Skulls and Bones

The lunches I made for Talk Like a Pirate Day left a little something to be desired, so I decided to give it another go today. Surely I could do better than that!

 

To that end, Bean's lunch is full of piratey goodness!

 

She has Pirate's Booty (of course), broccoli island with ranch dip, a pirate cheese stick, apple slices with a broadsword stuck in them, carrot sticks, meat sticks (small sausages with barbecue sauce and bone food picks) and strawberry banana yogurt with a peach yogurt crossbones tucked on top. A fruit leather X marks the spot for chocolate gold coins pirate treasure. Arr!

 

 

G-man requested cheese rolls for lunch. Me? I wouldn't love eating the cheese rolls cold, but G-man loves them. Go figure!

 

In addition to the cheese rolls (which are just tortillas with melted cheese, rolled up and cut) he also has green grapes, chocolate graham animals, a cheesy snack mix, and strawberry-banana yogurt.

 

Princess turns 7 in a week! *sniff* She's getting so big and grown up. And there was no greater evidence of that than the birthday party theme she asked for this year.

 

"Skulls."

"Oh, like pirates?"

"No, not pirates. Like goth."

"You want goth skulls for your seventh birthday?"

"Yes!"

 

Oh my. I'm going to have my hands full with this one!

 

So, for Princess we have... skulls! Broccoli and carrot sticks with ranch, cheesy snack mix, apple slices, a cheese stick, and mini sausages with barbecue sauce. She also has yogurt with a frozen yogurt skull and mini skull rings decorating everything. The letters are made with fruit letter and alphabet fondant cutters with some of the extra bits tossed on top of the snack mix. She also has a few chocolate gold coins.

 

Making the fun yogurt was easy! A few hours before I made the lunches I scooped peach yogurt into a skull-and-crossbones silicone ice tray and put it in the freezer. When it was time to make the lunches I scooped some yogurt of a different color into one section of the Easy Lunchbox and then just popped out one of the frozen yogurt skulls (or crossbones, in Bean's lunch above) and pressed lightly in to the yogurt. Easy and fast edible decoration!

 

 

Next time I might use a darker/lighter combination. The pale orange of the peach yogurt against the light pink strawberry-banana didn't stand out very well.

Happy October!

I love October. I know, I know. Just two weeks ago I was saying how much I love summer. And I do! But I also love October. Cool mornings. Crunchy leaves underfoot. Crisp evenings with that hint of cold and wood smoke in the air from fireplaces being woken up after a season or two of rest. And Halloween, one of my favorite days, just a few weeks away! Followed by Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and New Year's, and Valentine's... October is like the doorway and front hall into a full season of holidays and celebrations! 

Today and tomorrow are half days for our schools. State budget cut furlough days, don't ya know. I like having my kids home early, but it stinks that education is such a low priority to the powers that be in this country, that the funding and budget for schools is so low. Anyway, the two boys at the middle school didn't need lunches because they'll be home by noon. The two girls at the primary school won't be home until a bit later, so I sent lunches with them.

And because it's October... pumpkin lunches!

Princess has a pastrami and a turkey roll (just deli meat folded over and rolled up), Cheez Its with American cheese pumpkins, green grapes with a Jack o' lantern sticker hanging out on top, pumpkin shaped frozen peach yogurt, some tiny cherry tomatoes from the garden with candy pumpkins, and a peeled mandarin orange with a leaf-and-stem food pick stuck in to make it look like a pumpkin (although honestly? It looks more like an orange than a pumpkin to me. If you squint your eyes and stretch your imagination, maybe it looks more pumpkin-y). Her lunch is tucked neatly into a single layer Hello Kitty bento box from the mall.

Bean has a similar lunch - green grapes with a sticker, pumpkin shaped peach frozen yogurt, pastrami and turkey rolls, pumpkin cheese, Cheez Its, pumpkin-orange, and candy pumpkins.

Her lunch fit nicely into an adorable (I didn't get a picture of the lid, so you'll just have to trust me - it's cute!) Japanese manga import bento box which I found at - get this - Goodwill for a buck! I stopped there on a whim to see if they might have cookie cutters or maybe a Thermos or two, and instead I found this little gem. The box is a great small size, too small for a sandwich but great for finger foods like this. Everything fits in nicely with no room for food to bounce around and get mixed up. And only $1! So my tip today? Check thrift stores! You never know when you might find something awesome for a great price!

I know what we're going to do today!

We're going to have a Phineas and Ferb themed lunch!

 

I have reached a new height of geekery.

 

Our family loves Phinaes and Ferb to a very high degree. I think that if Netflix were to keep track of our most watched shows on streaming, P&F would rank at the very top, no contest. It is the kids' favorite, and the Dude and I like it, too. The show is funny, entertaining, and even sweet. The big kids like it, the little kids like it, the grown ups like it. Very few things have such universal appeal around here! It was really pretty much inevitable that I would make a P&F themed lunch, and you can bet there will be more of them in the future!

 

Tomorrow is story hour at the library and if the weather is nice I'll take Beaker to the park for a picnic afterward. If the weather isn't nice (a very likely possibility this time of year in the PNW) he will have his lunch on the covered bench outside the library, or just bring it home and eat here.

