How to Make Halloween Pancakes: a step by step guide

Are you looking for a fun, festive Halloween meal idea? One that screams Halloween………..but doesn’t require spooky ingredients……..and is something that your kids will actually eat?

Enter in: Whole Wheat Halloween-shaped pancakes.

I’ve been making these since my kids were babies..........and now they make them for me!

Tricks to Making These Treats

The trick to making these pancakes work is to use a "thin" pancake recipe like my simple pancakes. This recipe uses whole wheat flour to add fiber to your child's diet. Fiber will help keep them full and is important for gut health. If you don't want to make the simple recipe, here are some other ideas:

• Make it easier: use a pancake mix, add more milk/oil to make the batter easy to pour

• Add more protein: try this cottage cheese pancake recipe, you must use a blender to make this work. Cottage cheese pancakes make an easy pre-trick-or-treating dinner idea.

• Add veggies: I often add 1/2 cup of pumpkin to make orange pancakes. I've also added a cup of spinach to make green Frankenstein faces. Both work well but alter the taste and texture.

Instructions with Pictures

1. Make your favorite pancake recipe in a blender. My go-to pancake recipe works well for this and adds fiber to your child's diet. (use a blender so there are no “chunks” of flour: if you don’t have a blender, just mix the batter really well)

2. Pour the batter into an old ketchup container. I bought this mustard container at the dollar store about 10 years ago and have been using it for pancakes ever since.

3. Heat your griddle and draw an outline with your pancake batter.

4. Let the outline cook for about 3 minutes. You want it to get really dark.

5. Fill in the middle with more batter

6. Let the pancake cook until bubbles appear on the filling and the pancake looks set.

7. Flip the pancake and cook until set, 1-2 minutes. Do you see how the outline is darker than the rest of the pancake? It's not a different batter, it's just cooked longer.

8. Serve up your Halloween fun and repeat! Older kids have a blast making their own Halloween-shaped pancakes.

Extend the Fun: More Halloween-Inspired Recipes

Looking for a spooky side dish? Try this green smoothie recipe for a drink that is sure to fill your kids' bellies!

Here's some more fun Halloween-inspired recipes I'll be making for snack time today. The pumpkin muffins are a good healthy substitute for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Mummy Pizza Toast

Ghost Toast

Let me know if you try these! I'd love to see any photos you take: nicolebuhlerRD@gmail.com

Here's my menu from last week for those that are interested:

Dietitian's Menu Oct 23-29

Sunday: beef and bean enchiladas (made an extra pan for later in the week) + apples

Monday: leftover greek meatballs and rice from Saturday + canned pineapple

Tuesday: pesto noodles + apples

Wednesday: leftover beef and bean enchiladas + canned corn + frozen mangoes

Thursday: tortellini and zucchini soup + apples

Friday: out to eat Italian for a family member's birthday

Saturday: tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and grapes

Cute and Healthy Food Crafts Fun-Moms Make for Halloween

“Why do you have to be a dietitian, Mom?, it ruins all of our fun!” my 5 year old pouted.

I had just finished telling him that we couldn't have only halloween candy for lunch.

As I served him up a tuna sandwich with a Milky Way on the side, I thought to myself “Why does all fun have to involve candy?''

I don't like setting limits around treats and candy. I worry: "Am I too strict? Am I ruining all of my kids' fun? Am I making my kids crazy about treats?"

But I still do it because I know it's important. (read more about how to do it here)

I wanted to argue and defend my fun-mom-ness, but I knew arguing wouldn't help.

Arguing is not something fun-moms do.

Instead, I got creative and came up with something fun and healthy to do together later in the day: Halloween food crafts

FUN HALLOWEEN FOOD CRAFTS

Using my friend google, I found fun Halloween lunch ideas: Frankenstein-avocado toast, mummy pizza and ghost toast. I’ve since re-created them and posted them here, here and here.

These recipes are FUN, healthy and within-my-food-crafting-abilities (meaning that they require ZERO skill).

The recipes also taste really good. I love peanut butter and bananas, and my son loves the mummy toast. Last week he made and ate 3 mummy pizzas! My oldest daughter is a big fan of avocado toast, so she made and ate several Frankenstein toasts.

This toast is a great way to have Halloween fun without candy.

Want to increase your fun-mom score? Please join us for cooking class on October 24 to make these easy toast recipes together. I will be dressing up in my Halloween costume to flaunt my fun-mom-ness, I hope you can join me!

Sign up link: https://forms.gle/whmUA2KKX56BHKU59

NICOLE'S MENU FOR THE WEEK:

For those of you that want it, here’s my menu for the week, click the links for recipes from some of my favorite food blogs!:

Sunday: Dinner in a pumpkin + strawberries + green salad + whole wheat bread

Monday: pumpkin muffins + zucchini muffins + apple slices

Tuesday: Zuppa toscana + whole wheat bread + honeydew melon

Wednesday: pumpkin red lentil curry + brown rice + naan bread + frozen mangoes

Thursday: Fall apple salad + easy breadsticks

3 healthy, affordable, easy meals to make for family get-togethers

For fall break, my sister and I drove our 7 kids to visit their 8 cousins in Denver, Colorado. One challenge of getting together with family (other than the 6 hour drive) is figuring out how to feed alllllll the children without 1) spending a fortune and 2) spending all day slaving like lunch ladies. We wanted to spend our time playing together, not slaving together.

image source: https://www.halloweencostumes.com/lunch-lady-costume.html

My sisters aren’t dietitians, but they do like to eat healthy. I thought that the way they fed us was simple, healthy and filling, so I wanted to share it with you.

Here are 3 meal ideas for feeding a large group of people with 25$.

Night one:

2 Large cans of baked beans (5$)

25 Baked potatoes (5$)

Shredded cheese (about 2$ worth)

Oranges (5$)

Chopped cauliflower (2$)

Pumpkin pie (6$)

Total to feed 21 people: 25$

Why it's healthy:

• fiber in the beans + veggies

• vitamin C in the potatoes, oranges and cauliflower

• iron in the beans and baked potato

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Night two:

White chicken chili (about 5$)

Avocados (10$)

Apple slices (5$)

Homemade Cornbread (maybe 5$)

Why it's healthy:

• fiber in the beans + veggies + apples

• vitamin E and healthy fats in the avocados

• protein + iron from the beans and chicken

Total to feed 21 people: 25$

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Night three:

Rice and bean salad (10$)

Tortillas with cheese (10$)

Bananas (5$)

Why it's healthy:

• iron in the beans

• B vitamins in the rice

• potassium in a the fresh produce and the banana

Total to feed 21 people: 25$

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Note how all 3 meals used foods from all 4 food groups: fruit, vegetable, grain, protein. Using all 4 food groups gives picky kids different things to choose from, while also making the meal satisfying for all.

Using beans and cheese for the protein source keeps the cost down while still keeping it filling for our kids’ growing bodies. With the holidays coming up, it’s likely that you’ll occasionally have extra mouths to feed. Here’s a few more meal ideas that fill people up without breaking the bank or taking a ton of time.

https://www.ddinutrition.com/spinachlasagna

https://www.ddinutrition.com/vegetarianchili

https://www.ddinutrition.com/broccolicheesesoup

Until next week, happy eating!

Nicole