Comfort Food at it's Finest

My girls love comfort food; warm, cheesy, buttery goodness.  Actually, so do I.  Really, who doesn't?!
When I got up this morning I had to pack lunches (mostly because I was a slacker last night and didn't plan very well), it was cold and the forecast called for rain; another big surprise for Oregon; and thought, "these girls need something that'll warm them from the inside out!".  I had a big bag of potatoes, lots of cheese (a staple in our house) and butter...perfect! Baked potatoes, filled with butter, cheese and sour cream on the side.   Throw in some fruit, a hard boiled egg for some extra protein and a granola bar for something extra, some organic apple juice...and viola lunch. 

This was an easy lunch to pack, but it did take a little longer to prep then a normal lunch.  I baked the potatoes in the microwave while I fed the girls breakfast, split them and topped them, the girls can heat them up at school for the perfect, filling meal.

 

For snack they both have an applesauce squeezer and a caramel rice cake.

Dinner's On!

Meal planning has saved me so much time and frustration, I won't say it's saved me a ton of money.  Try as I might I'm not super good about couponing or only going to the store twice a month or planning meals based on what's on special.  I am good at putting together a well balanced dinner that looks and taste good. 

When I was 14 my job was to plan, shop for and prepare dinner on weeknights for my family.(Genius on my parents part, I learned about nutrition, budgeting, and timing a meal.)  I had a few rules I had to follow.  I couldn't just make chicken and everything on the plate had to be a different color.  Not only does it look nicer, but your getting a whole lot of different vitamins and minerals that way!

My family has it's favorites, things that cycle through more often.  They also have things they just don't like (or maybe that's me) and I either don't make them regularly or ever; it's not worth preparing food that people won't enjoy or eat.  It's a waste of your time and money, not to mention it stinks to spend time on something  only to have no one enjoy it.

Involving your family in meal planning is a great way to get your kiddos to try new things and just be more willing to eat what you've prepared.  I give my girls each a day to pick dinner, they help cook that night too and in picking what we eat, they are learning skills in meal planning too!

A sample weekly menu for our family would look like this:

Sunday; Late lunch out (after church), Steak salads with crusty bread
Monday; Salmon, brown rice, sauteed snap peas and pearl onions
Tuesday; Roasted chicken, sweet potato wedges, steamed green beans
Wednesday; Make your own Nacho bar, with all the fixings
Thursday; Soup and salad/sandwich  (this is our really busy night, so it's got to be easy)
Friday; Pot roast with carrots, potatoes and onions, green salad
Saturday; Pizza with salad or fresh veggies

Having a plan helps me shop or know what to defrost, it also helps me to use what I have in the pantry and fridge.   Some weeks I set a goal to use only what we have, I call it "Freezer Clean Out".  It's a great way to literally help make space in your freezer, pantry and fridge.  It also is a great way to stretch a budget or save a little money.  

Almost all of my meals can be made in 30 minutes or less, and I try to use as few dishes/pans as possible...I'm all about the speedy clean up.  Other challenges I throw in are; $5 dinners, a meal for 4 cannot cost more then 5 dollars,  vegetarian (meat free meals),  leftover round ups, your on your own (literally, every Man or Kid for themselves).
I know some Moms who just use the same schedule every week.  It works for their families and it simplifies their lives.  Which is exactly what meal planning should do.  (I'd get bored,  I love food and trying new things.)

Sunday; Roast of some sort
Monday; Meatless Meal
Tuesday; Taco Tuesday (something Mexican)
Wednesday; Left Overs
Thursday; Chicken
Friday; Fish Friday
Saturday; Pizza/Delivery

I generally do my planning on Monday; the girls are at school, I can go through the ads (I try to be good about it) and I can go shopping without helpers.  If you have all the ingredients on hand you can switch out days easily, just in case roast chicken sounds better then meatloaf one night.  I literally write it out (I have those Post It's that are like a weekly to do list) and I post it on the fridge...it helps me commit to the plan. The whole point is to get it down, try to stick to it and see if it doesn't just take the hassle out of 6 o'clock every night!  

Something's Fishy

I've got a couple sushi lovers in this house.  One would eat it every single day if I let her, and she likes the cheap sushi train sort of places, not the yummy high end restaurants.    I'm not complaining, I love sushi too.  Last nights dinner was a great combo of spaghetti and sushi (Daddy surprised us by bringing the sushi home), it was actually a really gross combination, I don't recommend it.  Ever.  Really.  I just had a shiver thinking about it.

