Animals and Confetti Bento

I've really been enjoying my extra time with the little man! We are lucky enough to live near a city park, so every morning, we walk over to the playground then come back home for a well earned morning nap. While Senorcito is asleep, I work on his lunch. We've been having success recently with a specialty rice bread from EnerG Foods. Honestly, I can't eat even a bite of the stuff, but the bambino loves it (I do enjoy their English Muffins, though)! Usually, I cut all of his food into bite size pieces, but he's been shoveling everything in so fast, I don't think he's learning to chew properly. I decided he could work on his chewing with some animal shaped bread. It worked!

Today's Lunch

• EnerG Rice Bread Animals (scraps are hidden under the meat)
• Cherries and Blueberries
• Confetti Veggies: Roasted Carrots, Red Bell Pepper, Cucumber
• Ground Chicken

Senorcito at the park!

At Home Bento

While I no longer need to pack meals for my son and I, I have already found myself missing our colorful boxed lunches. Senorcito was the happy recipient of this stay at home bento lunch. I admit, I had to cut the food into smaller bites for the actual consumption, but I thought it looked nice to have larger pieces of food for a change. Needless to say, the kid devoured his lunch without any issues. He even ate the kale and onions!

Lunch Contents

• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• Sweet Cherries
• Homemade Chicken-Apple Meatballs
• Sauteed Kale and Onions

I'm happy to be able to participate this week in What's for Lunch Wednesday!

Change of Life Bento

It seems life has had a lot of extra challenges for us this year. Last Monday, I packed meals and snacks for my son and I as usual. However, I ended up being laid off that morning. Even though, some consider a packed lunch to be just food, when you take the extra time and thought into making it something special, there's a connection with everything packed. After packing my lunch with good intentions at home, it felt very odd to eat it back at home after what had happened. While I'm not sure exactly where life is going to take us from here, one thing that will not change is the fact that we still need to eat! Maybe, I will now find the time to actually post about all this food I make for my little guy. For now, Senorcito and I are enjoying all our extra time together. He's such a fantastic little man!

Senorcito's Food

• Breakfast - Green Grapes, Blueberries, Kix (trialing)
• Lunch - Chicken-Apple Meatballs, Okra, Pink & Purple Potatoes, Butternut Squash
• Snack - Enjoy Life Happy Apple Cookie, Plum
  
  
  
  My Lunch
• Pink and Purple Potatoes
• Plum
• Cucumber and Roasted Pepper Salad
• Chicken-Apple Meatballs, Butternut Squash

A Farewell to Legumes

I've been sick for the past two weeks and not up to bento making. Now I'm finally feeling better, but have another challenge to add to my meal making list. Over the weekend, Senorcito had a bad reaction to split peas. Right after he'd finished a plate of the stuff, his eating arm broke out hand to elbow in a red bumpy rash with large blister type things. Since he already has a major peanut allergy and a soy allergy (both legumes), the allergist wants him off of all legumes until his next blood tests in November. This means no more of his beloved beans, no lentils, no peas, no green beans, and no more of the one cereal I thought was safe, because it does contain pea protein. As frustrating as it is for me, I feel really bad for my little guy. He just wants to eat and enjoy his food. He's not a big meat eater beyond ground turkey and was very displeased with the turkey breast and veggies I gave him for dinner. The doctor basically wants him on just meat, veggies, and fruit, plus breastmilk, of course. I'm going to continue with the rice, too, as I've seen zero issues with it and I'm not going to deny the kid his muffins and pancakes if I don't have to. Looks like I will be experimenting with meats, including those I haven't touched in over a decade. I used to be a vegetarian, so all this meat stuff is not only hard for me to deal with emotionally/ethically, it's completely foreign in terms of cooking! I have a kid friendly recipe for chicken apple meatballs, I'll be trying soon. I made turkey-apple meatballs previously and he loved them. Hopefully, I can continue to keep him interested in his food with this extra diet change. I so glad I decided to keep on breastfeeding, though. That should fill any gaps he has with solid food. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll start getting foods back before he weans himself.