 

Beaker is having a "fee-ferd" (what Beaker has called Phineas and Ferb ever since he learned to talk) Phineas shaped ham and cheese sandwich with carrot and celery sticks with ranch, oyster crackers, a few green grapes, and a pair of mini chocolate chip cookies. He has been on a "Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension" kick lately. He asks to watch it all day, every day. I think he is going to be happily surprised to see Phineas in his lunch box! Beaker's lunch is packed in a $1 small container from the dollar bin at Target.

 

 

For Princess I packed a similar Phineas ham and cheese sandwich. She also has oyster crackers, peeled mandarin orange wedges, and 2 mini chocolate chip cookies with small cherry tomatoes from the garden tucked in to keep everything from shifting. I packed in a small caesar salad and some grapes and a pack of fruit snacks, too. Yesterday she bought her lunch at school and was hungry when she got home, so today I want to make sure she has plenty packed up. Her lunch is packed in an Easy Lunchbox.

 

"Hey, where's Perry?"

 

"There you are, Perry!"

 

Phineas is seriously easy to make. His head is just a triangle with a mouth cut in, a bit of orange hair, eyes, and ears. It was easy to cut the crusts off a sandwich and cut it in half, then cut in a triangle wedge mouth, stick on a candy eye, a bit of crust for the ear, and cut a carrot for hair. Of course, he isn't perfect by any means, but Princess will recognize him and that's what makes me happy! I can't take full credit for the idea. I saw something similar on Pinterest a while back and attempted to recreate it myself.

 

 

I made a big pot of clam chowder for dinner and Brick and Bean both wanted to take leftovers for lunch. Both like salad with soup, so I packed Brick a side salad with crumbled bacon, carrot and cucumber bits, caesar dressing, and oyster crackers. I think this dish came with one of our insulated lunch bags.

 

 

For Bean, I packed up a small salad similar to the one for Brick, also with oyster crackers and also with peeled mandarin orange wedges. Bean's meal is packed into a sandwich box from the dollar bin at Target. Bean and Brick will both also have a Thermos full of hot chowder and a tiny tube of malt vinegar to add.

 

 

Now, go watch Phineas and Ferb!

Sgt Frog!

My kids recently discovered this show on Netflix. Sgt Frog is a Japanese anime about an alien frog who is trying to take over the world. He lives with a family in Japan and has four other friends from his home planet who are helping him. His Japanese name is Keroro Gunso, or Sergeant Keroro. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Frog

I was watching the show with the kids in the evening and couldn't resist trying to see if I could bento Keroro. Only one lunch today ~ Brick, G-man, and Princess all wanted to get lunch at school instead.

Sgt. Keroro is far from perfect here, for sure. I think the eye balls should be bigger and the hat flaps are off. But not too terrible for a first attempt!

Bean's lunch starts with a ham sandwich with Sgt. Keroro on top. Keroro is made with a spinach tortilla, two kinds of cheese, a tiny bit of seaweed for the eyes, and a star and mouth cut from the wax on a Baby Baybel cheese wheel. His name is spelled out in little cheese letters on top of pretzels with a Laughing Cow cheese wedge in the corner. Bean also has homemade trail mix tucked in under the Baybel cheese, cucumber slices, apple slices, and a Hello Kitty fruit snacks pack.

 

The homemade trail mix is nut free, made with sesame sticks, dried cranberries, Annie's Organic Cheddar Bunnies, raisins, white chocolate chips, and dark chocolate mini chips.

 

 

What do you think?

Konnichiwa!

Last night for dinner we made sushi. Maki-sushi rolls and ogniri brown rice balls - YUM! Most of us here are big fans of sushi. We only make it very rarely though, because so much mess and prep work is involved the way we make it. It is totally worth the effort. And of course we can't have homemade sushi without Japanese inspired bento sushi filled lunches!

 

First is Brick's lunch. Starting with two triangle shaped ogniri made with brown rice and topped with a sprinkle of furikake seasoning. I also packed shrimp meat and imitation crab, smoked salmon, cream cheese, baby corn cobs, and a tiny bottle of soy sauce. In the second compartment he has carrot and cucumber spears with ranch  dip and some mini chocolate chip cookies.

 

For Bean I packed a lunch and a snack. In the first dish she has baby corn, celery, mini cookies for dessert and a fortune cookie. In the two layer bento she has carrot discs with caesar dressing, shrimp meat, and the saddest looking carrot flower ever, and in the lower layer she has Philadelphia rolls with soy sauce. For snack she has Cheez Its and grapes.

 

 

Princess took three sushi rolls with a tiny tube of soy sauce, Cheez Its, mini cookies, and red grapes in one container, and baby corn cobs, celery, and carrots with caesar dressing and a fortune cookie in the second container.

 

This little dish is our newest bento box. I found it at a little store in the mall. So very cute and the perfect size for a packed lunch for Princess. And it's Hello Kitty, her very favorite!

 

Her very matchy-matchy lunch:

 

Everything fits so neatly in a regular sized insulated lunch bag with just enough room left for an ice pack to keep it all cold.

 

Finally, a lunch for G-man! Usually he prefers to get lunch at school, because his school offers pizza every day, which happens to be his favorite food. However, last night he requested turkey rolls for his lunch, and I jumped on the chance to pack up a lunch for him. He is the only person in the family who does not like sushi, so I had to be a bit creative with his lunch. He has turkey and cream cheese rolls on tortilla, cut to look like sushi rolls. He also has mini cookies, Cheez Its, a fortune cookie, and red grapes. The musical note food picks are my new favorites. G-man plays baritone bass in the sixth grade band and this year is joining the marching band. Very exciting stuff!