But it makes for a great lunch!  This lunch has California Rolls, snap peas (we were out of edamame), a Little Cutie, and dessert sushi.  This stuff is really fun to make and your kids will get a kick out of it! I was out of Swedish Fish, because those things are amazing and I eat them.  All.  Normally, I would stick a swedish fish in the center of a very flat slice of rice crispy treat, then I roll it up, sushi roll style and finally roll a layer of fruit leather on the outside of all that.  These just have rice crispy treats and fruit leather, still a fun treat, minus the fish.



They both have lemonade to drink and a package of dried seaweed to round out the meal. 
For snack they have homemade granola bars and dried cherries.

Mom, Where's Lunch?

Aghhhhhhh! I worked yesterday (hence the lack of pictures of yesterdays lunches) and totally spaced unpacking and repacking lunch for today.  Until, that is, when we were walking out the door and GiGi said, "Why don't we have a new lunch?".   I must have looked at her like she'd grown a second head because she gave a rather large sigh and showed me her half eaten lunch, that was in fact from yesterday. 

 Nothing motivates me to move fast then the fear of missing carpool.  Also, nothing helps like having a well stocked fridge and pantry.  (I'm working on making my lunch lists presentable) 

Today's lunches were packed in about 2 minutes, no joke!

The girls have snap peas, blueberries/cherry tomatoes, string cheese, crackers, ham roll ups, mandarin oranges, organic juice and a prepackaged rice crispy treat.  (Yes, store bought, totally processed, saved for moments just like this!)   They both got a bag of cheese nips and apple slices for snack.

Lunch is packed in our easylunchbox containers.

It's A Wrap!

Let's not get crazy here, only one of my kids will eat this wrap (LiLi), so GiGi got a deconstructed wrap, which didn't look nearly as yummy.

The girls both gave a lot of impute on this meal, we were stretching the boundaries of what they're used to.  Because we're a peanut free home we don't eat a ton of sandwiches, but we gotta be real, sandwiches are totally packable!  So this lunchlady is slowly and surely trying to introduce some sandwichy kinds of food into their diets.

 

This lunch has a wrap with ham, cheese, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce and onion.  On the side they both got a handful of grape tomatoes, blueberries, cucumber slices and 2 heart shaped peppermint patties.  I threw in an organic chocolate milk box and a banana and packed popcorn and carrot sticks for snack.  

 

The true test of this wrap will be what's left when they get home.  I'll keep you posted!

 

I packed these lunches in my favorite easylunchbox containers.

Finger Foods for Lunch

I know, I promised awesome lunches...they're coming, honestly.  I gotta ease myself back into the swing of things.   The girls were actually pretty excited about these lunches when they saw me packing them, they both said, "These look like normal kid lunches!"   You'd think I was packing them carob and gorp for lunch.

Both girls have the same lunch today!  Score one for Mom.  They each have mini corndogs; with mustard to dip in; dried blueberries, carrot sticks, a mandarin orange and a little pack of redvines (I love getting peanut free treats when Halloween and Valentines Day roll around, they're just the right size for a lunch treat.)   They also have organic milk, a homemade granola bar and some dried mango for snack.   It's not my most exciting lunch, but it'll do the trick!

As always, this lunch is packed in our easylunchbox containers.

Basic Lunches

Holy Smokes, bring back Thanksgiving Break!  I need a break from our week off...boy, did I let things slide.  Including all planning, routine and practical stuff.  I went to the grocery store this morning and I swear I walked around for an hour and left with 2 mangos, some berries, milk, a reading light, some flavored seltzer water and a pack of gum.    It never even occurred to me that I should be thinking about dinner or getting some real food to feed the people that call me Mom.

So dinner was blah and lunches tomorrow will be a little bit too.  But thank goodness I got those berries!  ;)

Gigi has a mixture of fresh berries (I knew those would come in handy), baby carrots, a cup of cream cheese and a bagel (because she only likes it if she can spread the cream cheese herself) some yellow tomatoes, a nutrigrain bar and some Junior Mints (totally Peanut Free! They rock!)...Lili has an orange instead of berries because she'll only eat berries from our garden (I have no idea why, it's the strangest food rule ever!)

They both have organic apple juice too!

