Share your homemade sporty kids snacks with Lidl - chance to win vouchers NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Lidl, as a proud partner of grassroots football across England, Scotland and Wales, are encouraging children to get involved in football and lead an active healthy lifestyle, but they know that fuelling budding sports stars can be tricky.

So they'd love to hear how you keep your DCs fuelled after charging round a football pitch, netball court, or each other! Maybe you make a mean energy bar to stick in a sports bag - or a super quick supper you can have on the table in minutes after a long game? Whatever it is, share all the details of your recipe, and of course any photos of your food in action would be great too!

Share your ideas below and you will be entered into a prize draw where you could win one of five £50 Lidl vouchers.

Thanks and good luck

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply.

A recipe for soft oat squares like soft cereal bars. They are really quick and easy to make and so yummy! They would make a good breakfast, snack or pudding.
Raspberry/Strawberry oat squares
225g self raising flour
175g dairy free spread
175g rolled oats
175g sugar (or 85g if using tinned fruit in syrup)
1 tin raspberries or strawberries in juice or syrup

1. Pre heat oven to 200/gas 6
2. Grease a baking tin (I use 28x18cm) or line with baking parchment.
3. Rub together flour and spread then stir in oats and sugar.
4. Drain the fruit but reserve the juice/syrup.
5. Press 1/2 oat mix into the tin and even out pressing down with the bottom of a spoon. Top with the drained fruit. Add the remaining oat mix to the top and press down again.
6. For a softer texture drizzle 3-4 tbsp of the syrup/juice over the bake. For a crispier texture add less or omit (I like it soft). Press down again with spoon.
7. Bake for approximately 15 minutes until it starts to brown. Cool then slice.

My dc love banana and radon flapjacks or muffins, especially after swimming. Easy to make and store and you can add more fruit and seeds to your taste. Also carrot sticks in a bottle of water, keeps the fresh and stops them drying out and you can still drink the water.

We're having a bit of a hardboiled egg phase at the moment. And the dc have small fingers, well-suited to peeling the eggs, which is good.

I also do that thing of cooking eggs in muffin tins and freezing them, sometimes with ham or bacon, maybe cheese, for easy quick breakfasts or snacks.

My boys are keen footballers and I make energy bars to keep them going. One of their favourites is apple and cinnamon:
2 cups pecans
2 cups rolled oats
1.5 cups pitted and halved dates
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch salt
2 cups chopped granny smith apples
Preheat oven, toast pecans and oats in oven for about 10 mins. Line a square pan with greaseproof paper. Throw the nuts, oats, dates, cinnamon and salt in a food processor and whizz. Add apples and whizz some more. Spread mixture into the pan and flatten it with a spatula. Bake for about 20 mins.

DS's favourite post-football snack is a bag of crisps eaten on the bus home!

We're a little bit healthier pre-football as he likes wholemeal toast with peanut butter and chopped banana for breakfast. Lots of slow release energy to keep him going through the game.

DC love bananas and SoupDragon's flapjacks. We use less sugar, but it's the best flapjack recipe we've ever tried.

Dd is a dancer st vocational school.

She finds bananas really keep her energy levels up.

She also likes the nuts/seeds that Lidl sell (cheaper & less high sugar fruit in them than at Asda). I buy a bag of them & decent into little plastic tubs.

Flapjacks recipie sounds interesting. Is there a link?

Why is it always football?

Crap loads of money already being invested in football, which is nearly predominantly boys. When girls are the ones that need keeping in sport...

I don't do anything to fuel the activity in particular, stick with as balanced a diet as possible. Adapting obviously to the training schedule- packed tea in the car, selecting foods that are calorie dense and quickly digested.

We do slow cooker pasta on a Wednesday night (football night). With DS2 out at football DS1 enjoys having me (almost) to himself and we do cooking together . It's a tin of Lidl Italiamo chopped tomatoes with onion and garlic, veg stock cube, pasta twirls generously covered with water and cooked in my multicooker on the rice setting. Takes 45mins to cook, keeps warm if we're delayed and it's cheap bulk. We top with a bit of grated cheese, sometimes add in some ham, bacon or meatballs.

DS1 is keen to learn to cook but has some physical limitations. He can't hold a knife safely and doesn't the have the wrist strength to chop or grate onion instead. This dish is sufficiently simple he's able to cook with minimal supervision and has no hot oven, boiling water or sharp objects to handle. It's part of my master plan to teach each child, regardless of their limitations, some independence skills.

My eldest son is on the local basketball team and plays alot of football. I buy lots of fresh fruit every week from Lidl because it's such a good price and make nutritious smoothies. I also buy porridge oats for their breakfast rather than faddy sugary cereals.

DD plays football in a girls' league. More girls need encouraging into the sport.

Monday night is training night and I have a very small window from getting home from work to leaving for training, so it's usually eggs (protein) on wholemeal toast (carbs). Quick and filling, it gives her enough energy to keep going.

For a sneaky healthy pudding
whizz frozen bananas in a food processor with 1tbsp of milk per banana and Tada! Banana ice cream!

Also works with frozen raspberries and natural yoghurt!

My girls are swimmers and spend 1hour+ a day training on school days. More at the weekends. My go to snacks are -

Egg toasties made in breville

Nutella and banana ( or strawberry) toasties made in breville

Avocado, tomato and mozzarella toasties made in breville

Bolognese toasties

There seems to be a theme

My DD loves scrambled egg on toast after her swimming lesson. Quick and easy to do, instantly satisfying and keeps her going until lunchtime (swim lesson is 9am).

Mini fritters/pancakes with an egg, self raising flour and the ingredients of your choice. Banana is a hit here and occasionally add a few raisins as a treat. If using courgette, grate and squeeze the water out first

Lots of fruit
Rice cakes with peanut butter
hard boiled eggs
pasta with salmon and peas
jacket potatoes with beans and cheese
yoghurt with honey and nuts
little pot of macademias with dried cranberries
dried mango
cheese

All of the above purchased at Lidl

Sailing, swimming and gymnastics here.
Thermoses of hot chocolate (and coffee for me) in the cooler months after sailing.
Lots of (cold) pasta salads, with pesto and assorted vegetables (broccoli, peas, tomatoes).
Panini spread with pesto, filled with rocket/salad leaves, tomatoes, chorizo.
Porridge with maple syrup in the mornings.
Bananas.

I also have those wide thermoses (John Lewis sell them) and in cold weather I put warm pasta salad (with rocket because it wilts on the warm pasta) into the thermoses and the children have that after sailing.

All Lidl.

Agree your mixed nuts and seeds packs are great - I add them to salads.

Lidl's fab. I'm really looking forward to 'Italian week'.

We have to do a lot of ferrying about to get to and from the various venues. Especially the sailing ones, so you'll see that the above are all transportable!

I do them a big fry up on a Sat morning then they have an hour to digest. The football club give them a choc bar after.

Loads of great ideas here!

DS plays football x 4 pw. He takes snacks in car for journey home, usually typically some fruit eg apple or carton of grapes and a treat usually small bag of crisps.

He is often home late so has something I've prepared earlier which can be quickly reheated so NOT pasta! He usually craves meat so pork chops with salad, chicken stirfry, salmon and potatoes.

DD plays netball x 2 pw but much earlier : if she's hungry afterwards she often had feta cubes and cherry tomatoes, or if can wait til she gets home baked beans on toast or a crumpet with butter.

We take our kids hill walking - flapjacks always go down well and the oats are great for slow release energy.

Peanut butter & Strawberry jam on toast plus a glass of milk, after tonight's gym lesson.
(Son tried for jelly babies for his post-workout snack but I didn't fall for that!)