Spoooooky lunches for yooooou!

Happy Halloween!!! OK, a day early but I'm the first to wish you that, right?

Here are the kids lunches for tomorrow - I'm sad Halloween will be wrapping up, it's been so much fun.

Here is the 3 year olds. Now, I know I don't usually send things like Oreos but I couldn't resist making an Oreo bat with fruit leather wings! I melted a couple chocolate chips in the microwave in order to stick on the eyes.

She also has a mini waffle sandwich (jam in between) - we get the Earths Best mini waffles. The stem is a piece of veggie booty and the face is fruit leather.

The boo is another mini waffle sandwich topped with a multigrained Ritz cracker with peanut butter and alphabet preztels to spell out BOO.

Then peach applesauce with a fruit leather pumpkin and a melon ghost with grapes. The spider is stuck into a piece of melon in an orange little cup as I had a space to fill!


The 6 year old is a lot of the same only he can eat dairy but his school is nut free.

So instead of the cracker/peanut butter, he gets preztels spelling out BOO on another waffle sandwich. He also got a Babybel cheese - I stuck a pumpkin I cut out of paper on top to make it Halloween-ish, and a pick to make the pumpkin stem.


Normally their snacks are pretty boring (yogurt etc) so I don't bother posting them. This one is cute though, so why not! I had left over plastic test tubes from a party favor we made so I used them in their lunch. I alternated raisins and Floridas Natural Fruit thingies (OK, not the official name) so it was (sort of) orange and black. Hey they are natural, they can't be THAT orange, right?


Can't wait to see what you made for Halloween lunches! Make sure you send them to me at kimineurope @ hotmail.com

Oh, and a shout out to new reader Rachel for posting a comment - love those comments and so glad you are enjoying the blog!

Pumkinhead Bento

I love my little pumpkinheads. The 6 year old lost tooth #6 today. When he smiled, I told him he looked like a jack-o-lantern. He made me smile and said "Hmm, no gaps. Guess you are just a regular pumpkin then".

I made something for the 3 year old to take into daycare tomorrow, think the kids and teachers will enjoy it. Used food coloring and made orange rice krispie squares, pressed it into a round dish and added a fruit leather face and paper stem.



I didn't do it for the 6 year olds class, the whole allergy thing freaks me out. However, I couldn't not give him a special treat so I made him a little rice krispie pumpkin. The stem is one of my flower leaf picks.

He also has melon and cheese and crackers. The orange Ritz would have probably be more pumpkiny but I'm a sucker for anything labelled "whole grain". Behind it in a little container is pita chips I made with a pumpkin cookie cutter. Take the pita, cut it up, spray with some cooking spray and bake. They are crunchy and delish!


And the 3 year old's lunch. No dairy makes it tricker. (Hello dairy allergy, you are cramping my theme style, go aaaaway! LOL)

She has pita chips with salsa (there is a pumpkin in the salsa but don't feel bad if you can't see it LOL), watermelon with a spider and orange flower picks, veggie booty with a black cat and finally, crackers with peanut butter and a fruit leather face.



And finally, this super cute lunch submitted by Amber!

Halloween by Lisa and Christine!

Thanks to Christine and Lisa for submitting these awesome Halloween lunches!

If you have any lunches you'd like to send in pictures for, please send them to kimineurope @ hotmail.com Right now we are loving Halloween but send them all in!

Happy Haunting Bento

The first Halloween bento! I decided I'd do at least 2, maybe 3 - because Halloween + bento = so much fun! So this is number 1 and both kids got the same thing.

Ghosty sandwiches cut with a cookie cutter with icing eyes and a Cheerio mouth. Spooooky, isn't it? You can buy a package of icing eyes at baking supply stores, they are cheap. I don't use them all time but my kids enjoy them as they feel like they are getting candy in their lunch.

Then, cantaloupe pumpkins cut with a small cutter and a black cat pick. A tip - I hide all the scraps under the cut outs so I don't waste it then layer the cute things on top.