For snack they have a bag of popcorn and some Stretch Island fruit leather.

But I Don't Wanna Go To School...

Anyone else have to pry kids out of bed and get them off to school this morning?  Hope they weren't as full of "I don't wanna get up" and "I wish it was still break" and "why can't we just homeschool again?"....truth be told, it was hard for me to get going this morning too. 

That included packing lunches.  I'm sure your burned out with all the cooking and cleaning and shopping from this last week and the grocery store was the last place I wanted to go.  Thank Heavens for leftover veggie trays and fruit trays or my kiddos would be living off of canned fruit and veg for the next day or two!

This lunch is a mix up of all the appetizers present at Thanksgiving dinner...I love a fridge full of appies.  In fact, I could eat nothing but bite size snacks for the rest of my life and be totally content.  Hmmm...this is giving me ideas for dinner tonight;)

This lunch has baby carrots, watermelon, slices of cheddar cheese and summer sausage, a selection of crackers and a couple gingerbread cookies.   They both have organic chocolate milk to go with lunch.

 

For snack they have homemade blueberry muffins and string cheese.

Blah! It's Monday

There are days when I would sell my soul to hand the girls 2 bucks to buy a hot lunch; regardless of how I feel about hot lunch; today was one of them.  We got home from a wonderful weekend in Seattle and I was so tired from all the fun, I skipped going to the grocery store to make sure we had some fresh fruits and vegetables in the house.  Probably a mistake.  But it forced me to get creative in packing lunch.

I managed to find a carrot that wasn't too limp and a cucumber that only looked a little questionable.  I always keep organic apple sauce on hand (I know, not quite a fresh fruit...but it'll do!) and we always have loads of cheese.  Thank God!

Both girls got dry Italian salami (also always a staple), aged white cheddar cheese, cucumber and carrot sticks, goldfish crackers, apple sauce for Gigi dried apricots for Lili and leftover Halloween Marshmallows.  GiGi loves to dip her goldfish crackers into the applesauce; sort of like apple pie with cheddar cheese;)

They both are getting an organic chocolate milk.

 

For snack they each have a Stretch Island Fruit Leather and a Caramel rice cake.  Sort of boring, but it's what we had in the pantry!

A True Bento

This lunch looks a lot more like a traditional bento lunch would look, if GiGi and LiLi were little school girls in Japan;)   They both love fish, so when I make it for dinner I always make extras...my girls can't get enough of this good for you, brain food!

Lunch today has some baked salmon, white rice with sesame seeds, dried seaweed sheets, cucumber slices (I wanted to make cucumber salad but ran out of time), sliced permission and juice.   If you haven't tried dried seaweed you should check it out...it has a crunchy, salty taste and it's full of nutrients!

Field Trip Lunches

LiLi and I are headed to The Rice Rock Museum for a field trip and I was at a huge loss when it came time for packing a lunch I'd want to eat too!  (I might be the pickiest eater in our house.)  Lucky for me LiLi is game for just about anything, so I decided on a trio of salads.

1.  A nice big green salad topped with turkey, swiss, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, radishes, topped with a little green goddess dressing! Yum!  
2.  Pasta salad filled with loads of veggies and topped with cheddar cheese and Italian dressing.  Enjoy!
2.  Fruit salad; grapes, cantaloupe and strawberries....Delish!  (I got the fruit salad, LiLi got plain grapes)

I've thrown in tons of extras too, because who knows what we'll feel like eating.  We have fruit leather, granola bars, kettle corn, freeze dried strawberries, cheese crackers and some corn candy as a treat.  We both get a bottle of water for the day.

Grace is taking a similar lunch, but she doesn't like pasta salad so she has some fresh mushrooms instead.

When a Kid Packs Lunch

When a kid packs lunch it looks a lot like this....

In my head, this whole packing went something like those "If You Give A Mouse A Muffin" books.  If you give a 10 and 8 year old free reign, they will start with candy.  Always.  Every time.   Then hopefully they will decide that they should throw in some fruit and maybe a veg (mandarin orange and cucumbers).  This might lead them to some sort of protein, or two.  Because salami is never enough, you probably need a bagel and cream cheese.   While a bagel may seem like enough fiber/carbs, your wrong.  So throw in a granola bar and goldfish to round it out!   When it's all done, there isn't really room for candy so you eat it right then, because who can let candy go to waste?!

