snack Archives | Fruitful Day Blog

Watermelon Fruit Roll-Ups

We can’t believe it’s October already! Halloween is around the corner and that means A LOT of unhealthy snacks. But…we’ve got a recipe up our sleeve that will fulfil your kid’s sweet tooth like no other.

Our Watermelon Fruit Roll-Ups are an easy homemade snack. The first five ingredients in most popular store-bought fruit roll-ups are corn syrup, dried corn syrup, sugar, pear puree concentrate and palm oil. In our case, we’ve ditched all the nasties and replaced it only with real fruit, coconut oil, and honey.

Why avoid corn syrup and palm oil?

Corn syrup is even more harmful than ordinary table sugar because of its high fructose content.
Palm oil is also a highly processed oil and is unhealthy for both us and the environment.

What about coconut oil? Is it good for you?

Coconut oil is often classified as a “superfood” because of its many benefits including:

Coconut oil is high in healthy saturated fats. These fats can boost fat burning and provide your body and brain with quick energy.
Coconut oil contains natural saturated fats that increase the good HDL cholesterol in your body.
Good for blood sugar and diabetes.
Aids in liver health.

So with just 4 simple ingredients, you’ll have the perfect healthy treat for your Halloween festivities! Happy trick or treating.

45 minutes prep + Up to 8 hours in the oven

INGREDIENTS

– 12 cups cubed and de-seeded watermelon

– juice of 1 lime

– 1 ½ tbsp honey

– 1 tsp coconut oil

METHOD

1. Preheat oven on the lowest temperature your oven will go with the fan setting on.

2. Chop and de-seed 12 cups worth of watermelon.

3. Blend watermelon until pureed.

4. Place a cheesecloth over a sieve and slowly pour the watermelon puree through both. You may have to stop halfway to stir gently with a spatula.

5. Keep stirring the watermelon puree until most of the water is drained and you’re left with a viscous watermelon mixture.

6. Line a sheet tray with baking paper and grease lightly with coconut oil.

7. Pour the watermelon mixture onto the sheet tray and spread with a spatula until it’s evenly spread and about 5mm thick.

8. Place in the oven and bake for up to 8 hours or until it’s dried and easy to peel off the baking paper.

9. Cut into strips with a pizza cutter or scissors and then roll up with a strip of baking paper.

Extra Tips

This recipe is fairly easy to make as it only involves blending, straining and then a long wait while it’s in the oven! However, de-seeding the watermelon takes some time so using fruit like strawberry or raspberry might be quicker. You can even put berries straight in the blender without worrying about the seeds.

Another thing to note is that if you have a dehydrator at home, it’s better to use that so your oven is not on for so long. It’s also safer to just leave on and go out for the day – the process is so slow and there’s little concern for overcooking. An hour either side won’t make much difference!

Dates stuffed with sunbutter

First and most importantly, Ramadan Kareem from the Fruitful Day team! It’s always a magical time of year to spend with family and friends, but it’s equally important to keep health in mind during the Holy Month. Fasting or not, it is easy to get dehydrated with the temperatures steadily on the rise. Make sure to hydrate as much as you can at night and think about foods that will keep you full for longer.

Amongst the foods that will keep you fuller for longer are foods high in protein. Peanut butter is of course one of the more well-known high protein foods, but many kids and adults aren’t able to eat it because it contains nuts. For this reason, sunflower seed butter is actually a great substitute!

Sunflower seed butter is full of healthy fats, vitamin E, and magnesium, which has the added benefit of helping you with your digestion.

Today’s recipe is a super simple snack, dates stuffed with sunbutter! In addition to the sunbutter, dates are good source of vitamins and minerals. Perfect for breaking your fast and getting you on your way to a healthy Ramadan!

Dates stuffed with sunbutter (sunflower seed butter)

20 minutes (depending how many dates you want to do)

Ingredients

Dates
Sunflower seed butter

METHOD for the biscuit

1. Cut each date open with a sharp knife, however, don’t cut it all the way through the date.

2. With a small teaspoon, spoon out a small amount of sunflower seed butter and put it into the space where the seed was.

