Healthy lunch boxes and snacks ideas

Two easy recipes help you to stay away from unhealthy eat out food.

I’ve been talking about packing your own lunch and snacks for work to stay away from eating out and lead us overeating, but I have not been posting any yummy and healthy recipes to give you an idea of what you can make at home to bring to work. I love cooking and I’ve tried out a lot of healthy recipes at home, this time I’ll introduce you two recipes, meatloaf with prunes, which is PERFECT for lunch or dinner with a side salad and banana muffins, excellent to pair with a cup or tea of espresso as a treat!

Meatloaf with prunes – Serves 4-5

Prep time: 15 MIN Active time: 40 MIN

Make sure you use good quality beef and fresh lean bacon for this recipe – Enjoy!

Ingredients:

½ Cup fresh breadcrumbs

¼ Cup skimmed milk

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 medium carrot, clean and scrubbed

1 tbsp. unsalted butter

1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

¼ ground allspice

1 large egg

3 slices fresh lean bacon, roughly chopped

⅔ Cup pitted prunes

450 gm. good quality ground beef

¼ Cup fresh flat-leaf parsley (Optional)

1. Preheat oven to 175°C with rack in the middle.
2. Soak breadcrumbs in milk in a large bowl. Meanwhile, cook onion, garlic and carrot in butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally for about 5 MIN or until carrot is tender, about 5 MIN. Remove from heat and stir in Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, allspice, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper. Add to breadcrumb mixture.
3. Process bacon and prunes in an electric meat processor until well blended, then add to onion mixture along with beef, eggs and parsley then mix together with your hands until well combined.
4. Pack the mixture into a 5”x9” greased bread loaf pan, loosely covered by tin foil then place it in the oven for 25 MIN.
5. Remove tin foil and put it back to the oven for another 15 MIN or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center of meatloaf registers 68°C. Let stand 10 MIN before serving or before you pack them into boxes.

Low calorie banana muffins – Makes 9 medium muffins

Prep time: 20 MIN Active time: 15 MIN

It can’t be easier than this to make a perfect treat for the afternoons!

Note: You can use a silicon muffin tin for this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 Cup flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

⅛ tsp. salt

1 Cup mashed riped bananas (about 2 medium bananas)

¼ brown sugar

1 large egg

⅓ of one vanilla bean

¼ Cup unsweetened applesauce

1. Preheat oven to 175°C.
2. In medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, combine banana, sugar, egg and vanilla bean. Blend until well mixed then add applesauce. Slowly combine dry mixture to banana mixture. Blend well.
4. Spoon batter into silicon muffin tin. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool before serving.

Thanks for inspiration from Gourmet.com and Sparkpeople.com!