Finally, had to have something orange and black so orange fishy crackers with black raisins.



I've got a few other ideas so I'll definitely make another on Halloween day and probably one more in between, depending on my time/energy/mojo/procrastination/laziness/general sloth like tenancies. Check back!

Just a small amount of cuteness....

Now, before you get any crazy ideas, not all of my lunches are cute. In fact, many are not so cute or even just plain boring.

This is the 6 year olds lunch from the other day. I was trying to throw his lunch together, leave for work and (oh crap, it's orange day) cover the 3 year old with orange stickers at the same time. Apparently no one in this house owns anything orange, who knew?

So I just try and add a little bit of cute on those days. Sometimes a little cute is better than no cute, right? I took whole grain alphabet pretzels (Blue Menu, from the Superstore) and pressed them into his sandwich to spell out his name. I added a hippo pick to his fruit and cut up his cereal bar so fishy crackers could swim around it. Quick, easy and done!



And speaking of orange day, Christine (who works at the 3 year olds daycare and is obviously much more organized than I am!) prepared this for her little boy:


Doing a one color lunch is always fun - or even a rainbow lunch!

Now, I need some comments on the following:

1) Halloween bento. Do I pack one on Halloween day because that makes sense or should I do it this week, so you can see ahead of time? Or maybe both? Let me know.

2) How the heck do I get people to post comments? I see lots of blogs and there are tons of comments so how do I get that happening? Do people not know how to comment? Or just too lazy like I usually am?? LOL I totally want this blog to be a network of sharing of ideas so I need to know you are out there! Random strangers, this means you too. Come on people, don't make me guilt you like this.

3) Finally, are there any themes you want me to bento? Any ideas? Tell me and I'll see what I can do. The rule will be I will only use what I have on hand so that I really have to use my old rusty noggin.

And what I did above is what one of the 3 year olds beloved teachers would call "the sandwich". Nice comment/yell at you/nice comment. HA! Is that not true, Krystal? And yet so fitting for a lunch blog!

The Pink Princess Pancake and the Blue Boat Bento

Doesn't that title sound like some sort of fairy tale?!

I wanted to make a princess lunch for the 3 year old - because what 3 year old girl wouldn't be into that? And if there is one thing we all know about princesses, they involve pink - lots of pink.

Her princess lunch consisted of blueberry applesauce with a princess ring stuck in it and watermelon with pink heart picks. The little containers have dried cranberries with a pink raccoon pick and a beautiful grape rose. At the bottom, tiara pancake (recipe below) sandwiches (2 pancakes with jam in the middle) adorned with raisins and fruit leather on a pink napkin.

The big highlight was the spoon. I got this set of 3 skinny spoons and forks the last time I was at Daiso and they have a seriously love for those little spoons, who knows why!



Now, I'm not a waster. I try and use all the scraps. So after I cut out the tiara pancakes, I had almost half pancakes left - but not really big enough to cut anything out of them. Sooooo, I trimmed them flat and they became boats for the 6 year olds lunch. I'm pretty sure he's glad he got boats instead of pretty, pretty princess.



I punched out fruit leather circles then punched out holes in the boats and stuck the portholes in. Little flags became the masts and you can't see it, but there are fruit leather waves.

Above, he has grapes with sea life picks and waffle mini pretzels with a cheese boat and fish, and more fruit leather waves. He enjoyed it but did file a complaint about his lack of ring!

On sports nights, we try and have some quick that we know the kids will eat and the night before it was pancakes, hence the leftovers. I always have a big container of homemade mix on hand to quickly throw them together.

Here is the recipe - now please note - this will make a big container - you will NOT use all this at once, this is to keep on hand! That could be mighty confusing!

Pancake Mix (to keep on hand)

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon baking soda

Mix together and store in an airtight container.

