The title seemed interesting but may be.. may be you came around thinking who and why needs the party to be healthy. After all parties are about celebrating together and unwind with great food then why have a leash of health in the mix to hold back on all the fun. But if you are a parent like me who has to organise fun frolic play parties for your kiddo time and again you will relate to it. And, If you are a grown up party animal still going healthy does not hurt. And with Christmas around, it can be your test bed. If you or your kid do frequent get-together/parties with your friends then going a bit healthy while not loosing out on the fun with great food moto does not hurt.

Being a mother who is on a mission to provide healthy and delicious food to her kid, this is a lifelong mission, and I cannot win this alone if I do not prepare my little commando to understand that healthy can also be tasteful, look for options that are better than junk food and make him ready to try options that would satisfy his cravings and keep him away from the available packaged and junk food. Just to make sure we all understand, that I do not run an army camp by any means ;).

This time it was my son’s birthday party and as a mom I was super excited to celebrate my little commando’s birthday. So obviously, my mission for healthy and tasty food was still on. No way I was giving up on my Quick and Healthy Bites principle. So I was thinking about how do I have a menu which makes the hunger rats run across the stomach of every kid and yet it is healthy enough to make sure no harm is done even if someone goes for an extra piece or two out of taste. But all said and done, you cannot be overly precautious about what your kids are eating. Also, we can totally control diets for them, till the point kids are non decimaking toddlers, once they are past that age this is not an option my friend.

So taking this into account I started thinking about the menu. I segmented the menu into 4 categories, Starter, Main Course, Dessert and Drinks. Items for each were keeping both kids and adults in mind. Let me give a glimpse of my thought process on deciding about these different food categories in the menu.

Starters: To make something which kids can eat fast(but not fast food) by themselves, can be kept mildly to no spicy yet satiating and are filling enough to keep their batteries charged till the main course is served.

Main Course: Should be filling for the kids, should include at least one staple grain to which kids are normally familiar, and the other one to just make kids/adults curious enough to get interested.

Dessert: Cake is a no brainer but a healthy one so that I can just let my son and his friends have much as they want. You can check my recipe video for healthy cake on my Youtube Channel or Facebook page. And an option of a light traditional dessert.

Drink: Simple, easy to make and serve, non soda induced so both adults and kids can consume. A word of advice, keep it easy enough that even your partner with non-culinary skills will volunteer to prepare this.

And above all, the preparations had to be quick, as I was getting everything done right in my own kitchen and at scale.

After going through the churns of different item but based on the thought process mentioned above I came up with the below menu:

For Starters:

• Sautéed Idlis with Coconut Chutney
• Baked Papdi Chaat with Rajma Topping –Baked Papdi Recipe, Rajma Topping Recipe

For Main Course:

• Buns with Aloo Paneer Stuffing, Green Chutney, Tamarind Chutney and Tomato Ketchup
• Vegetable Pulao with Raita

For Desserts:

• Rice, Makhana and Almond Kheer
• Chocolate Cake

For Drinks:

– Roohafza Mojito (with water no soda)

Now comes the plan of action. Because if preparing the menu was a Ramayana for me getting the menu actually served on table will be no less than Mahabharata. Why a plan of action? Because all these preparations had to be done along with the daily chores, and thus a plan could keep me on track. I started by listing out all the ingredients required and made sure the shopping for the same was completed at least two days prior to the event. Party was on Sunday, so the preparations were divided between Saturday and the day. While Saturday went in preparing the items which could be stored, like chocolate cake, kheer, chutneys and baked papdis. I kept Sunday for the menu items which needed fresh preparations.

I was doing all these preparations, keeping one thing in mind that I have to make this day memorable for my son, and the enthusiasm to make it a healthy party motivated me to come up with an innovative menu and improvising recipes. 

With this, I realised that parties can be healthy if we are committed towards making it so. Along with the other ingredients for a great party, like dance, music, endless chatter, we had “great food” which was healthy and everyone enjoyed it. The kids had a real fun time and above all my son was super excited right from the time I started preparing for the party, so it was not just one day but two full days of fun for him. 

Phewww…at the end all went well, and I was happy and satisfied seeing the smile on his face.

lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu..