A Week of Lunches 10-19-12

I really need to be better about sending a variety of foods with Keegan for school lunches.  Sometimes I send vegan hot dogs, sometimes I send lentil "meat" loaf, sometimes perogies - all things he has loved at some point or another.  The thing is, he doesn't always eat them.  He can be SO fickle.  Which is very frustrating.  So, my go-to meal is PB&J.  I am hoping to broaden the lunch horizon soon enough.

What do you send a vegetarian toddler to school with that they can be self sufficient in eating?  Also I have about 5 minutes in the morning to put his lunch together (totally my fault).

The awesome thing about PB&J - it is so EASY to make it so CUTE.  At least in my opinion.

Here are Keegan's lunches for the week:

Monday he had a pumpkin shaped PB&J, organic fruit snacks (no gelatin!), soy yogurt, applesauce, and peaches. The pumpkin was in honor of our foray into the pumpkin patch on Sunday.

Tuesday he had a medium fish shaped and two small star shaped PB&J sandwiches, a banana, soy yogurt, applesauce, and Annie's Organic little bunny cheese crackers. The fish was in honor of his LOVE of Finding Nemo (and incessant demands to see Nemo's daddy) and stars are kind of a favorite shape of his right now.

Wednesday he had dinosaur shaped PB&J sandwiches, organic yogurt, applesauce, an organic fruit snack, and sweet potato crisps/puffs (he's apparently so over those).  It was kind of an uninspired lunch.  Roar.

Thursday he had a leaf shaped PB&J sandwich, organic yogurt, applesauce, a banana, and a chocolate heart cookie from Ikea. 

 

Side Note: I've been eyeing a (different) leaf cookie cutter on clearance at Target and I should have bought it. It's a metal one. The plastic one I have was apparently no match for cheap bread. I also should not buy cheap bread anymore. Publix usually has the good stuff BOGO but since they didn't I grabbed the under $1 wheat (not 100% whole wheat so really not much of a purpose to it). Shame on me.



Friday he had one large and two small star shaped PB&J sandwiches along with an organic yogurt pouch, applesauce, a banana, and organic fruit snacks which are his beloved "treats." The star shaped sandwiches are because it seems that stars are definitely his favorite shape and he was tickled pink to have stars in his lunch on Tuesday.

I have to thrown in an additional picture of today's lunch because his sandwiches were packed in a total splurge item but totally cute - an Elmo sandwich container:

***Yes, the shadows in my pictures are awful, I have to work on that!***

I send him with water and lately a small organic juice box or a cup of some form of milk although he refuses to drink most forms of milk nowadays - cow, almond, soy, soy fruit and protein..... he eats yogurt everyday and has cheese and other forms of calcium.  No worries.

Of course each meal had to have 4 sides.  I think Keegan is a bit like me with his habits and obsessiveness.  Not with the 4 sides.  Not yet at least.  Poor Jay.

Pumpkin Lunch and Belk Charity Sale

I wanted to take a walk on the wild side with Keegan's lunch today.  Of course I was running late as usual and, well, my wild side just isn't too wild.  I was planning on making Mickey PB&J because Keegan always eats his lunch when it is fun shaped PB&J and lately he hasn't been eating much.  But then they caught my eye!  My extra large tub of Wilton Cookie Cutters!

I haven't really used these cookie cutters yet but there are 101 awesome shapes that were dying to be put to good use.  The first few I pulled out were actually too big for the bread (think large gingermen!).  Then I saw a pumpkin.  I love fall.  Pumpkins = Fall.  Keegan loves pumpkins.  PERFECT!

The next question that crossed my mind was, will Keegan (or his teachers for that matter!) know that it is a pumpkin?  Solution!  Use food safe markers to make it look more pumpkiny!  And just to play it safe, I showed Keegan his sandwich and told him it was a pumpkin too....

The "tools":

The "Pumpkin":

      


I thought it was kind of fun and I am thankful I FINALLY have a good use for some of those fun cookie cutters that I got at a SUPER GOOD price at a Belk Charity Sale.   And since the next Belk Charity Sale is coming up - why not talk about it!?


FROM THE FOUNDATION FOR LEE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS:  

On behalf of Marshall T. Bower, Esq., President & CEO


The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools will once again participate in the Fall Belk Store’s Charity Day Event. Please see the attached flyer for all the great savings during this 4 hour event at all participating Belk Stores.


The Foundation is selling $5 tickets which you can redeem for the full value of $5 on items that cost more than $5 at a Belk Store on Saturday, November 3rd from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. Purchase as many $5 tickets as you can expect to buy items. The best part is your purchase is a donation to The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools. All proceeds will benefit Foundation programs and initiatives such as the Teacher Resource Center, Classroom Grants and The Academy of Teachers.



