This post is sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona. All opinions are my own.
The holiday season is in full swing! Events, family drives to look at lights in our neighborhood, silly sweaters and so many cookie exchanges are already on our December calendar. Also on our December calendar are easy meal ideas that use fresh fruit and veggies we’ve been picking up at local farmer’s markets with our Homegrown Healthy Bucks from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona’s Nourishing Arizona Homegrown Healthy campaign. With candy canes and sweets offered to my daughters everywhere we go, it’s important to make sure we are teaching them how to make smart eating choices and fill them up with foods that nourish their little growing bodies. Our youngest daughter has a huge sweet tooth but makes me smile when she turns down a sucker and says, “my tummy will hurt if I eat too much sugar.” Thanks to the help of her big sister and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona’s Nourishing Arizona campaign, she has already recognized that too much sugar makes her feel yucky. This month we are focusing on incorporating fresh fruit and vegetables in our home including all the yummy recipe ideas. Snowflake Apple Chips are just one of the easy holiday snack recipes we are turning to for after school baking.
The Sugar Swap was a great place to introduce the topic of trading candy and sweets for healthy produce. My daughters listened to the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona representative share why it’s important for us to not eat too much sugar from candy. Instead, replace that with natural sugar found in fruit and vegetables. It still tastes yummy and doesn’t have the same negative consequences as eating excessive amounts of candy through the entire holiday season.
We came home with plenty of Healthy Homegrown Bucks and have been enjoying visits to the farmer’s market ever since. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona has a great selection of recipes to encourage healthy eating. Just because you’re not baking cookies every day, you can still enjoy baking with your children and teach them how to use healthy ingredients like apples from a local farmer’s market.
Snowflake Apple Chips Recipe
Ingredients:
- 5 Apples
- A pinch of colored sugar
- Optional: cinnamon
You’ll also need a snowflake cookie cutter. Depending on the size of the apples, you can use a variety of sized cookie cutters.
Slice apples thin but remember they don’t have to be perfect. Every snowflake is different and imperfections is what makes them beautiful. Use a small snowflake cookie cutter to cut out the core in each slice. You can also cut around the apple slices with a larger snowflake cookie cutter if preferred.
Lay apple slices on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Lightly sprinkle apples with colored sugar. My daughters don’t care for cinnamon so we skipped this step but if you want cinnamon apple slices, simply sprinkle cinnamon on top of apple slices.
Bake for 90 minutes at 225°. If you would prefer apples soft, remove from oven after about 45 minutes. The apple chips have a light color from the sugar and are just sweet enough to love more than your favorite holiday cookie!
When you visit the grocery store or farmer’s market, remember to bring along the Produce Scavenger Hunt for more family fun learning about fresh fruit and vegetables this holiday season.
How are you adding fresh produce to your table this month?
Learn more about how you can get involved with Nourishing Arizona by connecting with them on Facebook and Twitter.
