T4B132: Sugar Free Lunchbox Ideas

The 4 Blades Podcast

Need Some Sugar Free Lunchbox Inspiration?

In Episode 132, we share three delicious sugar free Thermomix lunchbox recipes plus a whole lot of tips along the way.

This week our little girl is starting a pre-kindy program and that means we have to start to think about lunchbox ideas. We’re actually pretty excited about that as we can send her off to kindy with lunch and snacks like we have at home. For us that means sugar free and grain free. Although nuts aren’t forbidden at this particular kindy they would certainly prefer that nuts weren’t included just in case. So this week we’ve been stocking the freezer with these grain free, nut free and sugar free lunchox fillers. The criteria to be featured in this week’s podcast?

1. Sugar Free
2. Nut Free
3. Not too messy!
4. Freeze well
5. Defrost from frozen in a lunchbox (and be able to eat without heating)
6. Polly approved

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The recipes we chose this week are:

Recipe 1 – Easy Kid’s Mini Quiches

You’ve got a few options for the tart shells here. You can:
– buy some short crust pastry
– make a traditional short crust pastry (check out everything you need to know about making your own short crust pastry in the interview we did with Sophia from Thermomix Baking Blogger
– bust out a Grain Free Tart Shell from The Dinners Issue of The 4 Blades Magazine

Now that you’ve got your pastry you can cut out circles to bake. We use a 10cm circular cookie cutter and we find this works great in a standard muffin tin. As you’re cutting your pastry circles grease a muffin tin and press your pastry into the holes. Bake the shells first for 15 minutes before filling with mixture.

Once you’ve got your tart shells you’re ready to fill them. Check out our Easy Kid’s Quiche Filling below.

Easy Kid’s Quiche Filling

Print recipe

Ingredients

• 1 spring onion (white part only)
• 1 spring onion (white part only)
• 100g ham (blocks (slice and add with the milk if you have shaved or sliced ham))
• 100g ham (blocks (slice and add with the milk if you have shaved or sliced ham))
• 100g cheese (in cubes)
• 100g cheese (in cubes)
• 100g milk (use almond or coconut milk for dairy free)
• 100g milk (use almond or coconut milk for dairy free)
• 6 eggs
• 6 eggs

Directions

Step 1

Add spring onion (1) to the bowl. Speed 7 / 2 seconds. Scrape down sides.

Step 2

Add spring onion (1) to the bowl. Speed 7 / 2 seconds. Scrape down sides.

Step 3

Add ham (100g) and cheese (100g). Speed 5 / 5 seconds. Scrape down sides.

Step 4

Add ham (100g) and cheese (100g). Speed 5 / 5 seconds. Scrape down sides.

Step 5

Add milk (100g) and eggs (6). Reverse+Speed 5 / 15 seconds

Step 6

Add milk (100g) and eggs (6). Reverse+Speed 5 / 15 seconds

Step 7

Pour mixture into blind baked tart shells.

Step 8

Pour mixture into blind baked tart shells.

HOW DID THEY THAW? Great! We loved these hot and cold and they thawed beautifully.

Recipe 2 – Lunchbox Meatballs (from Skinnymixers)

These are super simple and super tasty. They’ve got some sneaky hidden veggies in there too which is a big bonus. We found that the kale was quite chunky in ours (which Bec and Polly liked!), possibly due to the large chunks of cheese we ground it up with. If you would prefer it more finely chopped just keep the machine going for a few more seconds, or blitz the kale first.

These held together quite well considering that there is no egg. You need to press them together quite firmly and oil your pan when cooking but they are pretty easy to work with.

HOW DID THEY THAW? Great! You couldn’t tell that they had been frozen.

Recipe 3 – Moroccan Seed Crackers (from Wholefood Simply)

Wholefood Simply is such a great place to look when you’re after healthy snacks and treats for kids. We love these seed crackers and wanted to give them a Moroccan twist. Simply follow the same recipe on the blog and replace the vanilla and cinnamon with:

• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp garlic granules
• 2 tsp salt flakes (instead of 1/4 tsp)

Here are the instructions for a Thermomix:

1. Add chia seeds (85g), linseeds (80g), sunflower kernels (65g), pepitas (70g), paprika (2 tsp), cumin (1 tsp), garlic granules (1 tsp) and salt flakes (2 tsp) to the bowl. Pulse Closed Lid / Turbo / 1 second. Scrape down sides.
2. Weigh out water (250g) into a jug. Program 1:30 minutes / Speed 2. Slowly pour water through lid and allow to mix. Scrape down sides.
3. Process again Speed 2 / 5 seconds.

HOW DID THEY THAW? Great – you can even eat these cold as they don’t go super hard.

Here are some cool tips from this podcast…

• Save some baking paper by rolling out the seed crackers between 2 sheets of baking paper, peel off the top one and use it for the bottom of the second tray.
• Score your crackers with a rolling pizza cutter before baking.
• When using chia seeds give your mixer a hand wash before putting it in the dishwasher, we find that chia seeds clog up our dishwasher.
• Make sure you hand wash your mixer after making anything with mince. There’s nothing worse than a sneaky, stale nugget of raw beef mince in your morning green smoothie.

Need MORE inspiration?

We’ve just updated and re-released both the original Lunchbox Issue of The 4 Blades Thermomix Magazine PLUS the Nut Free Inspiration Index which is also available in the app.

And don’t forget The Packed Lunch Issue with 9 different packed lunches for you to mix and match.

What are you packing in your kid’s lunchbox? Leave us a note in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this podcast, we’d be extremely grateful if you would take a second and leave us a review and rating over on iTunes. Once on that page, simply click on the “View in iTunes” button to leave your review — thanks very much!

The post T4B132: Sugar Free Lunchbox Ideas appeared first on The 4 Blades.