Wendy Copley's Blog, page 9

Cute Halloween Bento Box/Creepy Halloween Bento Box

I think we all know how much I love Halloween lunches. I mean, I really love making Halloween lunches for my kids! I have tons of equipment and there are so many fun ideas around that I love to start cranking them out as soon as October starts.

Still, I sometimes have a bit of a challenge fitting the right lunch to the right kid. My younger son loves Halloween, but only too a point. If things get too creepy or scary he is overwhelmed and it stops being fun for him. I need to keep things cute for him. On the other hand my fifth grader is embarrassed by lunches that are too cutesy. He likes it when I decorate his lunches, but they need to be creepy enough that he can keep his cool reputation at the lunch table. What’s a parent to do?

Here are some ideas for tailoring lunches to kids of different ages or temperaments:

Cute Lunches:

My kindergartener and I made this lunch together so we both contributed ideas. I started by pulling our PlanetBox Rover* out and then we filled each compartment with a Halloween food. First up: cucumber bones. I sliced a cuke lengthwise into planks and then used a bone cookie cutter to make the bone shapes. I’ve found that leg bones are OK with him, but skulls are not.  Another safe area for younger kids: happy jack-o-lanterns. We each used a black food marker to draw a face on a peeled clementine, then I made a round pb&j sandwich and he used cutters to “carve” the pumpkin. I filled in the space between the oranges with a handful of grape tomatoes and poked a friendly ghost pick into a few. He’s also OK with spiders, so I packed a silicone cup shaped like a spider with a chocolate rice krispy treat and he added a bunch of icing googly eyes on top. Googly eyes seem to make anything more friendly so if you think the lunch might be veering too far toward scary, throw a few of those in. And finally, we filled the treat compartment with a little green jelly snack with more of those icing eyes to represent a mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong.

(Do you like this lunch box? PlanetBox * is offering an exclusive discount to Wendolonia readers today and tomorrow, Oct. 15-16, 2014. Get 15% off any of their lunch box kits — Shuttle, Rover, and Launch — when you use code Wendolonia2014 at checkout.)

Creepy Lunches:

My 10-year-old likes things scary. When I asked him for a few ideas for this lunch, he suggested “a guy in a hockey mask with a chain saw.”

What?! Um…that’s a bit too much for me! I don’t think so!

I found these grody a severed finger candies at the craft store a couple weeks ago, so I used those as a jumping off point and went with a death and body parts theme in this PlanetBox* lunch. The pièce de résistance in this lunch is one of those same fingers with a bloody (cookie) butcher knife next to it on a bed of apple slices. (The blood is a bit of red gel icing that I squirted on the candies.) Blech! So gross! I also included skull and bone ham sandwiches on a blood red napkin. Shocking! Grape tomatoes stand in for bloody eyeballs with an eyeball pick to enhance the idea. And finally I added some black bean dip earth with tortilla chip grave stones for dipping.  I made the grave stones by cutting tortillas, spraying them with a little oil and sprinkling with chili powder and baking them at 350 for about 15 minutes.

What other ideas do you have for cute or creepy lunches?  I’d love it if you shared them in the comments so others can be inspired too!

* This post contains affiliate links

The Week in Bentos: October 6-10, 2014

Hey Lunch Packers! Are you ready? I have another week of real-life lunches for you to peruse. Check it out:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Wyatt started the week off with a back-to-basics Laptop Lunches bento. He had granny smith apple slices, white cheddar popcorn, cherry tomatoes and a sunbutter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat. I jabbed a red star pick in the sandwich for a little interest and I slipped a madeleine into the flatware tray for a little treat.

Augie was home sick with his first cold of the year, so no snack for him.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, Wyatt had leftover goulash in our LunchBots thermal jar with a side of apple slices.

When I told my husband we were having “goulash” for dinner the night before, he got really excited, thinking it was the Hungarian version made with beef, lots of paprika and sour cream instead of the more basic dish I actually made with macaroni, spaghetti sauce and ground beef. My family (from Iowa) always referred to this pasta dish as goulash, but his family (from Ohio) never did, so I started wondering if this label was something unique to my family.

