Watermelon Hearts

This morning while I was putting together lunches, I had two girls and a little boy peering over my shoulder. And suddenly I am reminded why I usually do this at night! Finally I was able to shoo them away with the reminder that they needed to brush their hair and put their shoes on still before heading off to school. I love it when they help with their lunches, I really do. It's great to get their input, to hear what they want and don't want, to know that what goes in for sure will be eaten because they chose it themselves. But only one-on-one. When all three of them come at me at once, it's too much. Too many cooks spoil the soup, and too many voices overwhelm the mom!

Bean and Princess have identical lunches today. To keep myself from getting bored making them, I used different colors for the silicone cups and the food picks. Okay, it's a very small difference, but simple things amuse me!

For their lunches today they each have a peeled hard-boiled egg, Ritz crackers, and 2 chocolate sandwich cookies, kept separate from everything else using silicone baking cups. The cups keep the crackers and cookies dry and sog-free, and add a nice splash of color to the lunch. They also have heart shaped watermelon pieces, with small scraps of watermelon tucked into the edges to help keep things from shifting. Finally, each has two skewers of cheddar cheese and small sausages with barbecue sauce for dipping.

The boxes I used for these lunches are our "mall bentos". I bought them at a small Japanese imports store at the Lloyd Center Mall in Portland. They were $8.50 each, which is more than I would normally spend on a container, but the girls worked hard in school and earned them. Princess chose Hello Kitty and Bean chose Chococat. Each of the bento boxes is a fairly large single layer square and in the lid is a covered compartment which holds a matching spoon and fork. They don't really work well with sandwiches due to their size and shape, but for meals like this they are perfect.

Watermelon Shapes

Fun, and seriously easy to make. They add a little pop to the lunch, a little bit of decor, and aren't terribly time consuming.

Just slice watermelon into large rings, cut away some of the green rind, and use a small cookie cutter to cut shapes. That's it. Easy!

Any small scraps can be tucked underneath the shapes in the box and used to fill in gaps. The rinds are great for compost. I toss them in to our chickens and ducks for snacks.