Butterfly Tin

Sometimes making a meal special involves just taking tiny steps. Like putting it in a different kind of dish or cutting into fun shapes.

For this summery meal, I put Beaker's lunch into a muffin tin. They're kind of perfect for little kid lunches, actually. The small cups limit portion sizes to amounts exactly right for little bellies, and they naturally keep foods from touching (which is often important to my little guy). It's a low-effort way to put a little extra punch in lunch!

This is a loosely butterfly themed, gluten free muffin tin lunch. On the top row, Beaker has carrot discs in the first cup of the tin, EnerG allergen free pretzel rings and Enjoy Life chocolate chips (tucked into a butterfly shaped silicone cup) in the second, and mini sausages in the third. On the bottom row, he has watermelon balls, butterfly shaped apple slices, and ketchup in a silicone flower cup.

Definitely a Beaker-Approved lunch! His favorite part was the butterfly apple slices. They were pretty easy and fast to make. Just cut an apple into slices and use a mini cookie cutter to pop out the shapes, then brush with a bit of fruit juice to keep them from browning. Works like a charm and makes them just the right size and shape for little hands to hold.

Allergy Free Preschool Lunches at Home

I have quite a few posts now showing what I feed my multiple-food-allergies four year old when we are on the go. But what do I feed him for lunch when we're at home?

Beaker can't eat regular bread due to his wheat allergy, and gluten-free breads tend to be pretty pricey. It would be cost-prohibitive for me to make him a sandwich every day, for sure. Sometimes I feed him leftovers from dinner, and sometimes I cook up some rice pasta with mixed vegetables, but other times I try to be a bit creative and make his lunches at home a little more fun.

The best part (well, for me!) is that all of the lunches in this post took less than ten minutes each to make. Fast, easy, tasty, and allergy-safe ~ sounds like a WIN to me!

This pretty lunch features bread-free butterfly mini sandwiches and some healthy sides, simply laid out on a $1 section plate from Target.

To make the mini sandwiches, I placed a slice of cheese between two different kinds of turkey lunchmeat and used a small butterfly cookie cutter to pop out the shapes. 

Included in this lunch are Van's Say Cheese crackers (gluten, soy, and nut free!), apple slices, and cucumber strips.

For this lunch, I heated some mini sausages and served them with ketchup for dipping. He also has carrot sticks, and strawberries with a little yogurt.

For a little sweet treat I also gave him an Udi's chocolate brownie bite - gluten, soy, and nut free, and delicious! Beaker loves them, and the small size are perfect for little tummies.

This super simple lunch took less than six minutes to put together, including the time to steam the hot dog and broccoli.To make the hot dog 'bow and arrow', I sliced the steamed hot dog into bite sized bits, threading half of them onto a food pick and arranging the rest in a quick half circle. Food picks are excellent for acting as mini skewers to make dipping super easy for small fingers.

 The little star cup holds a small amount of ketchup for the hot dog bites. This lunch also has a bit of lightly steamed broccoli, some small purple grapes, and chunks of pear.

This fun lunch was made almost the same way as the butterflies. The bread-free sandwiches are two different kinds of lunchmeat with cheese in between. The shapes are cut out using one of my favorite cutters, the CuteZCute sandwich cutter and pastry stamper. Super adorable, and so easy to use. The letters were cut out of cheese and meat scraps.

In this lunch, Beaker has two kitty grain-free sandwiches with EnerG allergen free pretzel rings, cantaloupe bites, baby carrots, and a delicious homemade Beaker-Safe lemon blueberry muffin. I make the muffins using a basic muffin recipe, but to make it safe for my son's allergies I have some simple substitutions. I use a gluten, soy, and nut free flour blend, with flax instead of eggs, coconut oil instead of butter, and vanilla rice milk instead of the milk. WAY easier than it sounds and they are actually very tasty. The Dude, who generally turns his nose up at any of Beaker's allergen free foods, can't even tell the difference between the safe muffins and the regular.

There is definitely a learning curve when you suddenly find yourself having to deal with food allergies, but with a little practice and a lot of patience it can become a whole lot easier. If anyone has questions about feeding a kid with multiple food allergies, or just needs a little commiseration, feel free to leave a comment here or drop me an email anytime!

Affiliate links to products used:

Love and Butterflies

As with a lot of things in life, the best meals are often the most simple. And also, I like butterflies.

This simple meal is gluten, soy, and nut free. Delicious and well-balanced, as well as being safe for Beaker!

For a light snack he has a handful of popcorn. He also has a few garlic-free mini sausages with ketchup for dipping, some carrot and cucumber bits, Van's Say Cheese GF/SF crackers, and a Udi's GF/SF brownie bite.

Beaker loves his apples sliced this way. I slice them length-wise and then use a mini cookie cutter to cut out the center core. For this lunch, I stacked them up and filled with raisins and dried cranberries.

Love-ly chicken!

Yogurt with a happy heart, strawberry slices, cheese bits, GF/SF multigrain crackers, GF/SF lemon cookies, and sliced peaches.

And one more:

Ham and cheese roll-ups with halved grapes in the top container.

Snap peas, broccoli, and carrot discs in the middle container.

Allergen-free ginger snaps and pretzel rings with watermelon balls in the bottom container.

Tiny carrot hearts make it extra special!

Affiliate links to products used:

Butterfly Sandwich

Super cute, and gluten-free (and soy-free, dairy-free, and nut-free) to boot!

Sunflower seed butter sandwich with Udi's cinnamon raisin bread, decorating gel, and candy eyes. Beaker's picnic also has brown rice puff rolls and pitted cherries.

It's a butterfly! Okay, squint a little. NOW it's a butterfly!