To purchase tickets (checks or cash only)or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Beverly Burke at Beverly@leeschoolfoundation.org.



See me if you want a ticket!  $5 donation per ticket to The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools (if you purchase your ticket before hand through me or the The Foundation - cash or check) and then you save $5 off of your bill.  Win-Win.  And you can purchase more than 1 Coupon (the local Belk will let you use more than 1 coupon on your bill as long as you have as many items and are spending as much....no cash back).

The Flyer:

As Promised: Mickey Mouse Lunch

Today I made Keegan Mickey Mouse sandwiches as promised. I used both a bread "stamp" (which I always thought was just for toast but it shows up cute on regular bread too!) and a Mickey cutter. Both were purchased at Downtown Disney. The rest of his lunch and snacks were simple (note the FOUR sides hehe).

PS - The funny thing about the 4 sides is he almost always comes home with at least 2 of them.  But sometimes they use what I send in for his snack times and I don't ever want to send not enough.  Plus if we go somewhere right after I pick him up, usually there is a snack waiting for him.  And like I said in my previous post, I MUST send FOUR snacks for my SANITY.  Weird, I know.

On Our Way to Bento Baby

I have always (well for probably about 5 years now) envisioned preparing cute Bento lunches for the children and husband to send them off on their day - cute and appetizing lunches to cheer up their days. (See daydream of being the perfect housewife and mom - ha!) I love Bento.  I even have a Pinterest Board dedicated to Bento.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that I would never be able to do full-out Bento in crazy intricate designs and I wasn't so sure that's what I would really want to do anyways.  What I do know is I have a thing for cute lunch containers, cute lunch shapes, and fun lunches. I have a collection of lunch totes and containers and I try to think outside the box on traditional lunches.  This is really hard when your kid isn't quite yet two and your hubby works in the food industry (thus no lunches). 

Side note: Poor hubby, when he starts working in the office setting in the spring (prayers please for this!), he will have lunches with cute shaped food and heart shaped notes saying he is loved.  I wonder if he will eat in the car instead of with his co-workers out of sheer embarrassment?

Back to Keegan.  His meals of choice are PB&J, "fake" hot dogs, and lentil/bean loaf (think the vegetarian version of meatloaf).  For his teacher's benefit I try to send finger foods because, let's face it, he still is in the process of trying to master a fork and spoon.  He probably gets PB&J at least 3 times a week.  Sometimes even an Uncrustable because I am really bad with time management.  Otherwise I do send him in with whole wheat bread.  He used to eat the crust and all but I think I ruined him with the Uncrustables (bad mommy).  Now when I make his sandwiches with cutesy cutters, Daddy eats the scraps (mainly crusts) of PB&J for breakfast or, if feasible, I cut the bread first and save the scraps in my freezer bag of bread for  homemade stuffing (have I mentioned it is officially FALL!!!!! yay!).

This weekend I splurged on a new container - the Gerber Graduate Mealtime Organizer ($6.99 at Target and I believe the same price on Amazon but you won't know whether you are getting the red or blue)

The extent of my cutesy lunches of late are just shapes of sandwiches with cookie cutters or sandwich cutters.  His lunch and snacks today are dinosaur PB&J, with mandarin oranges, apple stix (chips), an applesauce pouch, and an unpictured yogurt pouch. Since I have an obsessive personality I have certain habits that I MUST do.  So everyday I MUST send Keegan with one "main dish" and FOUR snacks.  I MUST do this for MY SANITY.  Weird, I know.

There are three compartments in the main opening: one larger one that can hold a sandwich or other main item (please note that it is more shallow then the other two because of the compartment above it on the lid) and two smaller ones that are deeper and include one lid to seal off one of the compartments.

I put Keegan's applesauce pouch in the compartment on top of the lid that fits above the sandwich.  It's the perfect size for a pouch or granola bar/breakfast bar or fruit snacks etc.

Then there is a lid on top of that compartment that has a slot for a picture or note and a clear covering above that.  As much as I wanted to write something like "Mommy loves you dooka doo" I figured he wouldn't appreciate that since he can't read and that even when he can, well, I may need to figure out something else to write.  So for now, I have stuck some stickers of some of his favortie characters on an index card and called it a day.  I couldn't leave the space blank and I know Nemo and Minnie and Donald will make his day (sorry Daisy, he will be excited to see you too, just it probably won't make his day).

Here are some more stock photos that do a better job of showing the compartments:

Gerber Graduate Mealtime Organizer on Amazon

Tomorrow or Wednesday I think I will use our Mickey Shaped cookie cutter for sandwiches.  He loves those - Oh Toodles!