Wendy Copley's Blog, page 8

Two Weeks in Bento (Sorta): December 1-12, 2014

Whoa! I had a major screw-up with my bento photos this last couple of weeks! I took a trip to visit my parents AND I cleared a bunch of stuff off my laptop and in the process I managed to delete most of the lunch photos I took in the last two weeks. [Insert forehead slap here.] And I swear the photos I took featured the most beautiful, artful bento boxes this world has ever seen! [Wink! Wink!]

I do have a FEW photos to share with you today though, so this post isn’t going to be completely empty.

This post contains affiliate links.

Week 1
Monday-Wednesday

These were the lunch photos I deleted. Boo hoo! And while they may not have been the most beautiful lunches ever, I did put some effort into making them cute and Christmas-y.

Thursday

Thursday was the morning I left on my trip and it was utter chaos. I managed to to take a snack for Augie before I left with raspberries, snap peas and hummus. In addition to making the snack red and green, I added a Snoopy ring for decoration.

I also had most of Wyatt’s lunch packed the night before, but his dad finished it in the morning and forgot to take a photo.

Friday

This is the lunch my husband packed for Wyatt on Friday: whole wheat crackers, goldfish, raspberries, leftover pizza cut into chunks, corn and dill pickles.

Augie had goldfish, raspberries, dill pickle, carrots, smoked turkey and his own pizza smorgasborg. This was packed in our LunchBots Cinco.

Week 2
Monday

Zach packed lunches on Monday but forgot to take photos.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, Zach packed: carrots, snap peas, raspberries, turkey and corn. He packed it in our LunchBots Trio.

Wyatt had school lunch.

Wednesday

I was back at it Wednesday and I tried to make up for lost time with this snowflake lunch packed in our 5th Avenue Blue Yumbox. I made a sort of wonky snowflake sunbutter and jelly sandwich using these cutters, then filled in the rest of the main compartment with snowflake Ritz crackers and a little Pirate’s Booty. I also gave him cucumber slices, a mixture of kiwi and blueberries (and a snowflake pick) and a few dried cherries.

Wyatt used our original Yumbox: ham slices, radishes, kiwi, blueberries, crackers and Pirate’s Booty.

Thursday

School was cancelled because of the big rain storm that hit the Bay Area, so no lunches.

Friday

Friday the kids had identical lunches so I only took one photo. They each had leftover chili in a thermos, apples, radishes for Wyatt, cukes for Augie and a snack pack of applesauce.

Are you looking for more ideas for packed lunches! My book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go is packed with ideas for fun, delicious lunches. With 50 brand new bento box lunches and step-by-step photo tutorials showing how to make them it will provide you with loads of inspiration when it’s time to pack lunch. Order today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

 

12 Ideas for Fun Christmas Lunches

December is finally here and that means it’s a special time here at Wendolonia! What time is it?

It’s time for fun Christmas lunches!

I’ve pulled together twelve ideas for you to put into Christmas bento boxes or to serve up on plates. Most are super simple though a few require some equipment you probably already have tucked in a cupboard for your yearly Christmas baking. None of them will take you more than 5 minutes to pull together. For reals!

Fancy Crackers

Let’s start things off really, really easy:

Go to the store.
Buy Christmas-themed crackers.
Put them in a lunch box.

Boom! Done! The crackers up above are Goldfish (you can also buy them in Christmas shapes), Wheat Thins and Ritz Crackers. I found all of these at Target and my neighborhood Lucky supermarket. I also found red and green tortilla chips so keep your eye out for other crackers, chips and stuff like that.
Red and Green Fruit (or Veggies)

Cut up one fruit that’s green and another fruit that’s red and mix them together. I used strawberries and kiwis up above. Other ideas for green fruit: grapes, green apples, or honeydew melon. Other ideas for red fruit: raspberries, pomegranate seeds (SO pretty!), red grapes or dried cranberries.You can also do this with veggies. Try peas, green beans or cucumbers for the green. Kid-friendly options for red veggies: cherry tomatoes, red pepper or radishes.

