Lunch for Mom

I'm going to be at school all day today and a Mom's got to eat too! It got me thinking about all of you who work outside the home too, what do you do every day for lunch?  Every once in a while I'll be featuring some lunches for the older set.

Lunch for this Mom almost always includes a salad. I LOVE salads!  It's a sickness, sort of, because it's sort of healthy. 
My salad today is piled high with all sorts of goodies.  Swiss cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, turkey, orange bell pepper.  I have a little container of vinigrette to top it with.  I threw in a couple of whole wheat crackers, a few starburst (because I like a little sweet too) and some freeze dried strawberries. 

I'm having a hard time waiting till lunch to eat this!  Just knowing it's in the fridge waiting for me is making me a little bit crazy and hungry!

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.

Make Dinner Work Twice as Hard

I'll admit it.  This might have been the easiest (laziest) lunch I've ever packed!  It took me roughly 1 minute (and that's only because I had to cut the pizza so it would fit in the container).   Oh. My. Goodness.  I live for days like this. 
We're all busy, we all have lists that never stop growing.  Why not make dinner do double duty?  Especially when it's a dinner your kiddos really dig!  (I know, this is the second appearance of pizzaish stuff this week)  My kids would eat loads of stuff left over.  Spaghetti, chicken, pizza, stir fry, salmon...the list goes on and on and it makes your life a lot easier!

Left over pizza, salad (I literally used my hands and grabbed a handful, no shame.), a pear, apple juice and a couple chocolate chip cookies. 

For snack they have apple slices and 2 raspberry Newtons.   It's 6:30 and my list is basically done (well the stuff that I can't put off at least)...looks like I get to sit on the couch and catch up on the DVR! 

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.

The Leaves Are Turning

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter. ~Carol Bishop Hipps

Each season is my favorite.  Really, I can see the virtues of each one.  While many joke that Oregon has two seasons; rainy and summer; I fully disagree.  I base most memories on holidays, and I celebrate them all with wild abandon.  I can tell you exactly what the weather is like on the 4th of July (It's been sunny for the last 10 years, I know because I have pictures of GiGi in sundresses every single year!), and that it usually doesn't start really raining until October 30th (again, loads of costume pictures covered up with raincoats!).  

Here, in Oregon, or in my imagination, we get 4 beautiful seasons...and for now Fall is my favorite.  Cool mornings, blue skies, orange and red leaves, raucous sunsets...that cozy smell in the air from wood stoves and warm pumpkin lattes.  What's not to love?

Anyhow, the weather has very little to do with lunches, other then when I saw this darling leaf pasta it made me think of the blanket of red, yellow, orange and brown on our lawn...and a salad loaded with veggies. 

The girls have a large serving of pasta salad, full of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots, onion and broccoli...plus a healthy amount of feta.  They have watermelon cut into leaf shapes, and a side dish with some salami and organic chocolate milk...for a treat they have Halloween Pop Rocks and some marshmallows.  (I'm going for Mom of the year with the pop rocks!)

 

For snack they both have Stretch Island Fruit Leather and a homemade granola bar.