Day 201

Day 201 - Today for lunch I gave D macaroni and cheese ravioli tossed with olive oil and chopped fresh tomatoes.  I put it in her thermos so it would stay hot for her so there is no picture of that.  Her snack is clementines and lady fingers with cookie dough dip.

Day 200 Seriously?

I can't believe I am posting my 200th lunch!  I feel like I just started yesterday!

Day 200 - I should have planned ahead and done something special.  Very poor planning on my part...I desperately need to go to the grocery store!  Today D has some grilled chicken with mango, pineapple and peaches, honey mustard, grape tomatoes, homemade vanilla yogurt with fruit salad on top.

Day 199

Day 199 - Yesterday when D came home from school I cleaned out her lunch box and was surprised to see that she had not eaten her sandwich.  She only ate one meatball out of it.  I said "D, did you not like your lunch today?"  Her reply, "Oh Mommy can you please, please make me something quick to eat this week?  I am a table washer and need to eat quickly.  I love meatballs but just didn't have the time!"  LOL  Her school is K-3rd grade.  Each grade has their own lunch period so when the first group finishes lunch they wash the tables for the second group and so on until the last lunch when the cafeteria employees do the clean up.  She is very excited that her turn has finally come around to be a table washer!  So I couldn't really think of any "quick food" last night.  I finally settled on breakfast for lunch...if nothing else it was quick for me to make!  LOL  She has mini pancakes with cream cheese and raspberry jam, fruit salad, the pancake cut outs with a strawberry, chicken/apple sausage hearts on picks with extra raspberry  jam in the monkey cup.  The blue bottle has a little maple syrup.

I tried something new...

I have been thinking about what I am going to do for D's lunch as far as an Easter theme goes.  I was looking around at what I have and I came across 2 unused rubber stamps.  I'm sure I got them at Michael's or Jo-ann's.  I wondered if colored them with my food safe markers would they work well for stamping on food.  I tried american cheese and a flour tortilla.  The answer is yes and no.  I found that I had to dip the marker tips in water, put the cover back on and let them "rest" tip down in a cup for a few minutes in order for them to be wet enough to remain wet on the stamp while I colored the whole thing.  I also learned that they work much better on cheese than they did on the tortilla.  However on the tortilla when I used a darker color as the outline I was able to trace over it and color it in on the tortilla.  I do not have the best food markers.  The ones I have are Wilton brand and they do not work well on soft surfaces.

I think it worked great on the cheese!

I also found that the more detailed it was the more difficult it was to get a good print.

The tortilla proved to be more difficult.



Day 198

Day 198 - I had gotten some new fondant cutters the other day.  They say "Funny Flower" but to me they look more like funny stars!  D has a meatball sub with cheese/nori stars and some flat leaf parsley.  See I really was trying to go with flower, but I just couldn't seem to make it work so stars they are!  LOL She also has granola balls, fruit salad, cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes on Hello Kitty picks.

Day 197

Day 197 - For lunch today D has "Scoop your own taco".  D hates taco shells.  It makes her crazy when they crack/break and the stuff falls out.  So I took some shredded chicken, mixed it with some mild salsa and topped it with some pea shoots, cheese and a turkey star.  She has corn chip scoops for dipping, yogurt with 2 blueberry fruit leather butterflies, grapes and strawberry hearts.

Day 196

Day 196 - D has another lunchable.  I used a medium flower cutter to cut out some bread instead of using crackers today.  Then she has "Cotton Tails" white cheddar cheese puffs, clementine and an apple with Biscoff for dipping.

I like to make my own lunchables because then I can control the quality of the ingredients.  I can choose to use nitrate/nitrite free lunch meat or low sodium lunch meat.  I can make sure the crackers I use don't contain HFCS.  I can use homemade breads.

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 194

Day 194 - Pasta salad (zucchini/spinach pasta, corn, carrots, red bell pepper, pea shoots and the scraps of lunchmeat from yesterday's lunchable dressed with a lite ceaser dressing) topped with turkey and ham stars, strawberries (with candy eyes), fruit twist, yogurt topped with cherries and a cucumber chain.


You may have heard about "pink slime" in the news recently.  Pink slime is boneless meat trimmings that have been treated with ammonia gas....Sounds delicious doesn't it?  A recent report from The Daily, the Ipad newspaper from Newscorp. lists some stores that sell beef that includes pink slime and some stores that do not sell beef laced with pink slime.  My point here is that this information reinforces for me the need to really pay attention to where I source my ingredients.  I put so much effort into providing my family with the freshest and healthiest foods I can afford.  I wish that our school systems would do the same, but they don't HAVE to.  I will continue my efforts in packing lunches for my kids.  If you want to pack lunches for your kids but are stuck in a rut or don't know where to begin www.Momables.com helps with ideas and recipes.  They also offer a free downloadable sample menu.