I threw the question out to Facebook to see what other people called the dish and I was gratified to learn that I am far from the only person to call this dish “goulash”! I didn’t count all of the 170 responses, but “goulash” seemed to be the most common label followed by “American chop suey” (which appears to be more common on the East coast). Other responses included “beefaroni”, “chili mac”, slumgullion”, “hamburger helper” and, my personal favorite, “noodle caboodle”. Interesting!

Augie was back to school with a snack of lemon-herb popcorn and apple slices.

Wednesday

Wednesday I had a little extra time so I put together the first Halloween lunch of the year in our PlanetBox Rover: turkey roll-ups in an orange silicone baking cup, cherry tomatoes on a sparkly bat pick, Asian jelly snacks, a severed finger candy (gross!), apple chunks with a skeleton hand tucked among them and a banana with the word “BEWARE” carved into it!

I packed Augie’s snack in the Steeltainer snack box: turkey roll-ups in a silicone spider baking cup and grape tomatoes on a bat pick.

Thursday

The kids had quesadillas for breakfast so I made an extra one for Wyatt’s lunch and packed it into a Laptop Lunches box along with grapes, tortilla chips and salsa. This lunch was a big hit and he ate it all!

Augie had tortilla chips and grapes speared with cute pumpkin and ghost picks. (I found the picks at Michael’s but I’m not sure who made them because I threw the packaging away.)

Friday

Friday, Wyatt had a sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwich, tortilla chips, clementines, grape tomatoes, radishes and some letter cookies. If you look closely at the sandwich you can see I attempted to imprint a skull on the bread with some cookie cutters I bought on clearance from Williams-Sonoma last year. It didn’t really work so well though, so I think I need to work on my technique. This lunch was packed in our Yumbox Panino.

I spent too much time goofing around with Wyatt’s lunch, so when it was time to make Augie’s snack, I had to keep it simple and move fast. He had cucumber slices with a dipper of hummus and clementine halves.

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: September 29 – October 3, 2014

Last week’s lunches were…interesting. I never managed to do a big shop — just a few little ones — so I felt like I was pulling lunches and snacks for the kids out of the air practically every day. Even so I managed to get food in boxes every day, so I guess things weren’t that desperate. Also: we celebrated Wyatt’s 10th birthday so I had a special lunch for that day. Check it out:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Monday I packed leftover curried pork roast on Superman and Batman picks, a mini bagel with lox and cream cheese, dried cranberries and apple slices. This was all put into an EasyLunchboxes bento box.

Augie had some checkered apples (see a tutorial for making these) and some Saltine crackers that I packed into our Steeltainer snack-size box.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I packed Wyatt a Laptop Lunches box with mini bagels with lox and cream cheese, carrots, apple slices, and lemon herb popcorn.

Augie had apple slices and popcorn for his snack. I carved his initials in one of the larger apple chunks using a U-shaped knife.  Instructions for that can be found over here.

Wednesday

Wednesday, I had some more of the cheesy ham rolls I made last week so those went into the EasyLunchboxes bento box for Wyatt along with some apple chunks (speared with a soccer ball pick) and lemon-herb popcorn.

Augie had a car-shaped bento box filled with apples and a ham roll of his own. I also poked a couple of truck picks into the apples for a smidge of cute-osity.

Thursday

Thursday was Wyatt’s 10th birthday and I had grand plans to make him a special lunch to take to school. The only problem? I didn’t get to the store the day before and our cupboards were bare! Yikes! I feel like I pulled this lunch out of the air but he seemed happy with it. He had some dumplings from the freezer, an applesauce pouch, potato chip crumbs, alphabet cookies, and dried cranberries. It never hurts to add potato chips and cookies, right? I used party hat and eye picks to make little dudes from the dumplings and I pulled a one and a zero cookie out to add a ten to the lunch.

Augie had an applesauce pouch and cucumber slices decorated with  hat and eye picks.

Friday

We went out for all-you-can-eat shrimp for Wyatt’s birthday dinner and they brought us far more shrimp than we could actually eat so he had the leftovers in his Yumbox the next day. There were breaded shrimp, coconut shrimp and garlic and parmesan scampi. He also had some cookies, a cheddar biscuit, dried cranberries and an applesauce pouch.

Augie was home sick, so I didn’t pack anything for him.

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: September 22-26, 2014

Five lunches, five snacks! It’s the week in bentos:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

On Monday I put together this snacky lunch for Wyatt in one of our Laptop Lunches boxes: Triscuits, salami slices, carrots, bean dip, grapes and white cheddar popcorn.