Now, when you want to use it, combine 1 egg, 3/4 cup of milk and 1 mashed banana in a bowl. Whisk in 1 cup of your mix. If you choose, fold in 3/4 cup of blueberries.

Cook pancakes in lightly greased pan.

So good and better than buying a bag of mix.

Bentos - By You!

This was so much fun, I'd love to keep it going! Send any pictures of your cute lunches to kimineurope @ hotmail.com and every couple of weeks (or when I get a few), I'll post them!

Quick shout out to Christine for always commenting on my posts and to Nic for posting about my blog on her Facebook yesterday. (Hi, Nic's friends!)

Here we go - your lunches! Make sure you leave a comment below and tell these ladies how much they rock for sharing their lunches!

These were Jen's first bentos - awesome job! She reported back that her kids ate every bite!


This bento is from Christine. She's seen my lunches for the last 4 years while caring for my babies and it's so much fun that she now has the cutest little boy to make bentos for!


This lunch is from Amber - she could have many lunches to make in years to come as her daughter is determined to marry my son! LOL


These adorable lunches are from Sarah. (We've just had our Thanksgiving here in Canada in case you are in the US and were wondering!)



And a Halloween one from Sarah:

Blast Off Bento

I bake a lot for my kids. I usually manage to cram it in once per week among my full time job, sports etc - sleep is over rated, right? Anyway, I like to bake and freeze - muffins, mini muffins, savory muffins, loaves, cookies - you get the idea. It lets me have a whole variety of things to pack for their school/daycare snack which is fruit and whatever I've pulled out.

Sometimes I get tired of making muffins hence why today I used one of my favorite pans - the multiple mini loaf pan! I had a new recipe I wanted to try and it ended up being so good as mini loaves.

Here they are, Banana Carrot with Raisins, yum.

And here is the recipe for you - this is to make it as a loaf:

1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar (I used between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup)
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (I didn't use any)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped pecans (I didn't use any)
I did add about 1/2 cup of raisins

Directions

In a mixing bowl, combine oil and sugar. Add eggs; mix well. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; gradually add to the creamed mixture alternately with bananas. Stir in carrots and pecans. Transfer to a greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 55-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

For my mini loaves, I baked them at 325 for 30 minutes.

Lunches were done early today as the kids went over to my mom's and are sleeping over. Love that Granny!

Now, before I start - the 6 year old is a pain lately and won't eat the veggies I try and pack in his lunch. I can get him to eat some at home (you know, with constant nagging, I'm not above it) but at lunch, they get returned every time. So I've given up. So while his sister is a veggie fiend, instead of the adorable veggies I gave her (as you'll see), he got a babybel cheese. I just thank my lucky stars (ha - goes along with the theme!) that my vegetarian kid isn't my dairy allergy kid!

So lunch for tomorrow is a Blast Off, space theme. I got some new cookie cutters and was dying to try the, aren't they the cutest? They cut the face out at the same time.


So we have a planet and star sandwich with mini cloud sandwiches to use up the rest of the bread. The cup is a rocket theme (that you can't see) with rice cake moons and fruit leather suns (ya, I know they look like flowers, I think they are LOL).

The cups above are grapes with space picks - I didn't have any suns so I used a lion turned backwards.

Finally planet veggies using the same cookie cutter and some randomly cut. I added a little thing of dip after the picture was taken.

Pictures of your bentos that you submitted will be posted tomorrow so check back!

Hodge Podge

First, if you have any pictures of lunches you've made this week, please send them to me to post! I have 4 so far and would love more! Email them to kimineurope @ hotmail.com

This is yesterdays lunch. It's a bit of a hodge podge, didn't make it the night before, not much time before work/school... that type of deal.

The first container has a garlic knot - we had them with our dinner and seriously best.thing.ever, we all fell in love! Super quick and easy, I'll post the recipe below! Some fishy crackers around it.

This is the 3 year olds - she also had honeydue melon and veggie booty. The last container is cucumbers and red and yellow peppers. There is dip inside the penguin container.

