Day 225

I have been seeing tons of pictures like this on Pinterest lately.  Do you think I could find one on there today??  Of course not!  Anyway, something about these pictures makes me happy.  I'm sure it's the sprinkles!  What kind of monster do you have to be to not be even a little bit happy to see sprinkles?  Well today the sun is shining and I am starting to feel a little bit more like myself again so I decided to recreate this picture in a lunch for D.

Day 225 - D has apple slices with peanut butter, string cheese on a Hello Kitty cupcake topper, grape tomatoes and string cheese and her sprinkle smile sandwich!  It is just a peanut butter/strawberry jam sandwich.  I used a very thin layer of strawberry jam to hold the sprinkles on and I used a Wilton Icing Writer to draw the line.

Day 215

Day 215 - Make your own pizza day!!  D has 3 fish pizza crust cut outs, starfish kiwi, a striped cheese starfish, starfish pepperoni and a small container of sauce under the cheese starfish, there is shredded cheese in the Hello Kitty container.  Hello Kitty really didn't go with the ocean theme but D wanted it and it made her happy so who am I to question it?  LOL

Remember the other day when I told you about my homemade yogurt?  Well when I strain it I save the yellow liquid (whey) that drains from it.  I use this whey to make bread and/or pizza dough.  I like that it gives the bread a slight sourdough flavor.  I especially like to use it in pizza dough that I am going to cook on the grill.  I roll out the dough, brush it with olive oil and sprinkle it with sea salt....it's the perfect combination of sour, smokey and salty.  I could eat it just like that, never mind as pizza!

The pizza dough recipe I use is a variation on the King Arthur Flour pizza dough recipe from the back of their specialty pizza flour mixture.

Here is what I use:
3 1/4C Flour (I use a mix of AP flour and bread flour most often, but all AP flour works just fine)
2 healthy pinches of kosher salt
2 T olive oil
1 1/4 C whey (room temp to slightly warm) you can use water instead.
1 T instant yeast

Day 207

Day 207 - Today D has a little bit of this and a little bit of that!  Top left is a roast beef appetizer that my SIL made. Then there are some baby carrots, ham and grilled pineapple kebabs, inside the Hello Kitty container (it's actually an "Easter egg") is some sliced pickles and last there is some bacon wrapped potato appetizers that I had found on pinterest. Oh and all the way to the right is a piece of string cheese.

Day 206

No school today so instead D and I made "sushi".  Finally a sushi she'll eat!  I saw this on Pinterest the other day and I had to try it.  I love sushi and eat it when ever I have the chance.  My kids are not fans!

Day 205

Day 205 - Today D wanted ravioli so she has mac n' cheese ravioli with chopped fresh tomatoes in her thermos.  For her snack/dessert she has sliced strawberries, bunny marshmallows and a few chickie m&ms.

Michelle over at Creative Food made them the other day and I thought they were so cute I had to make them for D!  I didn't tell D about them so on top of having candy in her lunch there will be the added surprise of it being "cute" candy!

Day 204

Day 204 - From the top there is an oreo cookie bird's nest.  I just put some white frosting on top of a golden oreo dipped it in green tinted coconut then used more frosting to stick in 3 jelly beans, 2 strawberries, nutella/banana bunny sandwich.  I decorated it with the Wilton icing writer, candy eyes, fruit leather and candy sprinkle nose.  It doesn't really show up well but I used a white butterfly sprinkle for the teeth.  There are two micro silicone hearts with grape tomatoes to  make up his bow tie.  She also has some sugar snap peas, red pepper and carrot flowers.  Click on the picture below to see what my friend Bobbi is making for Spring!

Day 203

Day 203 - D and I decorated Easter eggs!!  Ok so it's just another pb & j sandwich!  We used our cookie cutters and some Wilton Decorator Icing Writer.  She also has Easter basket cookies that I saw made here.  Then there is a "bunch" of carrots, 2 strawberries with a clementine butterfly and the rest of the clementine.

Day 202

Day 202 - Today D has some not so cute bunny hotdogs...I tried!  LOL  She was very happy with them and thinks they are cute. I think they are frightening!  She also has baby carrots and a clementine, a pb & j sandwich stamped with the bunny/chick.

I have seen so many cute ideas floating around and I want to try them all!  I saw a website the other day call The Decorated Cookie she had the most beautiful marshmallow drawings.  I am no artist, not even a little bit so forgive my feeble attempt!

I had also come across this on Pinterest the other day and decided to try it with marshmallows.

my "eggs" wouldn't stay in and my handle wouldn't stay on.  Today I'll be making the cookie version!

Day 195

Day 195 - Remember yesterday when I said that Momables could help you get out of your lunch time rut?  I was looking at the free downloadable sample meal plan last night and remembered that I hadn't made D ham and pineapple kebobs in a while!  So from the top she has a clementine with a cheese and soy paper face,  Hello Kitty muenster cheese picks, two sunflowers (instructions to follow) the kebobs and some cherry tomatoes.

For the sunflowers I grabbed a pack of golden oreo cakesters and used my medium flower cutter to make the shape.  I use the small circle cutter in the middle and then I put a handful of chocolate chips in a ziplock bag with maybe 1/2 tsp of coconut oil and microwaved it in 20 second increments until it was melted.  I snipped off the corner of the bag and filled the holes with chocolate.  Put in the fridge to set.  I used my flower stem picks to dress them up!

Day 192

Day 192 - I didn't take a picture of D's lunch today.  She had chicken/broccoli macaroni and cheese in her thermos and some fruit salad.  I did take a picture of her snack.  I used golden Oreo Cakesters and followed this tutorial from Cute Food For Kids.  We went to Butterfly Place this weekend as a special outing for D's birthday.  She really had a great time and the butterflies seemed to love her!

