9 Healthier St. Patrick’s Day Treats

Looking around Pinterest (one of my favourite hobbies), we can find TONS of brilliant ideas for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. It’s still a few weeks off but it’s never too early to start planning!

Readers found the post 10 Healthy Christmas Party Foods helpful in December so I thought I’d look around for healthier options for St. Patrick’s Day. Green food dye is in liberal use for this celebration but I know many would rather avoid it – so you won’t find any dye here!

The Recipes

1. Shamrock Tortilla Chips from Spiced Blog: kids love plain and crispy so this is a sure winner!
2. Green Popsicles from No Time for Flash Cards: Allison encourages child experimentation in this post. Your child might enjoy choosing what to mix, too!
3. Pea Pops from Weelicious: The novelty alone will have those peas heading on down to little tummies.
4. Green Devilled Eggs from Fit4Tropics: Uses avocado and yoghurt, although you might like to skip the jalapeños and onion if your kids prefer to avoid spice!
5. Writing with Veggies: scroll down for this post, including free St. Patrick’s Day mats that can be used not only for veggies, but for play dough, dry erase markers or other tactile materials.
6. Leprechaun Hats from Creative Food: Super cute idea!
7. Spinach Cupcakes from A Little Nosh: Yes, they do have some sugar. But they also have lots of spinach and you can skip the frosting. (You’ll notice I called the post Healthier Treats rather than Healthy Treats).
8. Shamrock Pizzas from Once Upon A Cutting Board: Natalie includes recipes for 4 types of pizza. Again, this cries out for individual attention and for little ones to choose their own toppings!
9. Natural Green Food Colouring from Babble: If we don’t want to deprive our kids of green mashed potatoes and other delicacies we’ll need a natural way to greenify everything (yes, I’m a Wicked fan). So pop over to Jane’s post for the run down – she promises that it will NOT make all your food taste like spinach!

Writing with Veggies

When I was trying to decide what culinary masterpiece I could conjure up to add to St. Patrick’s Day happiness around the world I kept coming back to how much kids like playing with their food. So instead of a new dish, my contribution consists of chopping up your kids’ favourites greens to use them to spell!

And best of all, when they’ve finished spelling they can literally eat their words. Maybe provide some avocado dip or guacamole on the side!

Veggies and Herbs

You can use any greens but if you’re hoping your poppet will eat them afterwards you’d do best to choose their favourites.

I’ve used: baby asparagus, capsicum (peppers), celery, cucumber, green beans and snow peas. Some of them may need to be cut down the middle to narrow them down.

For kids who balk at green it won’t really matter if you use carrots, cheese or spaghetti.

Herbs: this makes for a lovely sensory experience. Thyme and chives are nice and straight. I’ve used dill although it’s sometimes tricky to keep it in a straight line.

Plus: The non-vegetative-looking tortilla strips you can see were cut from spinach wraps, hence the lovely greenish shade.

Fine Motor Skills

Depending on age and ability, children can cut their own small pieces of vegetables using a not-too-sharp knife or a pair of children’s scissors. Otherwise you’ll need to cut longer and shorter pieces for them.

Free Writing Printables

The 2 Writing With Veggies mats are available in both colour and black and white and just need to be printed. Laminating will help them last long-term.

You might prefer to enlarge the mats when you print them, especially when writing with veggies!

How else can I use the mats?

• use play dough to shape the letters
• add tiny pom poms or other manipulatives to the letters to create the words
• laminate the mats or place them in plastic sleeves and trace the words using dry erase markers.
• they make cute posters

Have you grabbed the free posters? The link is a few lines above!

I hope your kids love this activity and wish you happy teaching and learning!