Augie had popcorn, cucumber slices and hummus for his snack at kindergarten.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, Wyatt took leftover homemade chicken noodle soup in our LunchBots thermal jar. He also had a side car with dried pineapple rings and grapes.

Augie had grapes with a monkey pick and some pretzels. These were packed in our car snack box set.

Wednesday

I woke up an hour before my alarm went off on Wednesday, so I got up and did a little cooking before the kids got going. I made a couple batches of cheesy ham rolls for breakfast and lunches. The idea for these came from Laura Fuentes (either from her site, Momables, or from her book, The Best Homemade Kids’ Lunches on the Planet — I’m not sure which). They couldn’t be simpler to prepare — roll out triangles of crescent roll dough, top with a slice of ham and a little sprinkle of grated cheddar and then roll them up and bake according to package directions. I started making these a couple weeks ago and we are all crazy for them. So much so that we’ve never had any for lunches because they all get eaten too quickly!

I packed three of the rolls for Wyatt along with green grapes and radish slices with a sprinkle of lime juice. This was packed in an EasyLunchboxes bento box.

Augie also had a ham roll, along with grapes and a few slices of cucumber in a sheep cup.

Thursday

Thursday, Wyatt had a LunchBots thermos full of leftover ravioli “lasagna” (the recipe is from the Six o’ Clock Scramble menu planning service I use) along with a side care of apple slices and radishes.

He ate most of the ravioli, but when I opened his lunch box in the morning I discovered that the apple slices and radishes were completely untouched. Here we go again….

Augie had Triscuits, cukes and apple slices. I packed these in a single layer of our London bus bento box, per his request.

Friday

Wyatt had more ravioli lasagna in our LunchBots thermal jar. (It got a workout this week!) I was going to pack sides too, but I found the leftovers from the day before while I was packing lunches, so I decided not to bother.

Augie had whole wheat pita chips and cucumber slices.

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: September 15-19, 2014

Honestly, our mornings did not go smoothly last week. We all overslept at one point or another, the kids were obstinate and bickered constantly and I yelled at everyone far too much. Do you know what that means? Boring lunches and snacks.  There is nothing even vaguely cute here, folks. But maybe you’ll still get an idea or two?

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Monday started off with a pretty good lunch for Wyatt packed into an EasyLunchboxes bento box: homemade apple chips, carrots, taquitos, pineapple and white cheddar popcorn. I made the apple chips from a recipe in the 100 Days of Real Food cookbook. The taquitos were heated up from the freezer and then I wrapped them in foil to help them stay warm-ish until lunch time. Wyatt said they were OK, but everything else in the lunch got wet from the steam, so I guess that didn’t really work out so well.

Augie had popcorn and pineapple. Yawn.

Tuesday

Zach went shopping and bought all sorts of treats on Monday night, so Wyatt got to have a bagel with lox and cream cheese in his lunch box on Tuesday morning. Yum! It wouldn’t fit in the normal Laptop Lunches container, so I put it in one of our large Bento Buddies. It was paired with popcorn and carrot sticks that he didn’t eat.

Augie had an apple sauce pouch and popcorn that I packed in our old goldfish snack box. Snooze-fest.

Wednesday

We were really rushed on Wednesday morning so I enlisted Wyatt’s help in packing his lunch. He chose salsa (packed in a mini dipper), dried pineapple rings, grapes, tortilla chips and sesame cracker sticks (from the bulk bins at the grocery store). Maybe not quite as healthy as I’d like, but he did eat it all. This was packed in the Laptop Lunches box (again).

Augie had the same sesame garlic sticks and some grapes. Boooor-ing.

Thursday

Thursday morning we were late, the kids were arguing and I was yelling at everyone, so Wyatt had school lunch and Augie had an apple sauce pouch. Real life.

Friday

Friday Wyatt had another bagel, but this time it only had cream cheese on it because the lox was long gone. (How do you protect your bagels? Put lox on them. Ha ha ha ha ha!) He also had radishes, a chocolate-pretzel-marshmallow cluster and a few grapes. This was packed in an EasyLunchboxes bento box.

Augie had cucumbers and grapes in a green triangle snack box (meant for onigiri). I know it looks like this was packed for “green day” at kindergarten, but it was just a coincidence! He also had a small container of hummus that I forgot to put in the photo.

