals (i.e., side dish or dessert - although you just might consider dessert a meal).

3.) All meals will be gluten-free. Substitutions for gluten-free options may be suggested depending on the recipe.

4.) Meals are not based on the paleo plan, however, many meals will follow paleo guidelines.

5.) All recipes are my own unless otherwise noted.

6.) And finally, the term Insta doesn't mean that the meal will be Instant, it's simply because I post the pictures to Instagram. 

Posts will include 1 picture (pulled from Instagram) and the recipe. I don't plan to take pictures of the process or ingredients. I'll do my best to share the ingredients and where I find/purchase them. 

My goal is to make these meals/recipes and user/mom-friendly as possible without ingredients you can't find in a regular grocery store. While you may not have these items in your pantry, they won't be hard to find or locate. 

And lastly, I hope that these posts will inspire you to try to meals for you or your family, try new foods, eat less meat and eat less gluten.

Without further ado: 

The Recipe: Raspberry Sorbet

What you need:

1/2 cup Vanilla Almond Milk (I use Trader Joe's brand with no added sugar))

1.5 bananas

1 cup frozen raspberries OR blueberries

Note: I use an immersion blender for all blended recipes.

Place ingredients into a blender (or cup if using an immersion blender). Blend until smooth. If mixture is too thick, add almond milk. If mixture is too thin, add frozen raspberries until desired thickness. Serve immediately. Makes 2 small bowls of sorbet.

Can be frozen for 10-30 minutes before eating.

My kids eat this for breakfast, but we also like it for dessert. We call it ice cream because it really does taste just like raspberry sorbet, and I'm super excited to make it in the summer to eat outside! 

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3 Homemade Granola Recipes

As I've mentioned, oh, several times before, we LOVE granola. If you don't make your own granola, start! It's easy, inexpensive and AWESOME. Making it is fun and eating it is even better. It's something Sweet P and I make together on a weekly basis and our favorite part is when we mix all the ingredients by hand! Nothing like playing with your food! For more ways to play with food check out my post: 5 Ways to Play with Your Food on Let's Lasso the Moon!

Here are 3 tried and true recipes to get you started.

Plain Grrrranola

Almond Butter Granola

Pumpkin Granola

Make it. I promise you won't regret and if you have kiddos, I promise they'll ask for more. Mix it with soy milk, cow's milk, coconut milk (carton, not canned!), almond milk, rice milk, yogurt and if you're up for a treat, ice cream! And the add-ins are endless (raisins, craisins, almonds, walnuts, pecans, etc.).

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Edible Olympic Rings

I just couldn't let the Olympics go by without creating a Olympic-themed lunch for Sweet P. She was super excited about the rings, and I'm not even kidding that she'd eaten all but the bagel in about 3 minutes! And the bagel wasn't far behind!

Blue ring: red grapes
Black ring: blueberries (these would have been the blue ring, but I didn't have anything else!)
Red ring: whole wheat bagel with cheese and tomatoes
Green ring: peas
Yellow ring: corn

Sprout didn't have rings, but he did eat some peas, blueberries and corn of his own!

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Easy White Beans & Greens Recipe

Looking for an easy recipe for dinner tonight? Here it is! Quick, simple and healthy for the whole family.

NOTE: We don't use canned beans so dry beans do take preparation that will make cook time longer.

The Recipe: Easy White Beans & Greens

What you need:
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp minced garlic

1/2 marinated or fresh red bell pepper, chopped
2-3 c fresh spinach, chopped
3 1/2 c of cooked white beans OR 2 15 oz. cans of white beans
1/2 vegetable bouillon cube
1 c of boiling water
1/2 c water
1/4 c Trader Joe's shaved Parmesan, Romano and Asiago cheese (or shredded parm)

Dissolve bouillon cube in 1 cup boiling water and set aside. Heat oil on medium heat in a large skillet. Add minced garlic, cook for 2 minutes, then add red bell pepper. Saute for 2 minutes. Pour in beans, spinach, vegetable bouillon and 1/2 c water. Bring water to a boil and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Serve in bowls and to with shaved Parmesan, Romano and Asiago cheese.

These beans are also great leftover in a burrito!

Muffin Tin Monday: N is for Nest

Last week we were doing letter N activities and since not a whole lot of exciting stuff starts with N, we talked a LOT about nests! So what did Sweet P have for lunch last week? A nest, of course!

We had lunch inside the cardboard house she got for her birthday (that's why it's in a cake pan).

Nest: whole wheat spaghetti with pesto
Eggs: tiny tomatoes
Top muffin cup: spinach and sage flowers from our garden!
Center muffin cup: cottage cheese
Bottom muffin cup: strawberries

Sweet P: "Did you make me a nest for lunch?!" 

Muffin Tin Monday: Easter

These foods don't really have anything to do with Easter, but RoRo gave us these cupcake liners and picks last year so we have been using them this week.

Sweet P helped with this lunch and decided where to put the liners and picks. I prepared/cut everything and gave it to her to place in the tin. She's always excited about a lunch SHE made!