3. Close the date and consume immediately or leave to set in the fridge.

Banana Bread

We can’t believe it’s 2019 already! We’ll be continuing to share recipes this year, but what we’re even more excited about is that Michelle Harvey, a Nutritional Therapist, is going to guest blog throughout the year and help us to understand how some simple changes to our diet can have a huge impact on our well-being. Look out for her first blog article in the coming 10 days. We think you’re going to love her just as much as we do!

In the meantime, we wanted to share an easy banana bread recipe with you. This banana bread is a little bit different as it has banana flour in it. You may never heard of banana flour, but it’s actually a great addition to your diet because it’s a prebiotic! What is a prebiotic you ask? A prebiotic sets the environment for probiotics to work so it’s important to consume them together. Prebiotics, which are a type of non-digestible fiber compound, can be found in foods like bananas, artichoke, onions, garlic, apple skin, chicory root, beans, and many others. Although they haven’t gotten the press in recent years that probiotics have, they are actually just as important as they are the fuel that allows probiotics to work. It’s all part of keeping your gut healthy something Michelle will be talking a lot more about throughout the year.

We hope you’ll come back soon to learn more about simple ways to improve your health in 2019.

Banana Bread (makes two loaves 11cm x 22cm)

1 hour

Ingredients

100g coconut sugar
2 ripe bananas from the Fruitful Day Box
50g peanut butter
170g banana flour (you can order on Amazon)
50g oats
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g milk or dairy free milk of choice
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
3 free range eggs
100g coconut oil
80g dates

METHOD

Blend dates, bananas and peanut butter
Combine mixture with all remaining ingredients and stir until a consistent texture is achieved
Prepare loaf tin by lining it with greaseproof paper and preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
Pour banana bread mixture into tins and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Allow to cool on a rack before removing from the tin to consume.

Sweet Potato Slices with Lime Avocado and Goats Cheese

We can’t believe it’s May already! Ramadan is just around the corner and we’re still busy putting our final touches on our gifting range. Check out our Ramadan gift shop here and give the gift of health this holiday season!

When you’re busy, it’s always important to fuel yourself with the right food to keep you going. For that reason, we’ve decided to focus on an avocado based recipe this month. Avocados make a filling addition to any meal or snack providing both nutritious heart-healthy fats and about half your day’s fiber, folate, potassium, and Vitamin A*.

Move over avocado toast, we have an even healthier alternative for you! Sweet potato slices with lime avocado and goats cheese. We chose to add lime not only because it enhances the flavor, but also because the acidity stops the avocado browning from oxidation keeping it looking fresh for longer.

We hope you enjoy this afternoon snack and we’ll be sharing some Ramadan inspired recipes with you soon! Wishing you all a happy and productive May.

Sweet Potato Slices with lime avocado and goats cheese

(makes 16 – 20 potato slices)

40 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 large sweet potato (try to choose one that will cut into shapely sizes)
1 tbsp ghee
2 avocados from the Fruitful Day Box
2 tbsp goats cheese
1 lime from the Fruitful Day Box
Salt & pepper
Edible flowers, micro greens, spring onions and dried chilli flakes to garnish.

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.
Peel and slice the sweet potatoes into 1 cm slices.
Coat with ghee, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 20 minutes on a baking tray. Turn them after 10 minutes for even browning.
While the potatoes are roasting, peel the avocado and put them a bowl with the lime juice, salt and pepper and smash into chunks.
Once the potatoes are cooked, remove from the oven.
Layer a spoon of avocado, crumbled cheese and then your garnishes of choice on each one.

*Source: Dr Axe, https://draxe.com/avocado-benefits/

Immunity March: Strawberry, Basil, Lime & Coconut Water Popsicles

This month has flown by and we hope everyone is enjoying some well-deserved rest over spring break. We have the kids home for a few weeks so we thought it was fitting to include a popsicle recipe that is perfect to make and enjoy with the family! This is our last recipe for month focusing on immunity.

Not only are these strawberry, basil, lime and coconut water popsicles beautiful, the coconut water contains lauric acid, which is anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral. This makes it a great immune system booster that can help us fight infection!

We have some delicious recipes coming next month including a special Easter treat. Stay tuned for more details coming soon!

Strawberry, Basil, Lime & Coconut Water Popsicles (makes approx. 8)

15 minutes

INGREDIENTS

10 strawberries from the Fruitful Day Box
16 basil leaves
Juice of 2 limes
½ cup coconut water from the Fruitful Day Box
Option to sweeten with honey or maple, however, usually the strawberries are sweet enough!

METHOD

Blend all ingredients and pour into the popsicle moulds and freeze for several hours.

If you want your popsicles to look like the ones in the photograph:

Pour only a little of the strawberry liquid into the popsicle mould and let it set in the freezer for several hours.
Pour coconut water in to fill the mould and add a basil leaf for colour. Freeze again for several hours and then remove.

Immunity March: Mint Cacao Bliss Balls

March is here and people are getting colds left, right, and center! For the body’s natural defenses to work smoothly and make sure you’re not next to get sick, your immune system has to be working properly. Choosing foods rich in the right vitamins and nutrients will help keep your immune system strong and you healthy!

Throughout the month of March we will feature easy to make recipes, which are aimed at boosting your IMMUNITY. As always, we’d love to hear from you about what types of recipes you’d like to see next!

Our first recipe of the month are mint cacao bliss balls! To understand why we would select a chocolate recipe as our first recipe, it is important to first understand the difference between cacao and cocoa. Although both start from the same place (the beans from the cacao tree’s seed pods), the process they undergo means they have very different benefits to offer. Cacao, which is very minimally processed at low temperatures, is full of nutrients like magnesium, iron, potassium, calcium, zinc, copper, and manganese. Some of the known health benefits are protecting your heart, lowering your insulin, as well as other antioxidant effects, which protect your cells from damage. Cocoa, on the other hand, is heated to much higher temperatures where sugars and other sweeteners are usually added. The heating process means that some of the more powerful antioxidant effects and health benefits are lost as compared to cacao*.

When you make your food from scratch, you can decide what ingredients you’re feeding your body! So while these mint cacao bliss balls might look like naughty treats, the ingredients have been very carefully selected to boost your immunity and fill you up with the good stuff. Wishing you all a very healthy, happy March!

Mint Cacao Bliss Balls (makes approx. 30 balls)

30 – 45 minutes (including time to roll the balls)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cashews from the Fruitful Day Box
½ cup desiccated coconut
½ cup cacao powder
pinch salt
drop of mint extract
1 cup dates
2 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp peanut butter

METHOD

Roast cashews for 10 minutes on a baking tray at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes or until browned. (This step isn’t necessary, however, roasting the nuts does improve the flavour).
Combine all dry ingredients; cashews, coconut, cacao powder and salt in a food processor and pulse until evenly chopped.
Add wet ingredients; dates, coconut oil, peanut butter and mint extract and process until a dough forms.
Remove from the food processor and roll into balls. Store in the fridge.

*Source: https://blog.paleohacks.com/cacao-vs-cocoa/

Detox January: Antioxidant Date Balls

If you’re one of our Staples box customers, you’ll know we send you a cup of different nuts every week! You can turn these nuts into awesome antioxidant date balls without too many ingredients and too much effort. Date balls a great snack to take with you on the go to ensure you’re not grabbing junk and are staying energized throughout the day! Leave us a comment if you’ve enjoyed January’s recipes and let us know what you’d like to see more of next month.

INGREDIENTS (makes 20 date balls

1 cup nuts from the Fruitful Day box
½ cup desiccated coconut
1 cup pitted dates
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp matcha powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp maqui powder
Zest of 1 orange

METHOD

Place nuts, coconut and cinnamon in a food processor and process.
Add coconut oil and dates and process again until a dough forms.
Remove date mixture dough and split into thirds.
Add 1/3 to the food processor and add the matcha powder. Process until matcha is combined and then remove and set aside.
Add 1/3 to the food processor and add the turmeric powder. Process until turmeric is combined and then remove and set aside.
Add 1/3 to the food processor and add the maqui powder. Process until maqui is combined and then remove and set aside.
Roll each mixture into balls. Each flavour should make 6/7 date balls.