Food, Family, Fun.

Yesterday was the last day for school lunches! I was totally planning something fun and special for them and then my plans were foiled. Sweet little Emily woke up to play at 4 am! This did not bode well for me who fell back to sleep in the wee morning hours and then overslept until 8 am!?! There was no time for anything cute and the girls had some very FAST lunches. Amy will still pack lunch for 3 weeks of summer camp so there are still more lunches to make. As I am only going to have to pack one lunch in the morning, hopefully I'll have time to make it special :)

Rose's lunch

blueberries, watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe

ranch rice crisps, rainbow chip rice krispie snack

ham & mustard sandwich

Amy's Lunch

strawberries, watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe

teddy grahams, rice krispie treat

ham sandwich

They ate almost every bite!

cupcake, green grapes, honeydew melon, strawberries, 

cucumber sticks, carrot sticks

Stacy's Parmesan, Garlic & Herb pita chips with Hummus

She wanted me to put a word in her lunch too, she is a very early reader and can only read short phonetic words so far. So I gave her the word fun. I was under pressure and it's all I could think of!!

A sweet little lunch for Amy. Amy had her Primary 1 graduation last week. The class was graduating from the 3-6 program at school and moving up to the 6-9 program. We had mini cupcakes to celebrate and had a few left over so I thought I would include a sweet celebration in her lunch the next day. 

Amy's Lunch

mini cupcake, green grapes, honeydew melon, strawberries,

cucumber sticks, carrots (from our garden), peanut butter to dip them in

2 "ice cream sandwiches" with sprinkles

The cupcake was a pretty rare lunch box treat.  

She ate almost all of her lunch. Probably the cupcake first :-o

carrots sticks and cherry tomatoes (both from our garden)

mini ham and mustard sandwich rounds

mini apple from Great Granny & Great Papa's tree

oatmeal cookie that Great Granny made

honeydew melon & a few red grapes tucked around the edges

This was really easy to put together. Rose was very specific that she wanted very tiny sandwiches. I was able to cut 4 circles out of one slice of bread, just to give you an idea.  She picked the cherry tomatoes from the garden herself before school :)  She ate almost everything!


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Pizza bites

pinch of salt

3/4 cup milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup Kraft Shredded Four Cheese Pizza blend (mozzarella, provolone, Romano, Parmesan)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

13 slices pepperoni, diced

1/2 cup marinara sauce or pizza sauce

Preheat oven to 375F. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, Italian seasoning and salt.  Whisk in the egg and milk. Add the cheeses and pepperoni. Let stand 10 minutes. Stir the batter.

Spray a 24 count mini muffin tin with non stick spray. Using a mini ice cream scoop (or tablespoons) fill each muffin cup about 2/3 full with the batter. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until they have puffed up.

Heat the marinara sauce and serve warm or serve cold in a lunch like this one. These won't last long as they are simply delicious!

peach slices, red grapes, watermelon

homemade blueberry muffin, ranch rice cakes

mini pizza bites with marinara dipping sauce

She ate everything!

I was in a bit of a lunch rut the last week or so. I still made the girls some good healthy (mostly) lunches but not too much by way of themes or cute accents. They certainly did not mind and happily ate almost all of their lunches. Here are a few photos of our basic, easy school lunches from the past week. 

Amy's Lunches

mini apple from Great Granny & Papa's tree ( the girls picked some themselves), peach slices

honeydew melon, red grapes, oatmeal cookie, carrot sticks and peanut butter dip

ham sandwich

peach slices, red grapes, watermelon

homemade blueberry muffins, ranch rice cakes

ham sandwich

Heidi's Lunches

peach slices, red grapes, honeydew melon

fig newton cookie, carrot sticks

ham or cheese sandwich ( can't remember!)

peach slices, red grapes, 

watermelon, homemade blueberry muffin, ranch rice cakes

ham sandwich cut into squares

Rose has been a bit on and off about  sandwiches still . Sometimes she asks for one but usually she doesn't want a sandwich. Sometimes she wants a particular bento container. She's very specific and knows what exactly what she wants! Sometimes it makes me crazy but I know these traits will take her far in life. She may have even got a bit of that from me so I can't  really  complain. I'll post 2 of  hers separately tomorrow.