Yogurt with Sprinkles

Spoon some yogurt into a leak-proof container and then top it with Christmas-y sprinkles. I used holly leaves and berries on this one, but you could also use other fancy sprinkles like snowflakes, candy canes or gingerbread men. Or just keep it simple with red and green jimmies.
“Candy Cane” Apples

Cut a chunk of red-skinned apple into quarter inch slices, then turn every other slice over so that the pieces alternate in red and white stripes. You can also do this with alternating slices of red and green-skinned apples for an equally cool effect.

Decorative Christmas Picks

Christmas-themed picks made for decorating cupcakes are very  easy to find right now. Check grocery stores, Target, and cooking supply stores for Santas, elves, gingerbread men and other festive characters then poke them into fruits, veggies, cheese or sandwiches in your lunch box.
DIY Christmas Picks

Can’t find any cupcake picks in the stores? Make your own! I busted these babies out in just a couple minutes using stickers from the kids’ craft supply stash and toothpicks. I pulled identical stickers from a big sticker pad (symmetrical stickers or two mirror images work best), then lined them up and pressed them together on the end of a toothpick. I like making these because I can use them for any theme I like.

Sprinkle Sandwich

This is a cute way to use up more sprinkles and liven up a lunch box mainstay. Cut a hole in the middle of a slice of bread using a cookie cutter in a Christmas shape. Spread an uncut slice of bread with peanut butter and jelly (use sunflower seed butter or cream cheese if your school is nut-free). Place the cut slice of bread on top and fill in the hole with Christmas sprinkles.
Red and White Salami Roll-ups

These savory roll-ups look like the ubiquitous peppermint candies that are everywhere this time of year. Well, sort of. I admit my execution suffered a little here because my cheese cracked when I rolled them up, but I’m hoping you get the idea. (There’s an example on page 90 in my book that worked out fine so you can tell I’m not just making things up.) To make them, fold a slice of salami in half, put a strip of white cheese on top and roll them up jellyroll style. Secure the rolls by tucking them into a silicone cup or by spearing them with some of those cute picks I mentioned up above.

“Gingerbread Man” Sandwich

Another sandwich idea because sandwiches are simple and most kids like them. Use a gingerbread man cutter to make a sandwich, then decorate it with little pieces of cheese. If you have a tiny circle cutter you can use that for the eyes and buttons, but if you don’t, use the end of a drinking straw. Cut the smiley face out of the cheese with a knife. This looks good with whole wheat bread and even better with darker rye bread because it more closely resembles actual gingerbread.
Stamped Christmas Sandwiches

Stamping cookie cutters take all of the work out of making cute sandwiches and they are pretty easy to find this time of year. Cut two pieces of bread with a shape cutter, then stamp one of them with the included imprint plate to add a design. Assemble the sandwich with whatever fillings you would normally use. If you are looking for stamping cutters, Target has some cute ones this year and I also found these, these, and these on Amazon. For more tips on stamping sandwiches, check out this tutorial.

Snap Pea Christmas Tree

Healthy and adorable! Thread sugar snap peas on a wooden shish kebab skewer, trim the skewer to fit in the space you have and then cut the edges of the snap peas at an angle to mimic a fir tree. Top the tree with a cheese star (a cherry tomato also looks good) and decorate it with tiny circles or stars cut from cheese, red pepper, or thin slices of carrots.
Tomato and Cheese Santa Hats

If you are a Pinterest user, I’m sure you have seen three million variations of the Santa hats made from strawberries and marshmallows by now. They are adorable and would make a fantastic addition to your child’s lunch box, but if you are looking for something slightly healthier or for a way to trick your kid into eating a vegetable, try making this tomato version. Slice a cherry tomato in half and then cut a 1/4 slice from a bocconcini (those are the fresh mozzarella balls that are about an inch in diameter). Cut another small ball from the mozzarella for the hat’s pompom, then thread them all on a toothpick or one of those decorative picks I like so much.