Took 2 seconds to throw together but they still enjoyed it!



Here is the recipe for the Garlic knots. I used Crescent Rolls as I had a thing of them in the fridge and didn't use the parsley. I also had to bake them a few minutes longer than called for.

1 tube (12 ounces) refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1/4 cup canola oil
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

Roll each biscuit into a 12-in. rope and tie into a knot; tuck ends under.
Place 2 in. apart on a greased baking sheet.
Bake at 400° for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients; brush the warm knots with the mixture.

Dino-myte

Before I get to lunch, you know I have a love for the Lock N Lock containers, right? Well, I was cleaning out this huge drawer they all live in and it turns out, I don't just have a love - I have a problem! I swear, there weren't that many in there yesterday! Apparently I should be packing lunch for half of grade one or something! This will have to be our little secret. Please don't phone "Hoarders".
OK, lunch. The lunches started out using the DynoBytes sandwich cutters - I like these because they just cut off the crusts and don't waste much else. I picked up the dinosaur and dolphin ones while at Safeway one day, you know how they have those ends of random things? There. I dig them as I get tired of cutting the crusts off for my seriously anti-crust 3 year old. Why she has such a hatred for crusts, I'll never know. And here I swore I'd be one of those moms who never cut the off crusts. Never say never, especially with a diva in the house.



Today I used different containers, I used to use these all the time for my lunch but forgot about them. They are the Ziplock disposable ones (but I reuse them).

In the one section, homemade pumpkin cranberry cookies.

Next, apple slices in a checkboard pattern. This is SUPER easy, don't be scared off as it looks cool. You just score the apple in both directions then with a point knife, sort of pry off the skin squares you don't want. I normally don't pack apples because of the browning but I wanted to try a trick I had heard about. I was drinking a can of Sprite and apparently if you dip the apples in there, they don't brown. Sure enough, worked awesome. I packed these at night and they were still fine in the morning!

Then the dinos! Cut with the cutter listed above. Then I used another tip of a random flower cutter to cut the crust into spikes for their backs. I used baking sprinkles for the eye and mouth (and made the eye dot with an edible writer pen). The grass in the background isn't edible, it's a food divider called "baran" in bento land. You can get all sorts of baran so that your food items don't touch if you don't use sectioned boxes.

Finally, the part the 6 year old loved - a dinosaur joke.

Q: What kind of dinosaur keeps you up at night?
A: A bronto-SNORE-us

Hey, it's funny when you are six!

Leave a comment - please? I love knowing you all are reading this - otherwise I feel I'm chatting with myself! (Which is not all that unusual....)

PS - I have 3 photos so far of lunches you are packing, yay! Keep them coming, I will post them next week. Just pack a cute lunch of some sort this week, take a picture and send it to kimineurope @ hotmail.com . Doesn't have to be fancy or a work of art, just show us what you made!

Lunch Ideas

Lunch Ideas

It's a holiday here so my kids will be getting stale bread crusts and warm water for lunch - kidding!

Thought I'd dedicate this post to lunch ideas since I know I'm not the only one that struggles to think of things to put in their lunches!

Before I do that though, remember this is the week to submit a photo of a cute lunch you've packed. Come on, you only have to do one at the very least! Send your photo to kimineurope @ hotmail. com so I can post them next week. It's doesn't have to be a traditional bento, just make it cute and take that picture!

Sandwiches:
Meat
Cheese
Peanut Butter/Jam (if allowed)
Cream cheese and cukes
Cream cheese and jam
Cream cheese and meat
Egg or chicken salad
Tuna
Hummus

To change it up, instead of bread use:
English muffins
Pitas
Tortillas
Bagels/Mini Bagels

Other ideas:
Bagel/mini bagel and jam/cream cheese
Cheese and crackers
Hard boiled eggs
Waffles/mini waffles
Pancakes
Tortilla roll ups (add filling, roll up, slice into pieces)
Soup, chili or leftovers in a Thermos
Pasta salad
Pasta with sauce or cheese
English muffin or bagel pizzas
Meatballs
Homemade Lunchables - meat/cheese/crackers
Hummus or Tzakiki and Pita
Savory muffins (like ham and cheese)
Salad (regular, Greek etc)
Oatmeal in a Thermos (keep meaning to try this)
Quesadillas and a little container of salsa

Snacks:
Applesauce
Fruit flavored tofu
Yogurt
Cottage cheese
Fishy crackers
Granola bars
Cereal bars
Mini rice cakes
Trail mix (make your own with what you have on hand)
Banana/apple/zucchini/pumpkin bread
Mini muffins
Cheese cubes
Pretzels
Ants on a log (use cream cheese instead of PB for no nut schools)

Fruit:
Apple slices
Steamed apples with cinnamon
Orange segments
Bananas
Pear slices
Melon
Plums
Strawberries
Blueberries
Raspberries
Mango
Pineapple
Peaches
Cherries
Grapes
* Tip - send a cup of yogurt to dip in to make it fun!

Veggies (with or without dip):
Cucumbers
Carrots
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Peppers
Peas
Mushrooms

Pasta Salad and Winner

Just realized I didn't draw for the winner of my favorite food picks. Congrats to Jen G! (Email me your mailing address to kimineurope @ hotmail.com and I'll fire them out to you!)

So here is your challenge for next week. Pack your child a bento - any form, any fashion, doesn't have to be fancy. Then send me a picture (see email address above) so I can post it! I'll give you all next week to whip something up and then the following week I will post any pictures. I'd love for this blog to be a communal sharing of lunch ideas. Feel free to send any recipes, lunch ideas or anything else!

OK, on to a lunch.

This was the 3 year olds lunch yesterday. She LOVES pasta salad. LOVES. As in does a happy dance when she sees it (she takes after her mother, we like a good happy dance). We had it for dinner so she got the leftovers. I used up several different pastas as each bag just had a bit left. And before you think I'm fancy, I use the Clubhouse mix which is awesome. You mix oil, vinegar and the seasoning packet and toss with pasta and veggies. So good. Hers is how she prefers it, with cucumbers and yellow peppers.
Some long skinny carrot strips under the bowl. Honeydue melon with animal picks and a cereal bar cut into flowers - the heart pick is stabbed through a dried cranberry. Easy and quick.

Monster Love

Wanted to do something cute for the 6 year old. I always am careful to try and walk that fine line between cute and cutesy as frankly, I don't want to pay for the therapy down the road LOL

So what he got today was a very cute but not cutesy monster sandwich. What 6 year old boy doesn't like monsters? Especially the ones that come in the cheese and lettuce variety!


I've been using a larger Lock N Lock container (it comes with 3 rectangle sections) and just piecing together things with odd and random containers. Whatever works!

The monster sandwich I cut out with a large glass. He has pretzel rods with a piece of veggie booty stuck on each to make those monster.... whatever you call 'em? Horns? Ears? His eyes are fruit leather and the white thing is a baking sprinkle that I put a black dot on with an edible marker. His teeth are cheese.

Then he has some honeydue melon with spaceship picks (closest thing I had to monster) and the rest of his dried papaya he conned his dad into buying.

Maybe a good Halloween lunch for your little monster....errr.... child?

PS - thanks to those following this blog :) Makes me happy when you follow, repost on Facebook or comment - many thanks!

Lunch Trial - Baby Taco Cups

So if I'm not sure what the kids will think, sometimes we give a lunch a trial at dinner! I saw this idea on mylunchrox.com and I thought wow, super smart AND cute! And the kicker was it was also SUPER easy.

To make the little taco cups, you take a cookie cutter and cut out circles of tortilla shells (like the kind you would use for a burrito) to fit inside a mini muffin tray. You squish them in, spray lightly with cooking spray and bake for 7-10 minutes at 350. Tada! You could use a cookie cutter to cut them out but in this house, a souvenir glass from the Great Canadian Beer Fest worked out well!

