Lunches from Thursday, Sept 4th

Nothing fancy, but still a little fun. Whole grain mini bagel with cream cheese, (and of course the lovely face made with a food coloring marker) steamed broccoli with butter, tomato ranch chips, unsweetened applesauce. I'm very lucky that my kids don't react to dyes. It's not like we have a lot of food that contain them, so I can feel Ok with the occasional exposure.

PB & Honey Can be Fun Too

I had hoped to do more with this lunch, (I have no idea what the "more" was) but I ran out of time. Luckily the food markers came in handy and I wrote Ds a little note. I'm so glad that he still loves that sort of thing and hasn't decided that he's too big for it yet. The 10 y/o's lunch for today (he doesn't like crab); Organic peanut butter and local honey on whole grain bread, organic mixed baby greens with ranch dressing and parmesan cheese in the small containers, cheese flowers and Kashi crackers. I could have fit a tiny bit more of the greens in if I had used an un-lidded container, but sending the lidded means that he can shake his salad to mix it after adding the dressing and cheese. When I was trying to get the kids more open to greens, the shake mix was a fun thing that helped.

Crab Rangoon

This is the 8 y/o's lunch today; Crab Rangoon, rice with peas and soy sauce, flower shaped cheese with Kashi crackers, and pineapple. He's finicky about peas, sometimes I can get him to eat them and sometimes he flat out refuses. I just keep offering and assume that eventually he'll get used to them. Update; When he got home he proudly showed me that he had eaten 1/2 of the peas and rice and only didn't finish because he ran out of time. He asked if it would be Ok for him to eat them now. :-D

I made pancakes today

I thought I'd continue with the breakfast theme since I had to make another batch of pancakes today anyway. My basic pancake recipe is from Whole Foods for the Whole Family.
It's flexible and adaptable. The basic recipe is;

2 C milk
1-3 eggs
2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
2 C whole wheat flour
Optional: Up to 1/4 C honey, maple syrup, molasses or brown sugar

I needed to make a triple batch today and ended up using;
6 C milk
6 eggs
6 t baking soda
1 1/2 t. salt
4 3/4 C whole wheat flour
1 3/4 C flax meal
1 C oat bran
1/4 C honey
1/2 C carob powder

I started off with even measures of the dry ingredients but saw that the batter was much too runny. I added the 3/4 cups of flax meal and 3/4 C flour slowly until I felt like the batter was the right consistency. I used a 1/3 measuring scoop to dish them into the pan. I feel like this size is big enough and smaller sizes don't stack well for storing in my containers. Once these were all cooked, and cooled a bit I took a half sheet pan, spray it with no-stick spray and put about 11 pancakes on it. Then I popped it into the freezer for around 15 min, just long enough to freeze them a bit so that they wouldn't stick together. (I keep the stack in the fridge and just keep freezing batches of 11 till they're all frozen and stored) Then I put them in containers like this (about 5 to a container) and store in the freezer. I could store them in plastic bags and I have done that in the past, but it seems wasteful. I was able to get these in 2 per pack for $1 at Dollar Tree and I can use them over and over again. The Take Alongs are my favorite "disposable" storage container. I've found that they hold up the best. Today I filled 8 containers. Now over the next month or so I can move 1-2 containers out the night before from the freezer to the fridge for breakfast.

Just a quick post to add my Flickr link

My previous bentos/lunches can be found here.

One of the things that I don't like about the Laptop lunch boxes is the lack of a thermal option. I know that they sell thermal jars with a strap, and I actually really like the idea of a strap, but I've heard over and over again that their jars leak and can easily get water trapped into the inside. So unfortunately there are some days when we have to leave the inner case at home and send the Thermos FUNtainer jar similar to this. These work really well if you fill them with hot water and let them warm for at least 10 minutes before you put the food in. I've also found that food reheated on the stove retains it's heat longer than food reheated in the microwave. I have no idea why, and I have no scientific facts to back that up, it's just been my observation. For dinner on Thursday I made a huge pot of Mexican Beef & Bean soup. They had leftovers with quesadillas, and organic yogurt.

Lunches for the boys last week Thursday. I made chicken with a tomato, basil, cream sauce served over bowtie pasta for dinner Wednesday night and these are the leftovers for lunch. I added steamed green beans with butter and salt, and colby-jack cheese with crackers.