 Do you have something special you like to do for Christmas lunches? Have you already made a special Christmas lunch? Feel free to add it to the link-up down below!

An InLinkz Link-up

 

The Week in Bentos: November 24-25, 2014

I’ve got a short and sweet little lunch round-up for you today. The kids are off school for the rest of the week, so I’m going to share Monday and Tuesday’s lunches for you today and spend the rest of the week relaxing with the family.

But stay tuned: I’ve got a fun post coming on Monday that will get your holiday season off to a great start!

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Wyatt is my leftovers kid so on Monday morning he opted to take the last bits of Sunday night’s taco dinner in his lunch. He had a couple of taco shells in the main compartment of our EasyLunchboxes bento box, along with some dried pineapple chunks and a silicone cup filled with chopped apple. The side containers held carrots and ranch dip and leftover ground beef and cheese.

Augie took our new LunchBots Cinco for a spin and I managed to pack seven different foods into it! He had carrots, apple chunks, dried pineapple rings, sliced bratwurst, sugar snap peas, cucumbers and a Z-Bar.

For snack time he had snowflake Ritz crackers, a couple purple tomatoes and more cucumber.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, Wyatt had leftover chili in the big LunchBots thermal jar. I packed his sides in a LunchBots Trio: grated cheese for the chili (with some icing googly eyes on top for a little fun), apple chunks with a “W” carved into one, festive Ritz crackers and strawberries with a turkey pick poked into them as a nod to Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Augie had snowflake Ritz crackers and strawberries with a turkey pick for his snack. This was packed in our Steeltainer snack-size box.

I hope everyone who celebrates has a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow. You know what I’m thankful for? You! Thank you so much for visiting me here at Wendolonia!

Are you looking for more ideas for packed lunches! My book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go is packed with ideas for fun, delicious lunches. With 50 brand new bento box lunches and step-by-step photo tutorials showing how to make them it will provide you with loads of inspiration when it’s time to pack lunch. Order today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

The Week in Bento: November 17-21, 2014

November continues and I’ve still got kids home from school! Wyatt was sick last week, so he missed a few days of school, but I tried to step up my game a bit with Augie’s lunch, so even though it’s a bit of a light week, I have some cute lunches and snacks to share. I also added three (!!) new lunch boxes to my collection so you’ll see a few of those down below.

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Monday started off with a couple of classic better-than-Lunchables bentos for the boys. Why do I think these are better? Because they have lots of fruits and veggies, real cheese, nitrate/nitrite-free deli meats and whole wheat crackers instead of a bunch of processed junk and sugar. I’m not saying they are perfect by any stretch of the imagination but the kids love them and I feel OK about making them for them.

Wyatt’s was packed in our LunchBots Trio: clementine wedges, cherry tomatoes, whole wheat crackers, ham and cubes of colby-jack cheese.

I packed Augie’s lunch in our new LunchBots Quad! I’ve been wanting one of these for years now and I finally kicked down the cash to buy one. I’m loving it so far, so you’ll probably be seeing this one again and again. (I also got a much-coveted LunchBots Cinco that I’ve been wanting since they were introduced earlier this year. You’ll be seeing that one in action next week!)

This lunch was made up of tomatoes, cukes, clementines, snap peas, ham and crackers.

This week I resolved to make Augie’s snack bentos a little bit cuter than I have been. (They’ve been booooor-ing.) This one was my first attempt: stripey apple and clementines. OK, so it wasn’t off the charts cute or anything, but it’s a start, right?

Tuesday

Wyatt was home sick on Tuesday so all I made was a snack box for Augie. He had rice crackers, grapes, cucumbers and tomatoes. I added a couple dog and cat picks and a few sheets of doggy and kitty baran to make it cuter. This was packed in our Steeltainer snack-size box.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I pulled our Yumbox original out to make this snacky lunch for Mr. A. He had holiday Wheat Thins, apple chunks, a two-bite brownie, snap peas, hummus and turkey meatballs.

Augie’s snack was cherry tomatoes (on a cherry stems pick), an orange in a silicone orange cup and cucumber slices.

Thursday

Wyatt was back at school on Thursday and he took dinner leftovers for lunch. He had bbq chicken in the Thermos food jar, with a couple dinner rolls as the bread to make little sandwiches. I packed crackers and apple chunks into the other two sections of the LunchBots Quad.

For snack, Augie had cucumbers, a clementine in a squirrel cup and cherry tomatoes on a cherry stems pick.

Friday

I packed another sorta-Lunchables lunch for Wyatt on Friday. Wheat Thins, cheese cubes, a dinner roll, deli ham roll-ups and apple chunks. This went into our LunchBots Trio again.

Early last week, I posted a note on my FB page saying how much I wanted the new Fifth Avenue Blue Yumbox and I was very pleasantly surprised to get one in the mail from the Yumbox crew a few days later! (I wasn’t fishing for one, I swear!)

People, this lunch box is even prettier in person than it looks online — the photos don’t do it justice. The icy, wintery blue inspired me to make a snowy lunch for Augie. Often when you see one of the fancier, themed lunches here on Wendolonia, a certain amount of planning has gone into it but this was pulled together in less than 10 minutes with items I had on hand. The snowman sandwich was made with sunbutter and jelly and I cut it with a couple of basic circle cutters. His eyes were dotted on with a food-safe markers and the scarf is a sugar snap pea that I cut in half. I peeled the last clementine in the fruit bowl and placed the segments in the empty space around Frosty then added a few snowflake sprinkles from my “winter” bento stash that I pulled off the high shelf earlier this week. I also added a few apple chunks and carved a snowflake into one of them (using the carving technique described here) along with more snap peas on a snowflake pick and the bottom of the bag of yogurt raisins. Augie was thrilled with this lunch and ate all of it!

Are you looking for more ideas for packed lunches! My book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go is packed with ideas for fun, delicious lunches. With 50 brand new bento box lunches and step-by-step photo tutorials showing how to make them it will provide you with loads of inspiration when it’s time to pack lunch. Order today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

Two Weeks in Bento: November 3-14, 2014

Hi lunch packers! The kids have about a million days off school this month (actually six, but it feels like a million), and three of those days happened in the last two weeks. For that reason, I decided to roll two partial weeks of lunches into one big lunch post today. Read on to see what my boys have been eating:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Two Monday’s ago, Wyatt rocked leftover ribs in his Laptop Lunches box. Lucky kid! We bought a new car (our first ever!!) that Sunday afternoon and we stopped for a celebratory dinner on the way home. Wyatt filled up on bread, so he had lots of nice ribs leftover to eat in his lunch the next day. He also took gimMe seaweed snacks, strawberries and a dinner roll.  I was very excited to discover that the seaweed snacks fit perfectly in the Laptop Lunches box when you take out one of inner containers.

Augie took a lunch in our Yumbox Original: strawberries, mini bell peppers, hummus, a roll, cucumbers and a couple of meatballs. Augie has been missing the cute stuff in his snacks lately so even though we were running late, I took an extra minute to add in a robot ring for decoration and I also stamped a quick smiley face in a cucumber slice with a cutter.

Tuesday

The kids were off school for parent-teacher conferences.

Wednesday

The kids both had leftovers in their lunch on Wednesday. Wyatt had his leftover goulash in our LunchBots thermal jar, along with some popcorn and apples. I also packed him a Lego fork  for his pasta.

Augie’s pasta was packed in our Thermos food jar and he also had a LunchBots Trio with popcorn, cucumbers and apples.

If you are wondering:

Yes, we eat pasta with meat sauce every single week.
Yes, my kindergartner eats significantly more at lunch than my 5th grader does.

Thursday

We still had pasta left on Thursday, so Wyatt had it again! He also got side cars with rice crackers and orange slices.

It was a snack only day for Augie, so he just had the oranges and crackers packed up in little car containers.