Top row: baby cucumbers, carrots, fruit strip (cut into small pieces), cheese
2nd row: brown rice, olives, almonds, chopped asparagus
3rd row: kiwi x2, tofu x2

Muffin Tin Monday: Rainbows

Sweet P asked for another rainbow this week and I decided to create one with muffin liners instead of on a plate and she gobbled it all up! She loves to stack them together once she finishes one. I made another one for dinner one night per her request and it, too, was a hit!

From left: shaved coconut, strawberries, carrots, pineapple, avocado, blueberry popsicle, cheese

Shamrock Smoothie

Sweet P and I are all about smoothies. They are quick, easy and full of all sorts of yummy goodness. They also travel great in a cup with a lid on days when Sweet P wakes up late (I'm not complaining) and we're scootin' out the door. Most of the time our smoothies end up purple because we put blueberries in just about every kind, but not these! 

Want your kid to eat some veggies? Hide them in a smoothie! Trust me, you can't even taste the spinach!

Sweet P loves helping in the kitchen so she helped pour in all the ingredients and I blended them up with our immersion blender. She drank all she wanted and we poured the rest into popsicle molds!

 The Recipe: Shamrock Smoothie

 What you need: 

1 banana

1/2 cup organic vanilla soymilk (or regular milk) 

3 heaping tbsp of organic plain or vanilla yogurt

1 cup/handful fresh spinach leaves 

1 tbsp almond butter (or peanut butter) 

Place all ingredients in a large cup (if using an immersion blender) or blender. Blend until smooth. Pour into cup and sip with a straw, ya'll.

Pour leftovers into popsicle molds and freeze for at least 2 hours. Enjoy!

Guest Post: Getting Children to Eat New Foods: St Patrick Loves Veggies

Today's guest post is from JDaniel4's Mom! As a former teacher, JDaniel4's Mom blogs about their adventures, meals and educational activities. We love reading about their activities and muffin tin meals! Today we are delighted to have JDaniel4's Mom guest post about making healthy meals fun! Read more about their adventures at: 

My name is JDaniel4’s Mom and I blog at http://www.jdaniel4smom.com. I blog about the adventures we have growing by learning, laughing, listening and learning. As the mom of four year old boy, I blog about our daily adventures including eating, playing, learning, and life in general.  


Some children love to eat whatever you put in front of them. Some children find one or two things they love to eat and make them their go to foods. Some children used to eat everything and then decided to stop eating foods they had previously loved for months. There are still more who have children who it is hard to predict what they will eat. Those of us who have happy eaters really are the lucky ones. The number of families with children that eat what they have before them seems to be rare. 


One way to try to get them to eat veggies is to present them in a new way or form or variety. Below I have constructed St. Patrick’s head using a variety of vegetables. Some of them I knew go over big with my son and some that were new to him.

My son loves sweet potato French fries. He could eat them all day long. I decided to try a variety that was a little spicy and a different shape from the kind I have purchased before. The shape change didn’t throw him. Thankfully he doesn’t really care what shape his food comes in. I know there are many of you that have kids that strongly prefer foods be the same shape and texture every time. My son did care about the flavor, he really didn’t like the spicy flavor. I gave him some ranch dip to go with the fries and they became edible and actually enjoyable to eat.
Saint Patrick’s hat is made of Italian green beans. This variety of bean is thicker and a little harder to chew than the super thin French cut green beans or traditional green beans. Again it is a change in texture and visual appearance from the green beans I usually serve. I got lucky that he really liked this style of beans. My son actually asked to have them for snack later in the week. 


The hat also has large peas in its band. Peas can be tricky with my husband and my son. They both prefer petite sweet peas. These were tolerated but, not loved at my house. Tolerated is still good. It means he was still eating the peas.


The final food in the hat is spinach. My son loves spinach. He requested that I put it in the meal. I am so lucky that he thinks it is delicious. Spinach has so many wonderful nutrients in it.


This veggie creation went over well at my house. I hope that if you have children that are limited in the veggie consumption serving them vegetables in a new and different way will cause them to change this.



Vegetarian 3 Bean Soup Recipe

I had 3 bags of beans in the cabinet that each had about a 1/2 cup of beans. As you know, this is not enough for any one pot of beans so I decided to take them all and make bean soup. It turned out really good!

The Recipe: 3 Bean Soup

What you need:
1/2 c dry white beans
1/2 c dry black beans
1/2 c dry pinto beans
1/4 c dry garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1/8 c dry black garbanzo beans (optional)

Cover beans with water and soak overnight. I put them all in one bowl. Drain beans and rinse before putting in pot.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 medium onion (chopped)
12 cups water
4 medium carrots (chopped into coins)
2 large tomatoes (diced)
1 1/4 Knorr Vegetable Boullion cube
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp taco seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder

Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add minced garlic and onion. Saute until translucent. Add 12 cups of water and beans. Bring to a boil. Turn down to medium-high and add carrots. Simmer for 1 hour. Add spices, tomatoes and extra water if necessary. Simmer for 20 more minutes.

Top with sour cream and shredded cheese.

We ate ours with rosemary foccacia bread. SO good! It was perfect for a chilly evening!

I is for Pancakes?