Unfortunately, I'm at home with a sick Senorcito. He's got a terrible cough and congestion, plus he had an allergic reaction to something yesterday evening. At least, we won't have to worry about what to eat today. Last night's leftovers were already packed. I used the last remains of the already cooked sweet brown rice to make "breakfast rice" by mashing it with some banana. I tasted a spoonful and it was so good. E-man shoveled it in with much enthusiasm, so it's safe to say we both approve. I'll have to pack myself some in the future. Due to the allergic reaction yesterday, my son's lunch got a slight makeover after these photos were taken. The cornmeal crusted chicken was a new food for him, so I'm suspecting something in the cornmeal is the culprit. I replaced the chicken with a leftover stock of turkey that I had in the freezer.

My Lunch:

• Cornmeal crusted Chicken
• Asparagus
• Character Shaped Rice Noodles
• A portion of Plum and Nectarine

E-man's Food

• Breakfast: Breakfast Rice and a Plum
• Lunch: Chicken, Asparagus, and Pasta w/ Butternut Squash
• Snack: Os plus Peaches and a few Blueberries

Muffin Burgers Monday

I'm attempting a bento "class" online. This week's homework was to create some non-muffin food using a muffin tin. I experimented with a few foods. The one that worked was these turkey-veg burgers. They are a frequent item at our dinner table (and lunch boxes). Instead of cooking them in a pan, I just baked the burgers in a muffin tin. It takes longer to bake, but it's great to just put them in the oven and walk away. I also made sweet brown rice for the first time. It was so good, plus it was sticky which made it easier for Senorcito to get a hold of. Yum!

My Lunch:

• Turkey-Zucchini-Carrot Muffin Tin Burgers
• Carrots and Green Beans
• Plum and Blackberries
• Sweet Brown Rice w/ Carrot Flowers and Wheat-free Soy Sauce
  

Senorcito's Food:

• Breakfast - Mixed Muffins, Banana and Cherries
• Lunch - Mini Turkey Burgers, Carrots and Green Beans, Sweet Brown Rice
• Snack - Cereal, Blueberries

Muffin Mayhem

I spent the morning in the kitchen experimenting with different kinds of muffins. One important lesson was learned. The kind of rice you use to make the flour is very important! I've been using a short grain brown rice and it's worked wonderfully. Earlier today, I picked up a bag of sweet brown rice thinking it would be good to try for "sweet" foods like muffins. That assumption was WRONG. The sweet rice was way too sticky and I ended up with a gooey mess where I wanted blueberry-apple muffins. Oh well. Next time, I will have my blueberry-apple muffins! For now, I'll have to settle for Pumpkin-Quinoa and Pumpkin-Zucchini (I had pumpkin I needed to use up). On to the recipes ... which I actually wrote down as I baked to verify. For the record, I use a cheapie coffee bean grinder to make my own flours for my son's sake. I use Lundberg Short Grain Brown Rice and run the grinding cycle a few times to get the flour a little more fine. This is a textured muffin.



Instructions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a single bowl, mix together the ingredients of one of the following muffin types. Pour batter into a lined muffin tin. The muffins will stick to the pan, so liners are very important. Each recipe makes 6 muffins. I like to mix and match my muffins, so I keep the batches small. For full size muffins bake for 20-25 minutes. Mini-muffins take about 12-15 minutes.

Any Flavor Muffins

• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 3/4 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 C water
• 1/4 C add-in ingredient of your choice (blueberries, apple, chocolate chips)

Rice Quinoa Pumpkin Muffins

• 3/4 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C white quinoa flour (also home-made in a coffee bean grinder)
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 C canned pumpkin
• 1/3 C water

Rice Pumpkin Zucchini Muffins

• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 C canned pumpkin
• 1/2 C grated zucchini (I use a food processor)
• 1/3 C water