Perfect lunch for a picnic! Except when you eat the sandwich insides first and poke yourself in the eye with the crust...

Even still, Beaker declared it "My favoritest sangitch EVER!" 

Affiliate links for products used:

Simple Lunches for Small Bellies

A week of lunches for Beaker!

He took this fun butterfly lunch to preschool on a day of beautiful Spring weather.

A trio of cheesy butterflies take flight across a tiny garden of lunch.

He has soy and gluten free rice crackers with cheese butterflies and EnjoyLife allergen free mini chocolate chip flight trails, pieces of dill havarti, a tiny tub of sunflower seeds, slices of turkey rolled up, carrot pieces, fresh pineapple, and snap peas.

On a day at home, Beaker had this little bunny lunch:

Cantaloupe pieces are tucked up in the corner, with mini squares of ham sandwich skewered on bunny picks. The bread is a soy and gluten free sunflower seed bread I found at Costco. Pretty tasty, actually!

Beaker loved the mini sandwich skewers. They were a super easy way to make his lunch fun.

My first attempt at gluten-free baking turned out pretty good! This is a piece of Beaker-safe (so gluten, soy, and nut free) banana bread with EnjoyLife mini chocolate chips on top. It was pretty good, but I forgot to mix the dry ingredients together before adding to the mashed bananas so there were some spots of salt and baking powder that were a bit gross to bite into. Lesson learned for next time!

He also has a couple of carrots, some Van's Say Cheese crackers, olives on picks, and slices of cheddar-mozzarella cheese stick. This simple finger foods lunch took about ten minutes to make. Very easy and a nice variety for him to eat.

Beaker took this puppy lunch and snack to preschool. 

For lunch, I packed a sliced up cheese stick with Canadian bacon on puppy picks. He also has snap pea 'grass' with carrots cut into tiny flower shapes, a mandarin orange cut in half, and strawberry pieces.  

For snack he has grapes cut in half, carrot bits, Van's Say Cheese crackers (free of all his allergens, and they taste delicious, too), and a few gummi bears.

I packed his lunch and snack in these cute matching small bento dishes from Daiso Japan. We bought them on our last trip up to Seattle. You can also find them at AllThingsForSale.com, which is way more convenient for most people. That is where I generally buy most of my bento gear, since I don't have a Daiso near me. ATFS is a great online store - excellent customer service, great prices, and fast shipping!

This was a simple and fast lunch for at home. It took roughly seven minutes for me to make three exactly like this - lunches for Beaker, Princess, and Bean. 

He has cubes of roasted turkey breast left over from dinner with honey mustard (the only commercial dressing I have found so far which does not have soybean oil or garlic), a sliced up pickle, banana and strawberry slices with a mini fork pick for eating, and three gummi bears. Fast, simple, and tasty! And this lunch is free from gluten/wheat, soy, dairy, eggs, nuts, corn... all of the top allergens.

Products used:

Spring is Here!

The weather is going back and forth between sunshine and rain faster than a drunk yo-yo on speed, but we are loving the move toward Spring anyway! The trees are starting to sprout new leaf buds. The daffodils and tulips are poking their pretty heads up out of the ground. The birds are returning from their flight south and twittering in the trees again.

The first day of Spring coincided with a special Pajama Day at the girls' school, so I packed these breakfast-y, Spring-y lunches for them.

For Bean, a Spring Butterfly:

She has an Eggo waffle butterfly with fruit leather antennae, a hard-boiled egg, a little cup of maple syrup for dipping the waffle, and a butterfly silicone cup of Sunbursts. She also has yogurt with sprinkles and a cup of watermelons and blueberries.

Cutting the Eggo Butterfly was super fast and easy!

First I toasted two waffles and allowed them to cool slightly. Then I stacked the two waffles, one on top of the other. I cut the stack in four, lengthwise. The rounded parts became the wings and two of the straight parts became the body. The other straight strips I cut into smaller parts to make the wing accents. Simple and quick!

For Princess, an Eggo waffle Easter egg. The Eggo Easter egg was made by toasting two waffles, then cutting them using an egg shaped cookie cutter. I cut the accents out of fruit leather. Princess also has a peeled mandarin orange, a little mayo cup full of maple syrup, a ducky duck egg, yogurt with sprinkles, and blueberries with watermelon. 

The ducky was made by hard-boiling a duck egg (generously provided by our duck hens) and soaking it in yellow food dye for a few minutes. I rinsed the egg after it had soaked in the dye, then used a carrot to make the feet and beak. The eyes are two small sprinkles.

A happy chick is splashing in her yogurt, and the watermelon flowers were easy to cut using a small cookie cutter!

On the same day G-man had an appointment, so I packed up a lunch for him, myself, and for Beaker.

G-man has an Angry Birds Eggo lunch. The egg Eggo is made using the same method as the Easter egg Eggo for Princess. He also has Angry Birds Honey Grahams graham crackers, apple slices, watermelon balls, and a blueberry granola bar for a snack.

For my lunch, I packed some leftover Italian pasta salad made with Easter themed pasta, chunks of peeled kiwi, apple slices, and Crunchmaster multigrain crackers with Laughing Cow cheese.

It was delicious! Especially the kiwi ~ yum!

Beaker's lunch from that day will be shown in a separate post.

The Dude's lunch was more of a snacky tray.

I rolled deli sliced roast beef around strips of havarti and topped them with grape tomatoes. He also has Laughing Cow cheese with Club crackers, a few raspberry shortbread cookies and chocolate covered espresso beans (in the small dish with lid) for dessert, green grapes stuffed with garlic and blue cheese, and kiwi slices with blueberries.

Pretty tasty and easy to make, my favorite!

Products used: