Tuesday, November 30

Ok, so today's lunch has a little story behind it. Rob (E's dad) has been dying for Chinese take out for a long time. So last night -- his one day off from work -- we stop and get two dishes for Rob and E: veggie lo mein and veggie mu shu. He was especially craving the mu shu. By the time we got home, it was late and so I was frantically running around trying to finish E's bath, feed the five cats, and get my head around today's school lunch while Rob made a salad and heated up the homemade veggie soup that I made on Sunday. Finally, as I was dishing out some of the mu shu so that E could start eating, the Christmas tree fell over on top of me, bulbs flying, cats flying, E crying because he got scared and because he was worried about the ornaments, and Rob freaking out because the mu shu fell on floor. Everyone was fine and only one ornament was broken so all in all not too bad, but the mu shu had to be thrown out and it took awhile to pull it all back together again. Needlesstosay, I had no energy for thinking about today's lunch so I made it easy on myself and saved some of the lo mein, threw in a few baby tomatoes, and brown rice that I had made on Sunday night. Oh, and a homemade vegan cookie to make up for the lost ornament.

• veggie lo mein
• brown rice
• tomatoes
• vegan chocolate chip cookie
• water
• morning snack: water, apple

Monday, November 29

Back to school! With all of the days off last week, it feels like forever since I made lunch for school. Nothing too exciting today, although we've totally been grooving on sauteed green beans with thinly sliced almonds. After a minute or so in the hot pan, the almonds get soft and very tasty. Yum.

• wheat pasta with shakey cheese and soy butter
• sauteed green beans with sliced almonds
• chickpeas
• tangerine
• water
• morning snack: green grapes, apple cider

Tuesday, November 23

Red and White

I realized last night, as I was cooking dinner and pulling things aside for today's lunch, that everything was red and white. This is not intentional. I remember all the buzz a few years ago about eating the rainbow -- the idea that you should eat foods every day from all of the colors of the rainbow in order to get in a variety of nutrients. Although I fall way short of this most days, I do think it's good advice. It makes sense that a meal like broccoli, blueberries, and pasta with tomato sauce and yellow peppers is better for you than pasta with cheese sauce, white bread and butter, and something else white.

Ok, on to today's far-from-the-rainbow lunch:

• pasta with homemade tomato sauce (Wait! It has GREEN parsley and basil! That counts, right?)
• smashed baby potatoes with soy butter
• white kidney beans
• strawberries
• water
• morning snack: water, fruit bar

Monday, November 22

Keeping Up With the Bentos
Back to the bento! (Eended up buying hot lunch on Friday so it feels like awhile since I've posted.) I just stumbled across an"anti-bento" blog written by a mother. She seems to hate all of the cutesy bento lunch sites out there. I get where she's coming from (see previous entries about not being able to keep up with the cute stuff), but I really do think parents are just trying to A) have fun and B) make school lunch appealing. How can you fault a parent for trying?

• hummus on whole wheat
• edemame with soy butter
• pineapple
• coconut-covered date log (soooooo good!)
• two mini vegan gingerbread cookies that we made yesterday **
• water
• morning snack: water, apple

Vegan Gingerbread Cut-Out Cookies (from: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar)

1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup plain soy milk
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add the molasses and soy milk. The molasses and soy milk won’t really blend with the oil but that’s okay.
2. Sift in all the other dry ingredients, mixing about halfway through. When all of the dry ingredients are added, mix until a stiff dough is formed. Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap, and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. If the dough chills longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to warm up a bit before proceeding.
3. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease two baking sheets or line them with parchment paper.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and use a thin spatula to gently place the cookies on the sheets. If you are using the cookies to decorate a tree or something, remember to punch a hole in their heads (!) before baking. Bake for 8 minutes. (NOTE: My toaster oven -- yes, we don't have a a real oven -- cooks fast and my cookies were small so I only cooked them for 5 minutes.)
5. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cook for 2 minutes on the baking sheet, then move them to a wire rack. If icing: wait until they are completely cool.

From the book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

Thursday, November 18

It's side dish day.
• tofu in various shapes, including an E
• cheese stick
• tangerine
• peas with soy butter
• black beans 
• water
• morning snack: water, granola bar
 

Tuesday, November 16

Today I gave in and put a sweet thing in E's lunch. Not that I'm against sweet stuff, or desserts in general, but he's been so distracted during lunch that he's not eating as well as he should. The teachers told me that it happens to all of the kindergarten kids, especially the chatty ones like E. With only 20 minutes for lunch -- 15, actually, once they sit down and get settled -- I suppose it would be hard for anyone to focus. Add to this the fact that E has become buddy-buddy with a group of fifth-graders (the fifth-graders and kindergarten kids eat lunch at the same time) and when he sits with them, he REALLY can't be bothered with lunch.