Day 193

Apologies for the horrible picture :( 

Day 193 - D has a homemade lunchable.  Turkey, ham, salami and cheese with some crackers and cherry tomatoes, the other side has fruit salad under the parchment paper and a cheese and fruit leather cheerleader.  Our school colors are purple and white.  I will admit that the pom poms are pretty pathetic!  LOL  D was very happy with it so I'm happy.  I also packed her a yogurt cup and her milk.

I used fondant cutters to make the girl's body and shoes, I used the pants cutter to cut out the "hair" and colored with food safe markers.

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 191

Day 191 - Today D has a steak panini topped with a green pepper shamrock, cherry tomatoes, string cheese and rainbow fruit salad.

Day 190

Day 190 - Eating the rainbow!!  Top left is rainbow fruit salad (pineapple, strawberry and green grape), squeezeable applesauce, "pot o' gold" rollos, cubes of chicken meatloaf topped with hearts cut out of roasted beets, rainbows and butterflies salad..this time I made it with an Asian twist instead of the usual italian flavors.  It is carrot/squash pasta with cucumbers, broccoli, peas, carrots and tomatoes then I made a quick dressing of mirin, tamari, rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil and then I put maybe 2 tsp of toasted sesame seeds in it also.

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 188

Day 188 A nudge and a wink to St. Patrick's Day!  D has a "shamrock" pizza (whole wheat pita, pizza sauce, cheese and a bell pepper slice), cherry tomatoes, grapes, strawberries and an M&M rainbow with a rolo "pot o' gold".

Just for fun, here is her snack today.  It is a granola bar with a fruit leather/dinosaur umbrella and blue sprinkle rain.

Day 187

No picture of D's lunch today.  She has a thermos full of homemade chicken soup, a banana and some almond milk.  Her snack is 2 chocolate raspberry Newton fruit thins and an apple.

Day 186

Day 186 - Fridge cleaning day!  On the left is strawberries and clementines and on the right is a chicken salad made up of chicken, olives, grape tomatoes and cheese pearls.  She also had a no- bake peanut butter, chocolate oat bar.

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.

Day 184

Day 184 - Dinner left overs!!  Last night for dinner we had Bacon, Ranch Chicken subs and D only ate 1/2 of hers (which is more than enough for her).  So she has the other 1/2 of that some strawberries, tangelo slices and red and orange tomatoes.

Ranch Chicken
1 (6lb) whole chicken
1 stick butter softened
1 T buttermilk ranch seasoning

Preheat the oven to 325.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil, set aside.  I like to butterfly the chicken so it cooks quicker.   So using very sharp kitchen scissors I remove the back bone and press the chicken flat.  Combine the softened butter and ranch seasoning.  Loosen the skin on the chicken.  I spread about a tablespoon of the seasoned butter per side so it would be for the breast and thigh/leg, under the skin.  Bake for approx 1 hour, check for doneness with a meat thermometer.  Remove from oven and let cool a bit.  You can eat this how ever you want.  Last night I shredded the meat with 2 forks and used it in sandwiches.  I cooked some bacon till crispy.  Some mayo, cheddar cheese, bacon and shredded chicken in a sub roll then cooked on my George Foreman type grill.

Day 183

Day 183 is one of D's all time favorites.  Corndog muffin, cucumber slices, baby carrots, string cheese and vanilla yogurt with sour cherries on top.

For the corn dog muffins, just use your favorite cornbread recipe and add chopped hotdogs to it.  I used mini hot dogs and put 3 in each muffin cup.

Day 182

Day 182 has me longing for Spring.  This weekend I watched the first Sunday Spring Training baseball game and that really gets me itching to be outside.  We have an outdoor living area that is complete with cable hook up and surround sound.  We spend pretty much every waking moment outside once the weather allows.  We have a fire pit so even if there is a bit of a chill in the air if it's mild enough you will find us outside!  So with that in mind...D has cucumber slices with flower cutouts, clementine, strawberries, pb/j sandwich with cheese dancing frog and flowers and some carrot sticks.  I colored the frog and flowers with my Wilton markers. 

Day 181 Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!

Day 181 D has a Dr. Seuss inspired lunch.  The M&M's are for Fox in Socks...I know it's a reach..Fox is red, his socks were blue and I don't know why but I tossed in a couple marshmallows too!  Then we move over to Thing 1 and Thing 2 apples, next is the 1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish almond butter and strawberry jam sandwich, and Cat's string cheese and tomato hat!

180

Day 180- Today is lunch meat sushi, tomatoes, fruit salad, string cheese and an oreo cakester with a spring flower...it is cold, snowy, rainy and just plain dreary here today so I was hoping to brighten her day a little!