Note to self - remember what your grandma told you, "Patience is a virtue!" Wait until AFTER you take the picture to sample or it will be really obvious! LOL

Then I put them on a plate with stuff to fill them: cut up peppers, lettuce, cheese, salsa and a small bowl of refried beans (not shown). I gave them a little spoon and let them fill them and eat them and dinner was a success! Definately packable for lunch and easy to eat - just stuff the toppings into your sections and pack a spoon and a little container of salsa.

Now, what to do with those scraps that didn't make it into circles? I chopped them up into pieces and laid them on sprayed baking sheet. Spray them again lightly then shake garlic powder on them. Bake until crispy and you have garlic chips - we love them!

Mickey Monday!

This is for the 3 year olds lunch tomorrow so it's getting named Mickey Monday!

This lunch is packed in large Lock N Lock container but it didn't work with the 3 inserts so I just used some other random containers.

I made a PB&J sandwich and cut out the circle with a large cup (then ate the rest for my lunch today!) Stuck 2 mini rice cakes in as the ears. The eyes and nose are flattened out raisins and the mouth is a strip cut out of a piece of fruit leather.

I totally admit to the cucumber Mickey being kind of freaky but hey, it's the thought that counts! Cut up cukes and peppers with a Mickey sauce container that has salad dressing for dipping. The other container is strawberries with a red bear pick that we will pretend is a mouse because it worked with the Mickey colors!



Feel free to repost this on FB and I always love your comments!

Q and A

I've had a bunch of people ask some questions so I thought I'd post this here.

If you have a question, feel free to post it in the comments and I'll add it on to this post.

Q: What do you use for your bentos?
A: At the moment it's the Lock N Lock boxes which have the 4 squares. I like them because you can have all 4 squares, take 2 out for something larger on one side etc. I also like that they go all the way up to the lid so there is no mixing it up going on between squares.

Q: Where do you buy these Lock N Lock containers?
A: Well, if you are in the US, you probably have alot more options than I do! I've ordered them to a friend from Amazon.com before. However, since then I did a happy dance (seriously, I did - I apologize if you witnessed it) when I saw them at my local Sears.

Q: What about other bento style boxes?
A: I'm totally open to trying them, I just haven't yet. There are some super cool boxes out there with sections like Go Green Lunchboxes and PlanetBox. There are also the traditional Asian style bento boxes which are non-sectioned.

Q: Where do you get your supplies?
A: For the most part, I get them on eBay. I just search Bento Picks or whatever I'm looking for. I usually go with sellers that have a good combined shipping rate to Canada. Normally I can order quite a bit for $6 in shipping or so.

As far as a specific website, I keep meaning to try this one out. Tons of stuff and reasonable shipping:

All Things For Sale

Other than that, when I'm in Vancouver (Richmond to be precise) or Seattle, I hit up Daiso. They have a great selection of picks, boxes and some other things.

I just keep my eyes open everywhere in case I see something that would work. Dollar stores, Michaels, you just never know where you'll find things. I usually get my cookie/sandwich cutters at the local bakers supply store.

Q: How do you think of ideas?
A: Usually it's something my kids are into - like say Morgan and the robot lunch. Sometimes it's ideas I've pinched from things I've seen online. Depends on the day!

Q: Do your kids eat all their lunch?
A: Well, here's the thing. I think it's important that cute is balanced with what they will eat. As in, there is no point in me making a cute seaweed decoration as there is no chance they will eat it. So I make what they will like, then cute it up. If I'm not sure if they will, I'll usually give it to them at home first to see. Kids need fuel to learn all day and I need to know they have the energy to do that.

OK, so post any other questions I haven't answered and I'll put them on here with the answer. Come on, you know you wanna!

Also, don't forget to enter the contest below for the adorable food picks!