It was simply delicious! It could be an appetizer or part of a brunch or lunch with a side salad. I ate it for dinner :) I basically followed the recipe only varying with items I had on hand so won't re-post the whole thing here. It's very simple though. Spread puff pastry with your favourite mustard (I used Grey Poupon Country Dijon), sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, cherry tomatoes tossed with herbs ( our garden is plentiful with fresh herbs too!) and olive oil and bake. Couldn't be easier. After stumbling upon this blog, The Italian Dish,  I looked around a bit and found many other great recipes so it's definitely worth a visit. 

Next I searched for an easy homemade Marinara recipe to make with our crop of plum tomatoes. I found this one  on Former Chef. This was scrumptious too! It was great on pasta and as a pizza sauce base. The instructions were easy to follow and it didn't actually take as much prep work as I thought. I had never peeled and seeded tomatoes before and I was worried that it would be a pain. It really was as easy as the recipe said! 

I will definitely make these every time our garden is full with tomatoes! I highly recommend that you check out these recipes if you have an abundance of tomatoes in your garden too :)

We're very excited to be watching the Euro 2012 football (soccer to the Americans) on the TV this month and supporting our family teams of England ( Just Me!) and Portugal (all of us :)). Yesterday Portugal won their game and have advanced again in the tournament. To celebrate I made the girls each a red and green lunch this morning. There is one more week of school for Amy & Rose but the Friday hot lunch program has ended. 

Amy's lunch

strawberries, green grapes, watermelon, honeydew melon

cheerios, cherry fruit snacks, chicken nuggets with ketchup

Rose's was identical

blue jello, grapes, clementines, chocolate covered craisins, goldfish

Ham hand sandwich with pink finger nails

Amy's

blue jello, grapes, goldfish

apples, plums, chocolate covered craisins,

Ham foot sandwich with blue toenails.

Amy's actual toenails came home from the party with 3 different colours -Look,  it's a pattern she says :)

Hot dog octopi and crab, star onigiri with candy eyes (not my best moment! haha)

penguin mini cup with ketchup for dipping, 2 cherry tomatoes from our garden

grapes, fish shaped apple pieces, carrot sticks

goldfish crackers.

Rose ate almost everything  :) This was a real morning rush job and one of the times that I should have been a little neater. Next time I'll plan ahead a bit more. I saw this tutorial a while back and quite frankly I just wanted to try it. I had previously bought some hot dog punches but I could never get them to turn out right so these are a free hand attempt. I actually didn't even have time in the morning to look up the tutorial and just went from memory. I see now that I didn't do the crab cuts correctly.  ah well that explains it :) I also saw this fabulous Sea, How cute! bento on Bent On Better Lunches where she made the hot dog critters perfectly. This is way neater than mine and probably one of my favourites of hers. I just think it's so cute :) I'll try this again when I have a plenty of time in the morning as I think the features really make the whole thing look fabulous and features take just a little extra time. Rose was still extremely thrilled with her lunch so that is what matters most!

Fruit of the rainbow: red strawberries, orange clementines, yellow golden raisins, 

green kiwi slices, violet grapes

The top holds our rainbow cookies, a few cheerios and a little rainbow cup with a vitamin inside

The sandwich is a homemade roll with cheese.

Rose's Rainbow Lunch

Almost the same as Heidi's. The same rainbow fruit plus she had crackers in the top and meatballs and BBQ sauce in the bottom. With two of our cherry tomatoes for good measure :) 

This was an OK day as far as what they ate. They wouldn't eat the kiwi ( still!) and they left a bunch of raisins and other odd bites. This was a pretty huge lunch so it's not a big deal - I think I just packed too much.

Thank you to everyone who voted for Amy's lunch on the Bento Blog Network.

Her lunch won :)

strawberries and clementines, carrot sticks, cucumber rounds,

 2 cherry 100 tomatoes from our garden (they're fab!)

rice ball with a heart fruit leather, a few meatballs.

I put a take out container of BBQ sauce in her lunch box too.

I saved it from a restaurant.

She only ate about half of this lunch.