Day 189 Happy Birthday to little D!

No lunch picture to post today.  It is D's birthday today and she requested to buy lunch at school. :(  I had a grand plan in mind to make her some kind of cute/fun birthday inspired lunch but I certainly couldn't refuse such a simple request from the Birthday Girl!  Instead I'll post about the cupcakes that I made for her class.  Another D request...Rootbeer Float cupcakes!

I'm not sure why my kids don't like "cake" flavored cake.  Well that's not entirely true...I think they just like to challenge me!  LOL  So to fulfill D's request, I started with a boxed white cake...I don't know why I went with that and not chocolate...chocolate probably would have made more sense.  I followed the box directions but added 1Tbs of Watkins Rootbeer flavoring.  Cooked them according to the box and then frosted them with my favorite vanilla frosting.

UPDATE: D has come home from school and the cupcakes were a big hit!  I was a little worried since I had not tried them before I sent them in.  I'm not much of a cake eater.  She did bring a couple home.  I had sent in a few extra just in case of dropping/accidents and what not...I tried a bite and it seriously tasted like rootbeer float!  One student said to my daughter "I hope we are in the same class in second grade.  If we are will you bring these in again?"  so I guess that means he liked them!  LOL

UPDATE 2: We tried it with chocolate cake mix and they were equally delicious!

Day 185

Day 185 - From the top cheese pearls, fruit snacks, strawberries/clementine, pork potstickers, cucumber slices, blue bottle of soy sauce, cucumber slices and grape tomatoes.

173 and 174

173 This is an awful picture and there really isn't anything to see.  Sunday night D asked me if she could have chicken soup for lunch on Monday.  Of course I didn't have any made!  When I got home from the gym at 6am I started a pot of soup.  Thank god for my freezer stash of chicken stock!  So in her thermos is chicken/barley soup, in the orange bag is dried fruit and nut trail mix and in the yellow container is grape tomatoes and pea pods.  She is lucky she is so stinkin' cute because when she came home from school her thermos was still over half full!  She hardly ate any of it! 

174 Valentine's Day!!  Another love inspired lunch!  First is vanilla yogurt with pastel heart sprinkles, Oreo Cakesters made with following the tutorial at Cute Food For Kids, freeze dried strawberries, pizza cut into hearts and fruit leather cut into hearts.

Day 170

Today D has mozzarella cheese pearls, s/f banana pudding with hello kitty sprinkles, Just Fruit Munchies with a few chocolate chips, tortellini with sundried tomato pesto and a few carrots.

Day 166

166 - Today D is using her fancy new Laptop Lunch Box.  Thanks again Whole Foods!!  She has Rainbows and Butterflies pasta salad, carrot chips, blueberries, 2 mini banana cream pies and strawberry fruit twist.

Day 164

164, I only have a pic of the snack that goes along with D's lunch.  I put it together last night knowing that I was going to give her left over baked macaroni and cheese in her thermos.  So really nothing to see there.  Her snack is honey wheat sticks, cookie dough dip and apple slices.

I got an amazing deal today!  I have been wanting to get D a Laptop Lunch box for the longest time.  I just couldn't bring myself to spend the money on one.  They are just sooooo expensive!  Today I was at Whole Foods and I saw they had one marked for $21.99.  I figured I'd never get a better price than that so I talked myself into buying it.  When I got to the register is rung up at $24.99.  I usually don't pay attention but you can be sure I will now.  I mentioned it to the cashier that it had rung up at $3 more than it was marked.  Well imagine my surprise when she said "I'm so sorry about that, but now I need to tell you that you get this item for free.  It is Whole Food's policy that if the item rings up at the wrong price, you get it for free."  She totally made my day!  I would have been happy to just have been credited the $3!

Days 119, 120 & 121

Day 119

Slider burger (burger has shredded carrots and zuchini in it), peas, brownie, under the blue cap is some applesauce and a purple potato/cheese flower.

Day 120

By request D had lunch meat "sushi" again, pretzel crisps, raisins, grape heart, milk, sliced apples with some Biscoff for dipping.

Day 121

Pizza strip/turkey pepperoni sprinkled on top, cheese stick, grapes and mini "caramel" apples that D, A and I made using this recipe from Family Fun.

Day 116

For lunch today D has peas/carrots, muffaletta bean salad in the butterfly, chicken/apple sausage, chocolate soy milk, and 3 mini pumpkin muffins with cream cheese and hello kitty candies.

The Muffaletta Salad was adapted from a recipe by Shelly over at The World According To Eggface.

Day 98

D had no school today so no snack.  For lunch today the girls had pork wontons with sweet and sour dipping sauce.  A had cantelope and D had apples.  I made the wontons using this method.  I used 1 lb. ground pork, 2 green onions finely minced, maybe 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp minced ginger and 1 Tbs soy sauce for the filling.  I used a measuring teaspoon to measure out the filling.  I made them yesterday so after I boiled them I drained them well and layered them in wax paper to keep in the fridge.  Today I just heated a little oil in a pan and lightly pan fried them to warm them through.

Day 90

Yesterday D and I made No Bake Granola Balls.  We used this recipe from the PBS website.  I had to make some adjustments to make it school safe since D is in a nut free classroom.  I used soy butter instead of peanut butter and I used homemade nut free granola.  Then just for fun we rolled them in unsweetened coconut.

I used a chocolate marshmallow to make the nose and ears and a white cake sprinkle with some blue frosting for eyes.

For lunch D and A have seafood salad in lettuce cups with cucumber and orange bell pepper.