kids

Homemade Gummy Bears/Healthy Fruit Jello Squares

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My Pinterest friends and I decided it would be fun to try and make Gummi Bears. They ended up being more like Jello square or Knox Blox (if you remember those) or Fruit Animals, depending on the mold you use. We used strawberries for one batch and orange juice for another. You can mix and match and go crazy with any blended fruits.

Here is the fresh fruit we pureed using the immersion blender with some lemon juice, water honey. It was brought to a low boil. We whisked it constantly while adding the gelatin. We used about 3 TBS of gelatin per 1 1/2 cups of fruit or fruit juice. You could experiment to see how much you do or don’t need.

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Gelatin and honey.

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Here are the molds we used. They are cheap at Ikea.

It was pretty hard to get the fruit out of the molds. You put them in the freezer for 20 minutes, according to the recipe. You almost had to bring them back down to room temperature in order to get them out.

After this batch I made another batch with orange juice and lemon and then just put the mixture into a glass loaf pan and put it in the fridge and it set up in a few hours. Then I just cubed the jello. Ready to serve and easy to get out of the pan. It would be a good food for babies and toddlers too.

http://www.diynatural.com/healthy-snack-ideas-homemade-gummy-bears

So the website above makes it look easy and perfect. Not so much. But I do like what I learned and I will be making more fruit squares in the future, without all of the sugar of the Jello.

 

 

Hidden Sugar in Kids’ Foods

Other posts with recipes

I read the label on the bottle of chocolate milk and saw that it had 22 grams of sugar. That can’t be good.

Suggestions:

1. Look for cereals with less than 5 grams of sugar per serving. Better yet, go with homemade oatmeal or porridge (Lisa’s suggestion!)

2. Look for canned fruit packed in water or rinse out your syrup packed fruits.

3. Low-fat peanut butter. Lots of peanut butters have tons of sugar. (I actually go with the natural peanut butters myself and make sure there isn’t any added sugar.)

4. Skip the flavored yogurt and go for plain and put in your own fruit.

5. No fruit leathers. They have corn syrup, artificial flaors and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils which should be avoided.

Painting Rocks: Another Way to Get Creative with Your Kids

 

   

Lake Superior is one of the largest fresh body lakes in the U.S. and a favorite vacation place for most people who live in Minnesota. My daughter, a friend and I visited this area for a few days ago and had a lovely time. There is always a cool breeze rolling off the lake even when the sun is out.

While walking on the beach we decided to gather some rocks, polished by the wind, water and rain, to take home and paint for the garden. Here we are collecting rocks.

At home we pulled out the acrylic paints and brushes. I used a highchair tray as the palette.

     

A pinecone also turned out to be fun item to paint.

 

The fruits of our labor were put into the back garden for all to enjoy and as a reminder of our creative endeavors.

 

So get out and get creative! See what you can come up with.