hello my name is Amy. I was watching Sea rescues when it featured your daughter Gabby. I was very impressed with her love for sea animals. I would like to share with you my story about my daughter. When my daughter was 6 years old she too knew that she wanted to be a marine biologist and study marine life and sciences. like you I was very supportive and still am. she is now 20 years old and never differed from her dream even though at 6 years old when she told me that she will be a marine biologists I said “ya ya you can be anything you want to be” knowing that at 6 years she surely would change her mind many times over. during her time growing into the beautiful young woman that she is she did all she could to study and learn what it will take to be a marine biologist and stuck to it. she was and is an exceptional daughter and student. She knew that she would have to get good grades to become a marine scientist, even down to keeping her mind and body strong. when she was getting ready to graduate high school she decided she didn’t want to go to college in America, she wanted to be near the ocean on an island where she could really study and learn and go to a college that offered marine sciences. She found a small college in American Samoa that offered some training in her field of study. Even though it is a two year college she is getting experience and different cultures of what it is like to be where she can be who she was meant to be.you can say that she is a real life Moana. the ocean has always called her. She spent some time in Fiji and Palau to study ocean life. She was able to dive into the bottom of the ocean to study coral reef. When she moves onto a 4 year college she wants to specialize in Dolphins. for me as her mother the day she left for Samoa it was like a piece of me had died, like my heart was ripped out of me. she is my only daughter and left for Samoa at 18 not ever have been there or knew anyone there or what the culture is like. don’t get me wrong she is having the time of her life there. she has one more semester left to complete her degree. she found a man that she is going to marry.( a Samoan) she is happy and loving every minute of her time there. For me when I look at every mother and her daughter I can’t help but think to myself would her daughter grow up and leave for an unknown country? Does that mother know that her daughter could someday grow up and leave the country. does that mother know that when her baby grows up she will live in a 3rd world country? Does that Mother know that if her daughter gets sick or someone has taken her she can’t get to her? Does that mother know that if her daughter will lose her bank card or some other crisis its very hard to communicate? my daughter has a three day limit that if I don’t hear from her after the third day I will be looking for her aggressively. I will say again that like you I am very supportive of my daughter but I never would realize that when she was 6 years old I would have to send her to a little island in the middle of the pacific ocean. keep this letter in mind for if or when your daughter wants to be in the middle of the Pacific ocean to be a marine scientist it would hopefully prepare you.
Amy.
That is a fun snack idea. I know for a fact that my boys would love these. I will have to make some soon!
I love everything about this snack but mostly that it is healthy but still fun! Christmas cookies reimagined and I really want one right now!!
This is a great idea! It’s so hard to get kids to eat anything fruit or vegetable related. Fun shapes definitely help. 🙂
These look like tasty fun snacks to make! My boys love apples so I know they would get a kick out of helping me make these and eat them!
Aw I love the idea of snowflake apple chips but I especially loved your comment about imperfections. You are right imperfections are beautiful! x
It’s such a great way to encourage kids to eat more fruits especially this season! I really like how easy it is to make as well. Definitely a must a try!
This is a great snack idea, I’m always looking for ways to jazz up regular produce and this is the ticket. I’ll be trying this with my guys tomorrow after school
This is a really great idea for apple slices. My daughter would love to help recreate these for snacking on.
Great idea! Apples are my kids’ favorite and I’m sure they’d love these chips, I’ll make some for them.
Oh my! These look awesome! They look super simple to make, and probably really good!
Yum! What a fun idea. I think the idea of apple chips are genius I just wish more than myself would eat them. I wonder if I do this if my kiddos would enjoy them!
I am always on the look out for healthy recipes that the kids will enjoy! This is definitely one of those and I can’t wait to make this for my kids!
These are so adorable! I love that these are easy to make, require really no prep, and are healthy! These would make a great holiday munchy!
I loveee homemade apple chips, this is such a fun and festive variation on them just in time for the holidays!
These are such a fun idea. I love making apple chips and adding a festive twist to them is such a good idea. I will have to make these with my daughter!
It is so much easier when you can start kids on natural sweet treats early. I learned the hard way but my three-year-old is really excited when she gets carrots and dip and delicious grapes for a treat.
This is such a cute idea! I’ve never made anything like this before, but I bet our kids would love to make it sometime.
I bet those would smell good and look awesome on your Christmas tree! I want to try it!
These apple slices are an awesome idea! I know I have heard from my daughter many times that her tummy hurts from too much sugar this time of the year. Doing fun apples like these really seem like a great snack alternative.
what a fun idea! this would be such a great snack for kids of all ages!
These look like they would be an amazing treat! I definitely need to do some of these for my kiddos.
My kids are obsessed with apples! I go through so many every week! These would be a delicious snack!
I love apple chips. They are such a tasty treat that is also healthy. This are so cute and fun for the holidays and nice activity to do with the kids.
I love this idea of healthy snacking. I’m so going to make this for my family. I know it’s gong to be a big hit!
My kids love it when I make them baked apples in the morning but I never thought of adding a detail to the middle like this. What a great idea! I can’t wait to try this.