Healthy Valentine’s Day Party Treats (& Games)

Calling all red food!

(ahem)

Calling all naturally red food!

(ahem)

Calling all naturally red food not chock full of sugar and junk!

I am planning a kids’ Valentine’s Day party at school again this year, and I am determined to plan fun games and food that don’t include sugar, artificial food dyes, and trans fats. It has to be possible to have healthy Valentine’s Day food!

I thought I’d share the plan I used a few years back again, and I’m going to do a much simpler version of this for third grade, the activities for sure and probably just the strawberries and dip, cheese, and one other thing. It’s that season of life for me!

The Plan: A Healthy Valentine’s Day Party!

This was definitely a community effort when it all came together. Other than strawberries, my initial midnight brainstorm session was coming up pretty blank. I asked the KS community on Facebook for ideas for pink or red foods or other Valentine’s food ideas. (You can see the whole list HERE; it’s awesome!)

As it turned out, once I was inspired by over 50 answers, I thought of a few of my own party food recipes that would be perfect. Every idea on this list is either healthy or healthiER – I never can truly call anything with sweetener “healthy” because although natural sweeteners are not as bad as white sugar, any sweetener is still mostly empty calories. There’s some redeeming nutritional value in there too, but fructose is fructose, you know?

Why are they Healthy Treats?

All the foods I demonstrate below have:

• No grains or whole grains, soaked grains
• Zero white sugar, low unrefined sweeteners
• Healthy fats
• Fruits, and even some vegetables
• Probiotics! For real! (I’m kind of proud of that one because I feel like that’s rare among party food for kids…)

I thought of too many ideas, in fact, and my son and I couldn’t decide. We’re going to let the kids look at pictures and choose two that they want, like ordering from a menu.

The teacher, in a stroke of genius, is going to tie all of this in with their current Social Studies unit on economics by talking about choice and opportunity cost. Ah, some days, I miss teaching – the chance to make connections to real life like that and form young minds en masse…it’s pretty awesome.

Other days I’m just happy to sit on my duff at the computer while the children wreak havoc around me…but at least I’m at home with them.

See how helpful little Jonathan was for this post’s pictures?

He stole my strawberries, asked, “Where did all the berries go?” in baby signs, then decided to go for the whipped cream. It’s rather unfortunate that the best natural light is on the floor in front of the sliding door…

On to the food! Here’s what the kids will get to choose from for next week’s Valentine’s Day party:

Healthy Valentine’s Day Party Food Ideas

We’re calling these beauties “Raspberry Cream Cheese Brownie Sandwiches.” I used grain-free brownies with 60% dark chocolate chips on top (recipe in The Everything Beans Book). I sliced them lengthwise with a very sharp knife and filled the middle with thawed frozen raspberries + yogurt cheese with just a touch of maple syrup and raspberry juice for the pink color.

Yes, I did say the brownie recipe is in a beans book. There’s not a speck of flour in them…but you could use any sturdy, healthy brownie recipe you like. I have a whole grain brownie in Smart Sweets.

My healthy fruit pizza uses a shortbread-style crust with real butter, 100% whole wheat flour, and very little sweetener (1/4 cup for the whole thing). Add lightly sweetened yogurt cheese and fresh fruit on top, and you could get away with eating this for breakfast.

This Valentine’s Strawberry Pudding is actually from my ebook Better Than a Box, where it was originally the reverse engineered version of that famous “banana pudding” with Cool Whip, pudding, condensed milk or yogurt, bananas, and Nilla Wafers. None of those things are in this healthy treat!

Real homemade pudding is mixed with homemade yogurt, strawberries and raspberries; that whipped cream on top started out as cream, not 50 variations on corn (read the side of a Cool Whip tub); and the “wafers” are a homemade graham cracker crisped to perfection in the oven, and of course, cut in heart shapes. Strawberries are also really easy to cut in sort-of heart shapes by notching the top.

Everyone is getting heart-shaped white cheese, because it’s cute and fun, and I felt the need to provide something that wasn’t a dessert, even though all the desserts are healthiER.

Last but not least, for the kids who love dipping (or aren’t sure about all my other recipes and want something they recognize), we’re offering whole strawberries with 3 choices of dips. They’re billed as “chocolate pudding, strawberry cream cheese, and vanilla yogurt” but are really “chocomole” from Healthy Snacks to Go (a pudding made with avocado, raw honey (use the code Katie15 for 15% off at that site!), and cocoa powder), yogurt cheese colored with strawberry or raspberry juice (from frozen and thawed berries), and vanilla yogurt. If you wanted, you could go ga-ga with strawberries and dips…

Healthy Topping ideas for Strawberries

• Chocomole
• Yogurt cheese colored with frozen raspberry juice and and sweetened with honey or stevia. (also works with cream cheese)
• Thick vanilla yogurt
• Coconut cream frosting (made with coconut cream concentrate , vanilla or almond extract, maple syrup, and a bit of milk to thin if necessary) – I’ve used this coconut vanilla frosting recipe before; coconut cream concentrate is the same thing as coconut butter.
• Melted dark chocolate (dip at home and allow to harden)
• Yogurt (or yogurt cheese) mixed with pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice
• Yogurt (or cheese) with maple syrup and cinnamon
• Pink colored shredded coconut for sprinkles
• Grated or shaved dark chocolate for sprinkles

Valentine’s Day Games with no Sugar

I know, sugar isn’t always in games, but believe me – once you start checking out kids’ party activity ideas, you’ll see plenty with food and almost always sugary.

We’re having four stations and rotating groups through:

1. Decorating lunch bags for a local organization, Kids Food Basket, where they give sack suppers to food insecure kids in our community.

2. “Love goggles” made from pipe cleaners and stickers

3. Making Valentine’s Puzzles (at right)

4. “Love Potion Smoothies”

Guess which one my Blendtec and I are in charge of? (See my Blendtec review) At the smoothie station, the kids will have to come to fair consensus on what should go in the blender, and then they’ll have cute cups and straws for their smoothies. I’m bringing:

• yogurt
• kefir (Lifeway)
• milk
• ice
• frozen strawberries, cherries, cranberries
• frozen bananas
• kelp powder
• chia seeds
• some greens of some sort
• lemon wedges
• diced red delicious apples
• kiwi
• coconut
• maybe: pineapple, mango

We’re gonna have us some serious real food fun, aren’t we??? I’m pumped!

Kid’s Homemade Valentine’s Cards with Healthy Gifts

In case you’re wondering what a real food household sticks to Valentine’s Day cards, in past years, it’s been…nothing. Just personally made cards.

This year, I was inspired by that Facebook thread to do these:

Both kids chose this fruit squeeze pouch idea, approved by mom once I read that there wasn’t any added sweetener in the packages.

BONUS: We made some free printables to make your life easier with about a dozen frugal and still healthy ideas for candy-free Valentine’s Day ideas for school!

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