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.

National Guacamole Day Giveaway

Today is National Guacamole Day and we’re going to celebrate with a fun giveaway!

In honor of the holiday,  the folks at Wholly Guacamole and Laptop Lunches have put together a bunch of great lunch ideas featuring their delicious guacamole. If you click through to the Wholly Guacamole site, you can see lots of tasty looking lunch ideas — a version for grown-ups and a simpler version using the same ingredients for kids. These deconstructed nachos are something my kids would love.

And this chicken salad sandwich is exactly the sort of thing I like to eat for my own lunches.

To celebrate National Guacamole Day, Wholly Guacamole is encouraging people to #GuacItForward by doing a few good deeds. Donate to a food bank, compliment a friend or pay the toll for the car behind you. How you pay it forward is up to you!

Today I’m going to #GuacItForward by hosting a giveaway for some fun Wholly Guacamole and Laptop Lunches treats!

Here’s what you can win:

a set of Laptop Lunches Avocado Bento Buddies
a Wholly Guacamole cooler filled with:

3 Guacamole Trays (various flavors)
2 mini cups (various flavors)
Chip Clip
Avocado Squeezie



Enter below:

Please be patient while you wait for the Rafflecopter widget to fully load. Sorry this giveaway is only open to addresses in the contiguous United States.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post, but I received Wholly Guacamole samples to facilitate writing it. I was pretty excited because I love me some Wholly Guacamole!

The Week in Bentos: September 8-12, 2014

Good morning! I’ve got another full week of lunches and snacks for you to peruse today:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Wyatt asked me to use the Laptop Lunches box (his all time favorite) to pack his lunch Monday morning so I pulled it off the shelf and filled it with berries, snap peas, letter cookies and a mini bagel with cream cheese. The snap peas were something he agreed to try, but when I opened his lunch box after school they were untouched. Hmph!

Augie had banana chips and cucumbers with hummus for his snack. I packed them in the little car snack boxes.

Tuesday

Tuesday we were running late and I told Wyatt he’d have to eat school lunch. He was not happy about that idea at all though so I told him he could pack his own lunch while I took care of breakfast, Augie’s snack and getting myself ready. This is what he came up with: carrots and black bean dip, letter cookies, berries and turkey meatballs. I think he did a terrific job! (This was packed in a a Laptop Lunches bento box.)

Augie had cucumbers and berries packed in our black polka dot snack box.  I separated the berries from the cukes with a square silicone cup.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I used our Yumbox Panino to pack Wyatt’s lunch. He had a sunbutter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread, strawberries, golden dewlicious melon (a new variety we were trying) and a few letter cookies.

Augie had strawberries and melon. I packed it in our Steeltainer snack-size box and decorated it with giraffe and bear picks.

Thursday

Thursday, Wyatt had leftover pasta in our LunchBots thermal jar. I also packed him a side car with a mini banana, strawberries and a small jelly snack from the Asian grocery.

Augie also had a mini banana and some berries along with rosemary raisin crackers. This was packed in our Steeltainer snack-size box.

Friday

I think Wyatt’s love for me grew 1000 times bigger when I packed him this lunch: leftover pizza slices, alphabet cookies and strawberries. Easy peasy in an EasyLunchboxes bento box.

Augie had yellow watermelon and cucumbers. My favorite grumpy giraffe pick made another appearance and I also included a sheet of animal baran to separate the melon from the cukes. This was packed in a single layer of our house bento box.

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.

99 Ranch Grocery Haul

I live about a half a mile from a large Asian grocery store called 99 Ranch Market and yesterday I headed over for a quick shop. When I got home, I made this video to show you — yes, YOU — the stuff I bought:

Here’s a quick explanation of the things I show in the video:

Yan-Yan: these are a fun treat that the kids and I like to get when we hit the Japanese dollar store and other Asian markets. One side of the container holds cookie sticks, the other has a creamy frosting-like goo for dipping them in.
Thai tea, sweetened condensed milk and tapioca pearls (boba): one of my favorite drinks of all time is Thai iced tea, so I bought the ingredients to make it at home. Extra bonus: I bought the big tapioca pearls to try making bubble tea.
Mini sausages: I bought two kinds — pork sausage and franks with cheese — in the hopes they will work with my little sausage decorator set. I didn’t realize how very red the franks were until I got them home and held them side by side. Kind of disconcerting…
Mini bananas: perfect for a bento box
Yellow watermelon: Augie had this at his aunt and uncles a few weeks ago and was entranced by it. Another great item for the bento boxes.
Big tub of fruit jelly pudding: I bought these tiny little cups of jello like stuff as a treat for the kids and they are ga-ga over them. To me, they just taste like jellied Kool-aid so they aren’t really my cup of tea.
Strawberry wafer sticks: I thought these were cute and they looked yummy, but the stuff inside the cookie straws tastes like plastic. The kids don’t seem to notice or care because they are ga-ga over these too.