That's how I imagined it went.  Even if it went another way; which may have included some arguing, bossing and a little crying...plus a lot of mess...it's packed.  I can live with it.  I can get used to these kids of mine packing a sort of balanced lunch every now and again.  It bought me a few minutes of time just hanging out on the couch, surfing Pinterest. 

Oh, and in this spirit of letting go every now and again and letting the kiddos be in charge they got to pack their own snacks too.  I'm a little freaked out about this part.  I'm fairly certain that GiGi's teacher is going to call tomorrow to make sure I'm okay, that I haven't suffered a seizure or some other medical emergency.   They have bags of sugar cereal. 

Black Cat and Pumpkins

It's official, we go to school in the dark and come home just in time for sunset.  I'm tired.  All of the time.  I forgot how Fall in the North West takes some adjusting too.  (Every year)   I'm loving the Autumn colors, the cozy sweaters and the warm roasts (I seem to be roasting something every day).  
Being cozy seems to also be making me forgetful...I need to remember to see if there is some study about the correlation.   I forgot lunches, until I was in bed and just about to fall asleep.   I knew my brain would never shut off so out of bed I climbed, down to the kitchen...I made lunch by the light of the fridge, it was sort of romantic. 

Both girls got ham roll ups, scary cat carrots, a mandarin orange, school days apple granola bar (these are made in a peanut free facility!), Stretch Island apple fruit leather, whole wheat crackers, scary cat colby jack cheese slices, and some Halloween marshmallows.  They both have organic vanilla milk.

For snack they have dried strawberries and a caramel rice cake.

A Lunch so Easy It's Scary

The girls lunch was packed in a rush last night, total surprise, right?!  Thank Heavens I keep loads of healthy options in the fridge.  The girls have a hard boiled egg; I made the spooky faces with food safe pens; a little mandarin orange, some veggie crackers, sharp cheddar pumpkins, carrot pumpkins and some grape tomatoes, and a few pumpkin peeps.  They also have a frozen yogurt tube that I threw in at the last minute (I'm obsessed with them having enough protein, but it's truly what fuels their bodies) and a box of apple juice.

 

I packed it all in my very favorite easylunchbox containers. 

For snack they both have kettle corn and fruit leather.

 

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.

Ooooooooooh, What a Yummy Lunch!

Thank Heavens for Awanas! I had the house to myself and was able to really put some time and thought into lunch.  Hope the girls are surprised and a little spooked by their lunches, it was sure fun to make and pack them.  I don't know about you, but I worry more about what their getting then what it looks like, but it's such a pleasure when both come together and make it really special. 

The girls have 4 cheese Ghost quesadillas, homemade guac, sour cream, orange and black chips, ghostly cucumbers, a banana (I couldn't make it work in the whole ghost thing, but again, nutrition comes first!), a ghost peep (how cute are they?!), and vanilla organic milk.

 

They each have a bag of popcorn and a pear for snack.

Picnic Style Lunch

It seems like I've been having "one of those days" for the last two weeks...the hustle and bustle of school, dance, piano, choir and girl scouts have caught up with me.  Then throw in my Mom needing to be picked up at the airport, lunch suffers, or does it?!

All of my normal nightly chores were packed into the 20 minutes between scouts and the airport. Lunch was the quickest and easiest of all of the tasks I had to do.  I swear, this couldn't have taken more then 2 minutes. 

This doesn't look like much, but it has protein, some carbs and a fruit and veggies...my kiddos like V8, so they have a little can of that to boost this lunch even more.  We have a great recourse for local meat, and they make this yummy pepperoni that the girls love.  It's not a traditional protein but it works and it's a fun surprise every once in a while. 

 

Both girls have pepperoni, Babybel white cheddar, crackers, orange wedges, cucumber slices and tomatoes, some chocolate wafer cookies, stretch island 100% fruit leather and a V8.  For snack they have a homemade granola bar and a little apple.