Auntie RoRo pinned this (though she can't remember) for Sweet P on Pinterest some time ago and I finally decided to try it this week when we did letter Ii. I wish I could take credit for the brilliant idea, but it's from Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons. She used grilled cheese for the cone, but I decided we'd do pancakes.

Nana Nancy left Saturday morning so I decided to make pancakes for Sweet P as a treat. This was so simple and it turned out super cute!

What you need:
bananas
strawberry (or raspberry)
pancakes

Cut the pancake into a cone shape. Place bananas in the shape of a scoop of ice cream and top with a strawberry). I drizzled hers with honey to make the criss cross of the cone, but it didn't really show up in the pictures.

Enjoy! Such a fun and simple breakfast!

Healthy "Caramel" or "Candy" Apple

Like I said in the MTM post, this idea came from a Parents magazine a year or more ago. They had three ideas and I took two of those and mixed them together (using almond butter instead of peanut butter).

These are SO easy and so quick. Sweet P loved it and it was such a fun treat for her. Can't wait to make another one!

The Recipe: Healthy "Caramel" or "Candy" Apples

What you need:

1 (or more) small apples

popsicle stick(s)

almond butter

granola

Wash apples and insert popsicle sticks into the top. Spread almond butter along the bottom of the apple until covered. Dip apple into granola. Serve!

You could also use raisins and peanut butter. Yum!

Muffin Tin Monday: Pumpkin-Style

I found the idea for this healthy "caramel" apple in a Parents magazine before Sweet P had teeth and finally got to use it today! Let's just say she was SUPER excited about her almond butter and granola apple. It was such a simple treat!

Besides the apple, we went with a pumpkin theme today. We love punkins around here!

Clockwise from top left: Tomato pumpkin with spinach leaf, almond butter granola apple on a stick, clementine pumpkin with spinach leaf, cheese white pumpkins, carrot pumpkins, cracker pumpkin with spinach leaf and raisin face.

I love that the tomato slices look like jack'o'lanterns!

Check out what other moms are making their kiddos at Muffin Tin Monday (click the button at the top)!

Vegetarian Alternatives to PB & J

As vegetarians, we get asked the same question A LOT.

"What do you eat?"

Most of the time we just say "anything, but meat." The question comes up a lot around Thanksgiving. I always think this is funny because turkey is really only like 1/16 of the meal. Anyway, as vegetarians we eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly. But we do have some tasty alternatives for sandwich fillings.

Faux tuna salad sandwich

Pimento cheese sandwich

Recipe:

1 cup shredded cheese

2-3 tbsp mayo

1 tbsp pimentos

splash of pimento juice

(Auntie K likes to use pickle juice instead of pimentos)

Hummus sandwich

Recipe:

hummus

tomato

spinach or lettuce

mushrooms

pickles

Grilled cheese (standard or with spinach)

Grilled veggie sandwich

Recipe:

2 slices of colby jack cheese (NOT singles)

sliced mushrooms

roasted red peppers

spinach

artichoke hearts

olive oil

Pile veggies on two slices of whole wheat, ciabatta or french bread. Drizzle with olive oil and top with cheese slices. Bake open faced in the oven on 350 for 10 minutes.

Almond butter and banana sandwich

Egg salad sandwich (the Farmer wouldn't touch this with a 10 ft pole)

Recipe:

2 hardboiled eggs

1 tbsp mustard

1 tbsp hummus or mayo

chopped pickles

Chop in mini food processor until it reaches the consistency of your choice (I like mine well blended). Serve in pita or on whole wheat bread.

What is your favorite veggie sandwich?

A Healthier Gingerbread House

If you know anything about me, you know I'm a little bit of a nut about what Sweet P eats. She doesn't eat candy so I didn't want to make a gingerbread house with her out of candy bits and frosting. I set out to find a healthy alternative and didn't find much out there so I came up with a few things of my own. I used all organic products except the pretzels, but you can always use non-organic foods as well.

Keep in mind I'm sharing this with you for health reasons not because I'm a pro gingerbread houser (as you can see).

Our friends C and K came over (since we're both quarantined due to sickness) and we attempted to make these with the girls. If you think that happened, you're sadly mistaken. But C and I had a great time fixing up our houses (between kids yelling for more of whatever topping they wanted to eat!).

How to build a Healthier Gingerbread House:

What you need:

Dried coconut (shaved)

Dried fruit (raisins, apples, etc.)

Chopped dried apricots

Pumpkin seeds

Fruit leathers cut into strips

Honey wheat pretzels

Natural peanut butter

Whole wheat graham crackers

Now, I will not pretend that I made this awesome gingerbread house. I made more of a gingerbread hut. Natural peanut butter doesn't quite work like frosting that hardens so I wasn't able to make a slanted roof. With more time though, I think it might have worked (I'll pretend anyway).

Once you've built your house out of the graham crackers, get to work on the the toppings. I used a fruit leather for a door, raisins for windows, pumpkin seeds for shingles and coconut for snow on the roof. As you can see, it's far from a masterpiece, but with a 19 mo old things need to be quick.

The Result: Our Healthy Gingerbread Hut & two happy girls

This picture is so funny because K is looking at me and Sweet P is looking at C!