Friday

Wyatt closed out the week with carrots and bean dip, chocolate pudding, apple chunks, rice crackers and turkey meatballs.

I don’t know why it took me so dang long, but I finally figured out that you can replace one of the larger inner containers in a Laptop Lunches bento box with two of the smaller ones. Yep! I’ve been using these boxes for SIX YEARS and I just now got this!

Augie had a buggy lunch: orange slices with bee and ladybug picks, rice crackers, turkey meatballs with a giant ant cupcake topper (there’s silicone sushi grass behind them too), snap peas with another ladybug pick and a few yogurt raisins.

Let’s dig into last week’s lunches now!

Monday and Tuesday

The kids were off school for two days for Veteran’s Day, so no lunches.

Wednesday

On Wednesday I broke out our new Fit and Fresh lunch boxes and packed the kids identical lunches. This NEVER happens, so I think it’s noteworthy. They had: ham and gouda sandwiches in a pita pocket, tortilla chips, carrots, bell pepper strips, grapes and orange slices.

I also packed Augie a snack in our Steeltainer snack-size box: cucumber slices, dried cranberries and rice crackers.

Thursday

Wyatt had school lunch.

Augie had cucumbers, hummus and cranberry-pumpkin crisps for his snack.

Friday

Finally, this was Wyatt’s lunch last Friday: carrots, dried cranberries, salsa (to dip the carrots in), grapes, cheese popcorn and two little sunbutter and jelly sandwiches that I decorated to look like “mustache men” with cheese. Wyatt and his friends at school have an inside joke about mustache men so he actually asked me to make these guys when he saw the new cutters that the folks at CuteZCute sent me.

I packed Augie a lunch in the PlanetBox: crackers, snap peas, grapes and a sunbutter and jelly sandwich with sealed edges. (See how to do that here.) That sandwich calls out for some kind of decoration, doesn’t it?? I had grand plans, but then I ran out of time and we had to rush off to school.

Are you looking for more ideas for packed lunches! My book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go is packed with ideas for fun, delicious lunches. With 50 brand new bento box lunches and step-by-step photo tutorials showing how to make them it will provide you with loads of inspiration when it’s time to pack lunch. Order today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

Share Local Recommendations with the GemShare App

This post was sponsored by GemShare, but I’m sharing my own opinions and experiences with their product.

GemShare is an app for iPhone and iPad that allows you to share local recommendations with your friends and friends of friends — basically people who’s opinions you trust. You can submit quick endorsements of businesses or services that you like and trust along with a really brief description of what’s good about it.

I’ve been playing with it for a few months now and in addition to the usual local recommendations (our favorite burrito and brunch places, the gym where my kids take parkour classes), I’ve started curating a list of SF Bay area stores that sell bento boxes and other supplies you can use to make cute lunches.

When you find a gem you want to share, you can do a quick search to see if it’s already in the system. If it is, it will pop up in a list as you type and you can just select it and add a quick note about why you like it. If the service you are recommending is not in the system yet, you can fill out a brief form to add it. I LOVE that the app searches Google for the business name for me so I don’t have to go back and forth to my browser. Honestly, I would rather not enter a gem at all if I have to do that (LAZY!) so this makes the app infinitely more appealing to me.

You can join and add groups to find like-minded people in your area — school groups, parent groups, neighborhood groups — and this will give you access to more gems. I joined a local parents’ group and I also created my own group for people who want leads on awesome lunch supplies.

And you can also submit questions to your network to find a recommendation when you need one. For example, when our family’s primary care physician moved her practice to another town, my husband asked for (and received) recommendations for doctors in our area.

Here are the basics to get started with GemShare:

Visit the iTunes App Store and download GemShare.
Create an account — it’s free and only takes a minute
Click on Network, then Groups, and search for Wendolonia bento box resources (you may need to search for the group with my zip code: 94530)


Join my group and see what I recommend.

(Currently GemShare is available on the iOS platform. The Android version is coming soon!)