Taste Like Desperation

Last night I sat down on the couch to rest my eyes and watch "Ghost Hunters" (my other guilty pleasure) and when I stopped resting my eyes it was about 3 in the morning.  Ugh.  So I crawled into bed, never once thinking, "I haven't packed lunches, laid out clothes, added snacks, checked homework...". 
I actually didn't think about it until 7ish, when we finally headed downstairs to grab breakfast and I noticed the absence of lunches in the fridge.  That's when the sheer panic hit.  I mean, it seemed strange that I hadn't laid out clothes, but they wear uniforms so getting dressed is easy, I just overlooked it.  I started barking orders, "GiGi, your in charge of breakfast", "LiLi grab snacks for you and sis", "Brush your teeth, get shoes, grab jackets...Go, Go, Go!".  I swear that strange mix of adrenaline and stress really takes it out of a person.  We just started car pool this week, and I refuse to be the Mom who's late.  It's a problem I have, the need to always be on time (my Husband would argue that I need to be 15 minutes early), but clearly I am a person who plans (including for any traffic issues that might arise).

Thank goodness I cook for an army, and I have lunch plans for today; otherwise I'd be bummed to be sharing my lunch; so I threw left over beef stir fry into containers.  Also thankfully I keep some shelf stable snacks on hand for these sorts of emergencies so they both got premade rice krispie treats (we ate all the homemade ones last night!).  I grabbed a mandarin orange and some mini bell peppers and a bag of pretzels.  It's not really a cohesive lunch, but they love stir fry, and they love bell peppers...so hopefully they'll be happy come lunch time.

Even the picture was taken in a rush, on my cell phone....just before I tossed it into lunch bags.  Don't ask what they have for snacks, I have no idea.  Probably candy and cookies.  Where's my coffee?!

GiGi's Post

Well I had a meeting tonight, and when I came home the kitchen was covered with cookie cutters, silicon cups, scraps of food...and two totally packed lunches.  GiGi took it upon herself to pack lunches for me since I shared some of my nice stationary with her.  Love that girl!  Love that at 10 she will make her sister breakfast, will offer to help with all sorts of chores and thinks about her Mama's busy schedule.  I'm not sure what I did to be blessed with this amazing girl, but I thank God for her every day.
This lunch is pretty well rounded given she had no supervision.  She picked a theme and then planned around it. 

GiGi is taking over this post now.  I'm going to back totally out (except to upload the picture, which she took too!), and let her take over.

My Mom is really busy and takes care of all of us.  She sells houses and has to leave to help people so she has to stay up late to pack lunches for us.  I was looking for a snack and saw that there was stuff she uses to make lunches, so I thought I could surprise her by making lunch for tomorrow.   I tried to remember her healthy rules and kept thinking that sometimes I just want not healthy lunch but made it healthy because she would have changed it.

I picked a shooting for the stars theme because I like that saying.  It makes me try hard at school and sports.  I cut food into star shapes and used star shape holders.   I packed cheddar cheese, sausage, mini crackers, star fruit, cucumber and carrots and tomatoes.  I cut the carrots and cucumbers into stars too.  And then I gave us dessert.  An oreo and a rice krispie treat cut like a star.  I put two lemonaides in the fridge so they would be cold tomorrow. 

 

Ok, Mom back....I went from cracking up (I would have totally repacked lunch if it wasn't sort of healthy) and crying....see why I love this girl!?  I didn't change anything she wrote or change punctuation on her portion....I wanted it just the way it is.  I also didn't take a clearer picture, she was so proud of her work, all of it....and so am I!

 

Job well done Baby Girl!

午餐

My family is obsessed with Chinese Food.  OBSESSED.  We just can't always go out to eat it because it's often made with peanut products, so I've sort of become good at making it at home.  It's not authentic, my Chinese American friends would probably laugh at the finished product, but my kiddos LOVE it .  Fortunately, I cook for a family of 30 rather then 4 (I've never been good at judging how much I'm making and I like to wing it rather then follow a recipe).

Anyhoo, the upside.  Leftovers!  Lunch becomes really easy to pack and I know the girls will gobble it up.  (They have access to microwaves at their school, so they can heat up stuff.)   I used a little creative licence on this one and really stretched the Asian food to cover a little Japanese too.

Both girls have beef and broccoli with rice, cucumber and carrot rolls, bell pepper slices, mandarin oranges, an Asian pear, rice crispy sushi and fig newtons (they are clearly not Asian).  And a box of apple juice.

 

 

Rice Crispy Treat sushi is totally easy to make.  I make homemade rice crispy treats to control the ingredients, then I cut and roll them in to a thin 2 inch by 3 inch strip.  Then you can layer fruit leather, swedish fish...what ever gummy, sticky stuff you have on hand.  I used just swedish fish.  What a fun treat, right?! 

 

For snack they have Cheese It crackers and apple slices.