A couple lunches

I haven't made super-inspiring lunches lately, just packing something up in the 10-15 I have in the morning before we leave for school. But at least I'm familiar with it enough that it's easy to pull something together if I don't have anything planned.

Like this lunch from last week.

Here we have reheated gyoza, a clementine, strawberry cut in half, TJ's onigiri, edamame on top of a small container of cottage cheese, and the last of the gingerbread men tucked in on top.

It's nice to have frozen things easy to reheat and tuck into the box, like the gyoza, edamame, and onigiri. And it's always nice to pattern lunches after the Japanese, who came up with the whole bento idea in the first place.

This next lunch was a super rush.

It's pretty simple. Just cut up pieces of veggie pizza, beautiful grapes, a tiny container of muddie buddies, PB pretzels, and some prunes.

After I sent it, I realized I had included peanut butter! Peanut butter is not allowed at their preschool, so I usually send sunflower butter sandwiches as an alternative, which the girls really enjoy. But I didn't even think about the peanut butter-filled pretzels!

Well, I didn't get a note sent home about the inappropriate lunch, so I think I'm okay. Whew!

back into bentos

I haven't made lunches forever for the kids because of school break and sickness, so I am just back in the swing of things this week.

On Monday, I packed lunch in the Totoro boxes the girls got for Christmas. They are just the right size for them!

Here we have ham and swiss, a happy sunflower butter sandwich, bean salad with our new mini-elephant forks, carrots, edamame, and a clementine with a cute new pick.

After I packed these lunches, I realized I forgot dessert! But they managed to survive. In fact, these went over pretty well and pretty much only some of the carrot sticks were left. And then they ate a lot when they got home! Must be a growth spurt or something.

Next week I should have more bentos to share.

Had to make the girls a quick lunch yesterday, so went with the peanut butter sandwich route. But I wanted to spiff it up a bit.

First came the dinosaur sandwich cutter, then the banana, then the blueberries, and it all fell into place from there. So please welcome the skateboarding dinosaurs!


Zooooooom!!

getting my bento on

Before I started packing lunches for my kids (since they weren't in school for lunch), I started seeing all these bento meals out there on the internets. Immediately that idea appealed to me, since I LOVE kits, or anything all packaged together. I probably have far too many first aid kids for a normal person. After all, my kids don't get hurt that much.

But right away, I knew that's what I was going to do. And luckily enough I live near a Daiso, so I was able to pick up a few boxes for $1.50! I love that place. I could spend hours there. I have spent hours there. I'm just a very thorough shopper.

Also, I may have picked up a few picks, condiment cups, separators, mini chopsticks, mini utensils, all sorts of fun goodies. Well, for $1.50 each, how can you not?

And then I went to work.

salami & cheese roll ups, honeydew, berries, babybel, buttered toast, koala cookies

There's so much inspiration out there, it was easy to start making awesome lunches right away. I also love how it opens you up to lunch ideas you never considered before. Like just one tiny piece of melon. How would I have packaged that before? In its own plastic bag? That sounds ridiculous. But with bentos, you can just toss it in with everything else! Then you get a lot of variety in even a little lunch.

hot dogs and cheese, mushrooms, avocado, cheese, rice crispy treat, apple, dried blueberries

I think this style of lunch appeals to toddlers and preschoolers so much. It's just how they eat anyway! So we've been loving the world of bento lunches.