The Week in Bentos: October 27-31, 2014

I hope everyone had a fun and happy Halloween last week, filled with lots of candy and a healthy lunch to help balance out all that candy! Here’s what the boys had last week:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Augie had a small piece of pumpkin pie with a few bone sprinkles added to the top to make it Halloween-y, meatballs with Halloween picks, apple chunks and clementines with leaf picks to make them look like little pumpkins. This was all packed in our PlanetBox Rover.

For snack, he had sugar snap peas, tomatoes on a bat pick and pumpkin-cranberry crackers.

Wyatt was home sick, so I didn’t pack him a lunch and Augie ended up coming home from school because he didn’t feel good either. We were all a bunch of sickies.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I failed to take photos, but they would have been boring anyway so it was OK. Wyatt had pasta in a thermos (that’s it!) and Augie had an applesauce pouch and a pack of seaweed snacks. I was sick and I kept things as easy as possible so I could go back to bed.

Wednesday

We were all feeling better on Wednesday, so I was able to put a little more effort into the boys’ lunches. They each had grapes, veggies (carrots and tomatoes for Wyatt, carrots and cukes for Augie), ham sandwiches on dinner rolls, dip for the veggies and white cheddar popcorn. These were packed in our new Fit & Fresh bento box kits.

Thursday

On Thursday, Wyatt had gimMe seaweed snacks, grapes, carrots and dip and a steak and cheddar sandwich. This was packed in a Laptop Lunches box.

Augie had cucumber slices, hummus and grapes for his snack.

Friday

Halloween! The big day!

And I was feeling sick again… Whomp, whomp!

I kept the kids’ lunches as simple as I could but I still tried to make them fun. Wyatt had meatballs with a cookie knife stuck in one (no — he doesn’t care about me mixing a cookie and a meatball), carrots and dip, strawberries with a skeleton hand and popcorn with a candy finger.

Augie had strawberries and cukes with ghost picks, popcorn with some Halloween sprinkles on top and sunbutter and jelly sandwiches cut and stamped with skull and bone cutters. I also added some bone sprinkles for a little extra fun. This was packed in our PlanetBox Rover.

What did you pack for Halloween lunch? Leave a photo and/or a link in the comments down below!

Are you looking for more ideas for packed lunches! My book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go is packed with ideas for fun, delicious lunches. With 50 brand new bento box lunches and step-by-step photo tutorials showing how to make them it will provide you with loads of inspiration when it’s time to pack lunch. Order today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

 

The Week in Bentos: October 20-24, 2014

Last week was a big week for us — Augie started after school care three days per week! He’s been on the waiting list since before school started and I was beginning to think he would never get into day care but it finally happened! He’ll be going Monday, Wednesday and Friday and that means I need to start packing him proper lunches for those days instead of just little snack bentos. Yay! Last week was also fun because I made a bunch of Halloween bentos. Some of them were the lazy-woman’s version of a Halloween lunch because I was adjusting to packing two lunches again, but my kids don’t care and I’m happy with them too, so it’s all good!

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

I found some cute Halloween rings at the drug store over the weekend, so I popped them into the kids lunches on Monday morning. Wyatt’s lunch was packed in our Yumbox Panino. He had turkey meatballs (with skull and spider mummy on top), white cheddar popcorn, radishes, carrots, black bean dip and strawberries.

It was a double-Yumbox day with Augie’s lunch packed in our original box. He had grapes, carrots, sugar snap peas, hummus, strawberries, cheese popcorn and meatballs. I also decorated his lunch with Halloween rings.

Tuesday

Wyatt took the Yumbox Panino again on Tuesday. This time he had a happy ham and cheese pita (the eyes were picks, the mouth a thin slice of radish) along with grapes, Halloween Joe-Joe’s popcorn, bean dip, radishes and carrots.

