Dining IN with the Elephant Cafe - what a treat!!

      I know that many of the local moms who read this blog also work full-time outside the home, so I have a treat especially for you today! I was recently asked to review some
child-friendly, healthy, ready-made meals (yes, it is actually possible to use those four words in one sentence!!)  from a delightful little company called Elephant Cafe.

     So let me tell you straight away that the food was great!! We received samples of Charlie's Cottage Pie and Fab Fish Pie to try. Sweetpea is a real meat lover, and Arrow always prefers fish, "and so betwixt the two of them , they licked the platter clean!" They did each have a taste of the other's dish, but in the end stuck to their own. And of course Mama 'helped' a little, and I can definitely see why the bambinos were happy: no 'offending' textures or overwhelming flavours, or any 'visible' vegetables - shhhh...don't tell them that it is actually just chopped up really small!

   And that is how Elephant Cafe got started, actually: The owner's daughter was a very fussy eater. When her parents finally 'struck gold' with a recipe that contained some healthy  'goody, goody goodness' AND met with approval from their

daughter, it was just too good to keep to themselves. They "decided to create yummy, healthy kids meals packed with all the stuff kids need without any of those things they don´t."  Yes, their meals are free of added sugar, salt or preservatives!

You can choose from

• Charlies' Cottage Pie
• Cheesy Peasy Pasta
• Fab Fish Pie
• Messy Spaghetti Bolognese
• Very Vegetable Lasagne

The highlight of our taste test had to be the SQUISH SMOOTHIES that were delivered with our samples, though. In fact, as far as ArrowBoy was concerned, I could have left out the food altogether, as long as he could have had some more Squish! Although called a smoothie, these are really little pouches of fruit puree that contain ONLY FRUIT. NO sugar, NO preservatives, colourants, or any other yucky stuff! I love the packaging, too: these wont spill easily, and even a really little guy like Arrow can handle it all by himself!

Squish is the brain child of the owner of the Elephant Cafe, too!

It is made locally and is full of yummy goodness.

Other flavours in the range:

• Apple and Guava
• Tropical

ArrowBoy enjoying the Pears and Berries version.

And just finishing off the Bananas and Strawberries, too!

Aaaw, is it really all gone??

   Another treat is a visit to Elephant Cafe's website. The design alone speaks volumes about what this company is about: no-nonsense, simple, child-friendly products. The site it easy to navigate and chock-full of information about nutrition, reclycing, and of course how to order their scrummy meals. By clicking on each menu item you can see a picture of the meal, and get imporatnt details about ingredients, allergy advice, nutritional information, and heating instructions (1.5 mins in the microwave on high is all it takes!)

From their website:

It is important for us to keep our kids healthy so it seems only right to keep our planet healthy too, so our kids can continue to enjoy it. We know we´re not perfect but we are doing our bit to be environmentally responsible.

Things we do

• All our packaging, although made of plastic, is fully recyclable. We do use thin plastic trays in an effort to reduce the raw material needed. Reusing the trays is a great way to reduce waste. Our kids use them for mixing paint or as battleships in their bath tub wars. When you do need to throw them away please put them in the recycling waste. If your area doesn’t have the recycling man, then we’ll collect your old trays on our next delivery and dispose for you.

• Even our food scraps feed the hungry. We have our own worm farm and all our vegetable peelings and organic waste are fed to our hungry worms who work very hard in their factory turning this into natural fertilizer for the garden. Anything our worms can’t finish is given to Tessa, the school piggy.

   Sweet, aren't they?? OK, so now all that's left for you busy busy busy mommies out there is to place your orders for supper! For more information, please visit http://www.elephantcafe.co.za/, or call 082-728-4263, and enjoy!

*Please note that I have not received payment for this review. I was given free samples to try, though,  in exchange for an honest review of the product.*