Sugar alternatives! YAY!

If you are anything like me you shutter at the idea of giving your kids sugar. I remember a few years ago I gave my now oldest son a pixie stick... oh big mistake, he was literally climbing my walls, ever since i've tired to keep him on a low sugar diet, so I might share some of my tips with all of you.

Stevia: Is a sugar substitute and type of sunflower and it's extremely sweet but has very little sugar, it's taste is almost like mint meets honey and it's a great sugar substitute with non of the hyper activity side effects. My children love the Zevia® Natural Stevia root beer (seen right) You can purchase Zevia here

Sugar-Free Jello Cookies: My children love a good cookie but it's so hard to make good sugar free ones, and believe me i've tried! But I recently came across an amazing recipe for sugar free cherry cookies.

3/4 c. Crisco
Large pkg. Cherry Sugar Free Jello
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Mix Cream and shortening. Add eggs, Jello, vanilla and dry ingredients. Roll in small balls. Flatten with a fork. Bake on wax papered cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. (this works with all Jello flavors and is especially good with Lemon!)

Fruit: When all else fails turn to good old mother nature. Sometimes my children just want a sweet snack so I always keep lots of yummy fruit around, Oranges, Cherries, Strawberries, grapes, apples, and even tomatoes can sometimes ease thier sweet cravings. I've also found that keeping apple sauce in the house is a quick and easy way to provide annoyance free deserts for my kids. I just put the apple sauce in an Ice cream glass add some berries for the top and my kids don't know the difference.

From frat favorite to kid treat!

Popsicles have always been a favorite in my house, but have you read the ingredients lately? Even the sugar free ones are questionable, what’s really in the “artificial ingredients” anyway? Now I’m not saying my boys will never have another taste of those extremely yummy summer time treats but they will have less. So after many failed attempts at making my own (which have always come out great but my kids never seem to enjoy them as much ) I decided to make something with less sugar, but no artificial flavoring, that both my 7 year old and my 1 year old could eat with their hands and not get messy . Inspired by some awesome Jello shots I once had at a frat party I decided to make “Jello Slices”

The first step is making your own “Flavored Gelatin” since there are very few naturally flavored gelatins on the market we had to make our own. The recipe for this gelatin is located HERE. Bet you didn’t know how easy making Jello/Gelatin was did you?SHHH... If everyone knew JELL-O would be out of business LOL.

Ingredients:

4 Fresh California Oranges

4 cups of homemade Gelatin (any flavor unset)

You Will Need :

1 cupcake pan

Plastic wrap

slice oranges in half remove pulp with spoon (save for a fruit salad or healthy snack) place orange halves in muffin baking pans pour jello in empty orange halves place plastic wrap over the top and refrigerate for approximately 2 hours slice halves into quarters and serve. Pretty easy isn’t it? And don’t limit yourself with Oranges we’ve also used grapefruits, watermelon, and cantaloupe.(Oh and check out this nice pic from notmartha.org, she used lemons and limes too!!)

TIP: Make some for yourself when the kiddies are in bed… just set modify the gelatin by adding ¼ of the amount of water and substitute the rest with some good old vodka. Share with your significant other when the kiddies are in bed!!!

Jello Slices Vs. Popsicle

Jello Slices:
My family loved the Jello slices and they've been asking for them non-stop. They love all the goofi-ness the orange slices have to offer and the sweet taste of the 100% real fruit juice gelatin. I can't belive my kids loved this so much, after all I learned to make them in college and for adults no less.