For his snack, Augie had cucumbers, grapes on a jack-o-lantern pick, and popcorn with sprinkles. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to have the sprinkles because of the “no sugar” rule in his classroom but I honestly forgot about it until it was too late. This was packed in our Steeltainer snack-size box.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, Wyatt had a hodge-podge lunch: leftover chicken taco meat from dinner the night before, popcorn, cookies, radishes and carrots (look carefully!), bean dip and apple chunks. This was packed in a Laptop Lunches box and I also included a Lego fork to eat the taco meat.

Augie also used a Laptop Lunches box. He had popcorn, cookies, sliced olives with a piece of kitty baran for decoration, cukes, snap peas and leftover chicken from our taco dinner the night before.  I included a Lego fork in this lunch box too.

Augie still needs a snack for his kindergarten hours and so I made him this little crackers and ham cutie. The top cracker was decorated with icing googly eyes and a black food-safe marker to make a cute vampire and I poked some of the ham onto a jack-o-lantern pick.

Thursday

Thursday Wyatt took our new Fit & Fresh bento lunch kit out for a spin. Fit & Fresh sent me the kit so we could try it out and so far (after a single use) I am liking it pretty well. He had apple chunks, a pork and cheese quesadilla that I decorated with a food-safe marker to look like Frankenstein’s monster, strawberries with a skeleton hand decorations, and buffalo cheddar popcorn with a skull pick stuck in it.

Augie had strawberries with a skeleton decoration and popcorn with a spider ring for his snack.

Friday

Hee hee! I love these lunches! Both kids got a sunbutter and jelly sandwich with eye picks and fake vampire teeth stuck in them. And they made us all laugh and laugh. In addition to the sandwich, Wyatt had carrots, radishes, buffalo cheddar popcorn and some Halloween Joe-Joes.  This was packed in an EasyLunchboxes bento box.

Augie also had a sunbutter and jelly sandwich with eye picks and fake vampire teeth stuck in it. For sides, he had Halloween Joe-Joes and cucumber slices with a Frankenstein pick in it.  This was also packed in an EasyLunchboxes bento box.

And for the final snack of the week, Augie had apple chunks and and “cherry” tomatoes (use this pick to achieve full cherry-osity).

Are you looking for more ideas for packed lunches! My book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go is packed with ideas for fun, delicious lunches. With 50 brand new bento box lunches and step-by-step photo tutorials showing how to make them it will provide you with loads of inspiration when it’s time to pack lunch. Order today from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

3 Ways I Encourage My Kids to Eat More Vegetables

OK guys — let’s talk about vegetables. Let’s talk about how important they are for a healthy diet and some ways we can get our kids (and ourselves) to actually put them in their mouths, chew them up and swallow them.

Did you know that, according to The State Of The Plate report, 9 out of 10 people in the United States do not eat the proper amount of vegetables? I’m certain my kids are members of that large majority and I’m afraid that most days I am too.

But I am fighting the good fight! I know it’s important to to find ways my boys can enjoy vegetables now so that they will learn to love them and become life-long veggie eaters. Because of this, I’m constantly looking for fresh ways to add them to our plates. Today I’m teaming up with Birds Eye to bring you some ideas for incorporating more vegetables into your family’s diet. In turn, Birds Eye is working with Melissa d’Arabian, chef, mom of four, and host of FoodNetwork.com’s web series The Picky Eaters Project, to give parents lots of tips. This video in particular really spoke to me:

I liked Melissa’s idea to pair vegetables with dishes my kids already like and as I watched the video I realized that this is a technique I’ve had a lot of success with myself without being conscious of it.

Here are three ways I encourage my kids to eat more vegetables:

Add Veggies to Tacos:

Recently, our family decided that we should have a weekly taco night. We all love tacos, there is endless variety in the types of tacos I can make and they are almost always really fast and easy to put together. For classic tacos I like to mix a bag of Birds Eye Ultimate Southwest Blend into ground beef or turkey. The package includes corn, black beans, poblanos, red bell peppers and onions. I was a little worried that  my kids might balk at the peppers, but after they ate this meal repeatedly with no complaints I realized that they will eat just about anything at all if I wrap it in a tortilla and call it a taco. Bonus: in addition to the vegetables in the meat, they are surprisingly willing to top their tacos with all sorts of different things: lettuce, tomato, avocado, olives — they’ll even add cabbage to fish tacos sometimes when the stars align.