One thing that was a little disappointing about my trip to 99 Ranch? No bento supplies! They have a whole aisle with kitchen supplies, but nothing fun — or even boring — for bento. Oh, well!

 

The Week in Bentos: September 1-5, 2014

Ready for another week of lunches and snacks? Here are the bentos I packed for my boys last week:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Monday was a holiday so we were hanging out at home. I stepped on a bee in our back yard and my foot swelled up a bunch so my husband made the kids soup for lunch. Super glamorous!

Tuesday

On Tuesday we were back at it. I packed Wyatt’s lunch in our LunchBots Trio: red bell pepper strips, ham roll-ups, blackberries and Food Should Taste Good brown rice crackers spread with homemade pimento cheese and made into little sandwiches. The pimento cheese is a recipe I tried from Lisa Leake’s new book, 100 Days of Real Food (based on her blog of the same name). I’ve been reading Lisa’s blog for quite a while now and I’m enjoying the book’s tips and strategies for improving my family’s diet. I’m not sure we could go all the way like Lisa’s family has, but every little bit helps, right?

The crackers were something new we are trying. Food Should Taste Good sent us a big box of their products to sample a couple weeks ago and we just started digging into it last week. The kids have been pretty into these crackers and have asked to eat them for a snack several times. They’re gluten-free, whole grain and all that jazz, but the kids didn’t even notice.

For snack Augie had grapes in a little star cup with a hippo pick, blackberries and some of the same Food Should Taste Good brown rice crackers that Wyatt had.

Wednesday

Wednesday Wyatt had some Food Should Taste Good blue corn tortilla chips, a mini bagel with cream cheese, nectarine chunks, grape tomatoes and a small handful of Fruit Loops. The Fruit Loops were a birthday treat I bought for Augie who turned six over the weekend. I only buy sugared cereal for the kids twice a year on their birthdays, so this was a special treat. This was packed in our Yumbox Panino.

I call this snack box “Figs and Pigs”. A few sliced figs from our backyard tree, pig picks for decoration and some crusty old carrot sticks. I also included a small box of the same blue corn tortilla chips Wyatt had, but forgot to photograph it. Apparently I also forgot to put the lid on this box properly because Augie complained that everything fell out into his lunch bag and was all mushed together so he didn’t eat it. I don’t really blame him — it was pretty disgusting to clean up.

Thursday

On Thursday we were in a big rush, so Wyatt had this basic Yumbox lunch: fish crackers, grape tomatoes, nectarine chunks, corn and turkey meatballs. The grape tomatoes are a new vegetable Wyatt was trying this week. Despite putting them in his lunches most days, I think he ate a total of two. Maybe their not really a hit…

As I said, I was super rushed, so I just threw an applesauce pouch and a container of soy milk in Augie’s backpack. No time for or point in taking a photo.

Friday

On Friday, Wyatt had a snacky lunch with six different items (packed in this bento box): dried cranberries, rice crackers, blackberries, pimento cheese, tomatoes and a few slices of summer sausage.

I’m under no delusion that the summer sausage was a healthy choice, by the way. The first item in the ingredient list was “meat ingredients”. What the heck does that even mean?? I don’t think I want to know! But this is something we had for a treat sometimes when I was a kid and I rarely (if ever) spot it in the store in California so when I saw it at our grocery store I threw it in my cart on a nostalgic whim.

It was black day at kindergarten so I packed Augie a special black lunch with lots of panda bears. He had dried cranberries with a panda and bamboo baran, for decoration and blackberries with cute little panda picks. This was packed in our Steeltainer snack-size box. (I know the cranberries are technically very dark red, but close enough!)

