Day 217

Day 217 - Super simple today, oranges, ham and cheese pick, chocolate covered sunflower seeds, vanilla yogurt with dark chocolate on top.

I saw this idea on pinterest.  I loved the idea but needed to tweak it so that it would work for D's lunch.  What I came up with was mixing a little coconut oil into the melted chocolate so that it didn't set up so hard when cold.  She does like it when I mix the chocolate into the yogurt too but it feels like more of a "treat" to have a nice layer of chocolate to dig your spoon into!!

Day 216

Day 216 - For today's lunch D has chocolate/vanilla yogurt, babybel cheddar, baby spinach with greek dressing, pork potstickers with soy dipping sauce and strawberries.

M had 1/2 day at school today so she decided to get in on the 'cute food' fun and she made her sister a snack. This is an oreo cookie dip/spread mini mouse that she served with strawberries and bananas.  I followed the recipe in the link except I used grape seed oil and water.

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 214

Day 214 - Today D has some "clean out the fridge" pasta salad on top of some baby spinach, milk and tofu chocolate pudding with chocolate covered sunflower seeds.  The pasta salad has a little bit of everything, cucumbers, carrots, red bell peppers, corn, black olives, ham and feta cheese.  I tossed it with a little bit of greek dressing.

Day 213

Day 213 - D's lunch today is ham/salami, cucumber flowers, watermelon/cherry flowers, milk and chocolate and vanilla yogurt.

I have been making my own yogurt for a while now.  I had found some recipes online for crockpot yogurt then sort of tweaked and morphed them into something that works well for me...consistantly.

I pour a gallon of milk (I usually use 2%) into a large pot and heat it on medium heat until the milk reaches 185 degrees.  I pour it into my crockpot from there and stir in about 1 c of nonfat dry milk (this is optional).  I leave it uncovered until the milk reaches 110 degrees.  At this point I stir in 1 single serve container of plain greek yogurt (make sure whatever brand you are using has active live cultures).  Then I cover it and wrap the crockpot in a blanket and leave it undisturbed over night.  The next moring I have a crockpot full of yogurt!  At this point I strain mine because I like a thicker greek yogurt consistancy but again this is optional.  Store in the refridgerator. 

For the chocolate yogurt that I made today, I didn't measure anything so bear with me.  I took out one of my cereal bowls.  I filled the bottom with dark chocolate chips and microwaved it at 30 second intervals until is was melted.  I took about 2 C of plain yogurt and flavored it with Torani s/f vanilla syrup.  I mixed about 1 C of the flavored yogurt into the melted chocolate until it was all well combined. I did a half and half in the bento and then took the rest and layered it into push pop molds for the rest of the week.

Day 212

Wow back to the grind today!  Spring break is over :(

Day 212 - I'm not really sure what I was going for here...I started out thinking I'd make a pig but it doesn't really look like a pig and I didn't have time to look up any pig sandwiches online for inspiration!  So anyway this is D's lunch.  She has pretzels with choco/mint dip topped with chocolate covered sunflower seeds, fresh mozzarella,  watermelon flowers with cherry centers, turkey on potato roll with cheese features and more watermelon flowers.

Day 211

D is actually on Spring Break this week but I wanted to participate in the Earth Day Blog Hop!  I love working together with all these amazing women that inspire me each and every day!  So D is having a chicken/cheese quesadilla topped with spinach and american cheese cut outs to represent the Recycle symbol.  I served it with carrot sticks and fruit salad.  Now click on the button below to see what my friend Nina came up with for Earth Day!

Day 210

Day 210 - D has mini pancakes with a small bottle of syrup, grape and pear tomatoes, chicken/apple sausage and oranges.  This was the quick lunch I was trying to throw together for her Wednesday morning but we just ran out of time.  Turns out this is what was for lunch at school on Wednesay!  Only differences were the school uses turkey breakfast sausages and serves it with warm apples and no tomatoes.

Day 209

Day 209 - Back on track today!  Top left is bunny marshmallows, small bottle of salad dressing, garlic bread flowers, cupcake lasagna topped with american cheese stamped with food safe markers and finally a salad with red pepper flowers and yellow pear/teardrop tomatoes.

Day 208

Day 208 - Spring inspired lunch!  I love Spring and Fall.  It's not too hot and it's not too cold, it's just right!  D's lunch is a ham sandwich with sugar snap peas and red bell pepper/carrot flowers, a slice of american cheese and string cheese decorated with rubber stamps and food safe markers.  I guess the stamp was a little too wet when I did the string cheese because it started to run everywhere!  I didn't get around to posting this yesterday because we were running around all day with doctor appointments and errands.  I didn't get a chance to make D's lunch for today last night and this morning was reading club which means she has to be at school over an hour early so parenting fail today :(  D is buying lunch.

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!