Veggie Up Soup:

Another place I like to add lots of vegetables? Soup! Last week I made a super simple chicken and rice soup by combining diced rotisserie chicken, 2 quarts of chicken broth, a bag of pre-cooked frozen rice and a bag of Birds Eye Classic Mixed Vegetables (corn, peas, carrots and green beans). I just dumped them all in a pan together and heated the mixture all the way through. The whole process took less than 15 minutes from start to finish and was shocked by how much the boys liked the dish. My 10 year old even told me “You’ll have to make this recipe again because it is a hit!”

For a fast lunch, I sometimes streamline this idea even further by adding a couple handfuls of the mixed veggies to a can of soup. I’ve done this for so long that they wonder why the soup looks different when I leave the veggies out!

Make the Vegetables the Dip:

You know that ubiquitous advice to increase your kids’ vegetable consumption by giving them ranch dressing to dip it in? Well, it doesn’t work on my kids. I apparently have the only two children in the United States who think ranch dressing is disgusting. BUT, they do like to dip veggies in salsa and hummus!  Those two dips for veggies are actually MADE of veggies. How sneaky is that?

I’ve also found that if I suggest vegetables and dip when my kids ask for a snack they resist eating them, but if I have a plate of raw vegetables out and waiting on the kitchen table when they come home from school they start eating them with no comment. I’m not sure what the psychology behind this phenomenon is, but I just roll with it.

How do you encourage your children to eat more vegetables?

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

The Week in Bentos: October 13-17, 2014

I can tell that the days are starting to cool off because I’ve started packing — and Wyatt has started requesting — warm dishes in the thermos for his lunches. This week, three of the four lunches I packed him used a thermos! And good news — he’s waaaaaay more likely to eat these hot lunches than he is to eat cold or room temperature lunches. Mostly I’ve been giving him leftovers, but everything I made him this week could have been quickly prepped in the morning and would have taken no more time than his usual cold lunches. Read on to see what he had:

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Monday

It was a school holiday — no lunches.

Tuesday

On Tuesday I whipped out our LunchBots thermal jar for this super quick and hella tasty lunch. I mixed leftover beans from Monday’s dinner with a little spoonful of salsa, heated them in the microwave and then sprinkled a little grated cheese on top after I put them in the thermos. I added grapes and some gimMe seaweed snacks on the side.

This lunch was a HUGE hit and Wyatt ate all of it. He even asked for more beans as a snack when he got home from school! The next time I make it, I think I’ll include some chips or tortillas too.

Augie had his own pack of seaweed snacks and a some grapes for his mid-morning snack.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, Wyatt took his creepy Halloween lunch to school. Get more details here.

Augie had pita chips and grapes with a jack-o-lantern pick for decoration. This was packed in our Steeltainer snack-size box.

Thursday

Thursday, I pulled out the thermal jar again — this time for chicken noodle soup! Wyatt also had a mini bagel with cream cheese and some strawberries. (If you’re wondering — yes, I’m using the inner containers from our Laptop Lunches sets for the side dishes on these lunches.)

Augie had grapes and strawberries with an eyeball pick for decoration.

Friday

And then there was one more thermos lunch on Friday! Augie and I had beanie-weenies for our lunch on Thursday — baked beans with all-natural, nitrite-free, hippy-dippy hot dogs chopped up and mixed in — so Wyatt had the leftovers for his lunch the next day. I also packed him some strawberries and some kettle corn on the side.

Augie also had strawberries and kettle corn in our Steeltainer snack box but I decorated his with a piece of bunny baran (see how he’s also eating a strawberry? Meta!) and a cute little bunny pick.

What do you pack in your kids’ thermos for lunch?

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