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: August 25-29, 2014

Alrighty then! The second week of school has wrapped, as well as the long weekend. We were busy, busy, busy this weekend with Augie’s birthday (he turned 6!), time with friends and lots of projects around the house. Also, I stepped on a bee and my foot swelled up and itched like crazy. Yikes!

The bento report for last week is also jam-packed with a lunch and a snack for the boys every day. Here’s what they had:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

On Monday I pulled out the PlanetBox Rover for Wyatt’s lunch. He had deli turkey roll-ups, apple chunks, lemon and herb popcorn (from Trader Joes), blueberries and strawberries with silly eye picks. I like the way the points of the strawberries ended up looking like noses!

Have I mentioned yet that Augie is not allowed to bring anything sugary into his classroom? Nothing — not even for birthdays! I don’t usually put a ton of sugar in my kids lunches/snacks (aside from fruit) but I do find it’s easy to send granola and cereal bars now and then and I like to bake for their lunches sometimes too. It’s not a huge problem or anything, but I’m having a little trouble adjusting to these new snack rules because some of the things I’m used to packing are off limits. And I’m not sure where the teacher draws the line. Is a whole grain muffin taboo? What about something like canned peaches? I don’t know! We also had a little trouble this week because Augie is so afraid he’s going to get in trouble for the wrong snack that he opted not to eat what I packed a few times. So frustrating!

Anyway, this week I hit on the idea of popcorn. It’s a whole grain, it’s fun and the kids love it. And as long as I stick with savory toppings it should be OK for snack. I’ve found I need to keep it separate from anything even vaguely moist so it doesn’t get soggy though. So for this snack I pulled out a set of cute nesting car boxes and put lemon butter popcorn in one and blueberries and strawberries with eye picks in the other.

Tuesday

On Tuesday Wyatt asked my to pack his lunch in a Laptop Lunches box. He had an applesauce pouch, carrots, black bean dip (in the blue box), turkey meatballs, catsup for the meatballs in the green box, and lemon herb popcorn. I also included a few Clone Troopers rings because Wyatt was actually up for a little decoration in his lunch. Fun!

Augie had lemon-herb popcorn with an Iron Man ring for decoration and an applesauce pouch.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, Wyatt had mini tacos (from the freezer), carrots, black bean dip, white cheddar popcorn, blueberries and strawberries. This was packed in our Yumbox Panino.

Augie’s snack was really simple — strawberries and blueberries with a piece of panda baran for decoration.

Thursday

Dang! This lunch was so easy I felt sheepish taking a photo of it: leftover pasta in our LunchBots thermal jar and an applesauce pouch. That’s all. Lunch came home completely finished.

Augie’s snack was just as easy: white cheddar popcorn and an applesauce pouch. Boom! Done!

Friday

Oh boy! Wyatt’s lunch on Friday was so yummy that I wanted the same thing, so I made it for myself at home! I gave him leftover minced turkey and veg along with some lettuce leaves for DIY Asian turkey lettuce wraps, dried pineapple rings (as sweet as candy) and a mess of blueberries. This was packed in an EasyLunchboxes bento box.

It was “blue” day at Kindergarten, so I made Augie a blue snack. Besides blueberries, there aren’t a whole lot of naturally blue foods so I relied on accessories a lot for this one. I poked a blue crayon pick into a few of the berries, then I filled a blue silicone cup with cucumber slices and layered a piece of baran on top that was shaped like a blue dog. Finally I filled a small blue Snoopy cup with a little hummus. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out!

BONUS CUTE LUNCH: When I picked Augie up from Kindergarten he was feeling a little down. He’s been a trooper about all the changes that have occurred in the past few weeks, but with a new teacher, new school, new kids and new expectations it’s been a pretty stressful time for him. By Friday, he was worn out and having a hard time keeping it together so I decided to give him a little extra love with a special lunch.

First I made three heart-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in three different sizes. I did this so I would waste as little bread as possible, but I also liked the way it looked. Then I added a couple rings of dried pineapple and some strawberries. At the end I decided to cut a couple of the strawberries into heart shapes too, since I had the cutter out anyway.

I don’t usually get to see how Augie reacts when I make him a cute lunch so it was gratifying to see how excited he got when he came to the table to eat his meal. “You made a lunch with lots of hearts, Mom! I know what that means. It means you love me a lot!”

Right-o, Buddy Boy! That’s exactly what it means.

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.