Mom, I Want To Be a Vegetarian

GiGi made this announcement last night, right after I had walked in the door from an especially sad funeral.  (They all are, right?  But this was for a 5 year old...just not okay.  Hug your kids!)   I was tired, I was done and I didn't want to think about any dietary restrictions.   All I really wanted was to throw a cup of soup into a lunch bag with a banana and call it good. 

Better yet, I put on pajamas at 5ish, and delegated dinner duties to my Hubby and lunch duties to G.  His vegetarian dinner was mac-n-cheese and green beans.  Not sure we met all the nutritional needs but whatever, I didn't have to cook.  Oh and my ten year old, new vegetarian is a going to allow herself to eat; chicken, fish, steak and bacon; but other then that she's going to be a total vegetarian.  ;)

Here's what she came up with....

They both have pepperoni bites (totally meat free! not!), whole wheat crackers,  green grapes and cherry tomatoes,  stretch island fruit leather and a granola bar.  (Lili's is the "School Days" variety...made on dedicated peanut and nut free lines.)  Those granola bars are not a normal thing in our pantry so the girls were super excited to have them.  They also both have organic chocolate milk to bulk up the protein.  (My add to this lunch...I would have liked to have seen some cheese too.)

For snack GiGi packed them pretzels and a plum.

Elvis Is In The House

Call me unAmerican but I don't like Elvis.  His music.  His movies.  Him.  Never have.  Never will.  But I gotta admit that he had some pretty good ideas about food.   We're peanut free here, but we're totally WowButter, Nutella and Biscoff friendly so our sandwiches are made with those spreads, feel free to use what ever spread your family loves.

 

We call this our WowBerry Wrap and it's delish!  I use a flour tortilla, filled with Wowbutter and thinly sliced strawberries....it's like dessert for lunch and an especially yummy treat!  Both girls have some grape tomatoes, cucumber slices, pear wedges and brownie bites.   I threw in 100% fruit juice and some whole wheat pretzels.

 

For snack they both have bags of popcorn and Stretch Island fruit leather.

 

This lunch is packed in our favorite easylunchbox containers!

Tuesday's Lunch...Homemade Pizza Rolls

People in marketing really know how to appeal to kids, and their taste buds.  It's never made sense why kids (or adults for that matter) enjoy food filled with stuff I can't pronounce.   One thing my girls always ask to try are those little pizza rolls, the ones with the funny commercial with the kids so hungry they're delirious.  And pop tarts.  Luckily I've got a good recipe for both.

Well not so much a recipe, as a quick and easy cheat that taste great and is like a billion times better for them.  I'm a firm believer in having a good pie crust recipe because you can make all sorts of yummy things with it!  I was making an apple pie for dessert and decided to double the pie crust recipe and make some pizza rolls.  They turned out perfectly, in fact LiLi was totally fooled.  Gigi is a little less likely to just trust me when I say, "Oh yeah, it's the stuff from the commercial", apparently I've used that line too much.

Anyhoo, pizza rolls, super easy and I'm thinking they'll freeze well too!  I rolled pie crust really thin (and I used half whole wheat flour, because all really does change the flavor) and then topped it with pizza sauce, chopped pepperoni, chopped olives and cheese.  Then I used a pastry cutter to cut them into rectangles and it crimped it at the same time! 

I baked mine for about 10 minutes at 425, and then the girls can zap them in the microwave to reheat them at school.

The girls each have some pizza rolls, cucumber slices, carrot sticks, pomegranate seeds and some cookies...they also have a pear and a apple juice. 
For snack they each have a homemade granola bar and Stretch Island Fruit Leather.