So I've been withholding dessert. But I caved this morning. We'll see....

• tortellini and ravioli
• dark kidney beans (yum!)
• bread with soy butter
• Annie's bunny fruit snacks
• water
• morning snack: water, fresh blueberries and raspberries

Monday, November 15

A little late in posting today. I thought I forgot the camera at home but just realized it was in my bag. Anyhow, so I flipped through a cookbook the other day that was all about bento boxes. Very cool stuff, but geez, the amount of time spent to make the food look cute! Wow. I keep thinking there's a market out there for a cookbook/idea book focused on bento lunches geared towards people without tons of extra time. Hum. But then again, there are so many blogs out there doing exactly this that I wonder if anyone would bother buying an actual book?

• hummus on cracked wheat (thanks to Chloe, who got it at Wilson's Farm)
• brown rice with soy butter
• steamed carrots and squash
• raspberries
• Kinder chocolate
• water
• morning snack: water, apple

Friday, November 12

Friday! That's all I have to say!

• PB&J on whole wheat
• home fries
• grapes
• sugar snap peas
• a pickle
• water
• morning snack: water, somefruit-sweetened fruit chews (yes, against my better judgment)

Tuesday, November 9

An easy lunch today. Still can't get myself inspired to cut out cute shapes and turn sandwiches into monster heads. Where do people find the time? I know I've blogged about this before, but I'm still in awe.

Last night, E asked why some kids get to have Twix bars and Doritos for morning snack. How to answer that? I miss his awesome preschool, which provided the same snack to all of the kids and it was something healthy, or fairly healthy: fruit, rice cakes with cream cheese, etc.

• hummus
• broccoli with soy butter
• chickpeas
• cucumbers
• blueberries
• water
• morning snack: water, an apple

Monday, November8

A little slow today. Must have been the crazy rain and wind this morning. (Luckily it has died down. The sun even made a brief debut.) A big thank you to Ms. Irene Pak for her daily interest in the blog!

NOTE: I was going to add a little piece of brownie to the lunch, but...well, looks like the Trader Joes chewy brownie mix CANNOT be veganized. I substituted soy butter for regular butter and Ener-G "egg" mix for the regular eggs. This works great for most recipes, but in this case, not so much. According to the box, the brownies were supposed to cook for 20 minutes. After about 10 minutes they looked like hot, scolding tar. Seriously, it looked like the surface of Venus. I took the pan out of the oven and the mixture sizzled and bubbled for another 5 minutes before cooling down to a hard rock formation. The middle part of the pan was slightly soft so I tried some. It actually tasted OK, but I didn't want to break any teeth, so the rest of the pan went into the trash. Oh well.

• whole wheat pasta with shakey cheese
• wheat bread with soy butter
• lima beans
• grapes
• water
• morning snack: water, crackers (multi-grain crackers and these gorgonzola cheese things from Trader Joes -- both new to us. We'll have to see how E likes them. LOVE Trader Joes!)

Friday, November 5

E is liking radishes again, as you'll see in today's lunch. It's one of those foods that he sometimes likes, sometimes says is "too spicy." Are there foods that your kids go back and forth with? The only food I can think of for me is bananas. Sometimes they just seem so gross, other times, super yummy. Weird.

• pesto tortellini with soy butter
• radishes
• kidney beans
• tiny apple
• water
• morning snack: water, a mix of crackers

Thursday, November 4

What a drag is was walking to the train this morning in near darkness! That is just not right. Ok, so today's lunch was chosen by E, except the blueberries. He likes blueberries, but we're low on fresh fruit right now, and I think he's had blueberries every day this week for lunch, so he's getting a little less than enthused about them.   :-)

• PB&J on whole wheat
• brown rice/bulgur wheat with spices and peas
• carrot sticks
• blueberries
• cheese crackers
• water
• morning snack: water, apple

Friday, October 28-Tuesday, November 2

Playing catch-up here with a few photos. These lunches are from last Friday (I was out for the day, busy with my little guy's classroom Halloween party), plus yesterday (forgot the camera at home), and today! Remember U.S.-based friends: GO VOTE TODAY!!!

friday

• Hummus with stuff to dip: carrots, snap peas, celery, wheat bread
• watermelon
• baby tomatoes
• water
• morning snack: I forgot

monday

• wheat gnocchi with soy butter
• purple tomatoes (I forgot the name of these... Ko...?)
• cheese stick
• blueberries
• water
• morning snack: water, pretzels

 

today

• roasted veggie lasagna from trader joes
• broccoli and peas with soy butter
• garlic bread
• blueberries
• water
• morning snack: water, apricot granola bar