40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Box 11

I had some leeks and potatoes that needed to be used up, so I made one of my favorite new creations: potato leek soup. Besides the soup being extra tasty, I keep the extra leek broth to use for cooking things like brown rice or quinoa later. Yum! The kid doesn't like anything pureed so happily I get all the soup for myself. 

Half Organic Gala Apple, Clementine

Chunk O White Cheddar

Sauteed Kale and Onion

Homemade Potato Leek Soup

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Box 10 and Bento 101 Assignment 3

Just as Ethan was starting to feel better, I came down with his cold. I did a lot of sleeping over the weekend and zero cooking, lunch boxes, or food shopping. Tomorrow, I'm off to the grocery store, but for now we're using up all the odds and ends in the kitchen. I hate wasting food, and the money it cost to buy that food, so I'm always happy to have a bare fridge the end of the week.

I started this bento with leftovers from dinner, quinoa and kale. Believe it or not, my kid still loves kale! Ethan will be delighted with the two stray links of homemade chicken sausage I discovered in the freezer this evening. One lone apple was left in the fridge, so I split it between our lunches.

Homemade Chicken Sausage

Organic Gala Apple

Red and White Quinoa

Sauteed Kale w/ Onions

Link to Assignment : Just Bento - Bento 101 Assignment 3

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Box 9

Organic Grass Fed Ground Beef

Organic Gala Apple

Raw Carrot Sticks

After sleeping in until 10:15, my sick little man asked me for hamburger and apple for lunch. Along with beans and avocado on tortillas, "hamburger" and apple are hands down his favorite foods. I had some carrots leftover from when I was prepping my own lunch so I threw those in, too. Ethan was excited with this lunch, but was only able to eat a few bites. I'm guessing his illness has something to do with his decreased appetite and all those rejected bentos earlier in the week. Thankfully, his terrible cough is gone today. I'm hoping he's on the mend!

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Box 8

Scrambled Eggs

Vegetable Gyoza

Raw Carrots and Dip

A couple  Apple Slices

Poor Ethan has been sick with a really bad cough the past couple days. Yesterday, I was racing the winter storm to get him to the doctor before the roads got too bad, so needless to say, making bentos hasn't been a top priority lately. Today, though, I decided to treat myself to a nice lunch box. I ended up so full, I couldn't eat this whole lunch! I'm saving a little for snack later.

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Box 7

Black Beans

Tortilla Chips

Homemade Guacamole

Organic Gala Apple

Ethan was pleading for black beans yesterday, so today I delivered! This is sort of a big lunch box for a 3 year old, but my kid can down tortillas, guacamole and beans like nothing I've ever seen. Typically, I make allergy safe tortillas from scratch, but on lazy days I just use tortilla chips. As seen by the pajamas, today was a very lazy day! Obviously, this lunch was a hit with the little person.

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Boxes 5 & 6

Catching up on my posting ... These are the kid's lunches Sunday and Monday. Recently, E went through an eat everything in site phase. I'm guessing it was a growth spurt. Now he's moved on to the opposing, and frustrating, refuse everything in sight phase. He chose to eat only the strawberries in the first box. Not sure why he'd rather go hungry than eat what are typically his favorite foods, but that's three year old logic I will never understand. Monday's box went over much better, although I'd forgotten to tell him to save the chocolate for last (d'oh!). He adores Brussels sprouts so that was a hit and he ate some of everything in the bento. Yeah!

Turkey, Avocado and Tapioca Bread Teddy-wiches.

Yellow Peppers

Strawberries

Baked Chicken

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Corn on the Cob

Strawberries

Enjoy Life Chocolate Square

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Day 4

Bento failure! I admit the kitchen is suffering with a bit of end of the week sparseness and the meal was a bit random, but I didn't expect such rejection! The kid ate all the bacon and one carrot. He was very unhappy that I messed with one of his favorites, green beans and noodles, by replacing the veggies w/ asparagus. Apparently, it was so insulting even the noodles lost their appeal! Not sure why he didn't want the pear. Oh well!

Rice Noodles and Asparagus w/ Olive Oil and Garlic Salt

Raw Carrots

Turkey Bacon

Green Pear

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Day 3

This bitty bento was for my little man's breakfast. I admit, it's missing the protein element, but he's a hard guy to get much food into in the morning, so I'll take what I can get. He's loves to help me bake his special "safe" treats like these rice muffins. When he started helping in the kitchen, I was lucky if everything got in the bowl, but he quickly caught on and now he's able to dump everything in the bowl without making a mess. His reward: the spatula. Luckily, we don't have to worry about raw eggs.

Homemade Rice Muffin (wheat-free, egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free)

Grapes, Raspberries, Blueberries

Ethan, delighted, after helping me "clean" a spatula.

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Day 2 & Assignment 2a

Today's lunch was an experiment for Just Bento Assignment 2a. The goal was essentially to arrange your typical meal's worth of food into a bento box as compactly as possible. I was really surprised I got everything to fit. The veggies had to be stacked on their sides to squeeze in the fruit. I'm not sure this box would have closed, but it was very interesting to see the comparison from plate to bento.

Bean and Cheese in Soft Taco

Roasted Zucchini, Peppers and Onions

Clementine

Link to Just Bento : Bento 101 - Assignment 2a

40 Days, 40 Boxes - 2013 Day 1

Last year, I started my 40 Days, 40 Boxes project for Lent, only to be side-tracked by some real life issues, when my beloved dog Addie was diagnosed with malignant oral melanoma. Somehow she has beat all odds and that little miracle dog is still with us. She's slowed down a bit, but still loves long walks, followed by long naps. I'm very grateful and consider the past year to have been a gift for us. 

This year, I'm really focusing on eating more "real" foods and less of the junky created-in-a-lab type foods. It can sometimes be hard to navigate the grey area, but I'm not striving for perfection here, just progress in the right direction. I've already cut out most fast food, from several days a week to once a month; have cut way back on the Diet Coke; and have cut out my daily portions of candy and chips. It's hard to believe my once healthy habits got so off track! However, I'm now moving forward. On to the lunch box ...

Homemade Cheese Pizza

Sauteed Asparagus

Red Cherries

Clementine

Life Sidetracked

I've gotten sidetracked a bit from my intended bento assignment, with some unexpected bad news. One of my beloved dogs(the black one in this photo) went to the vet for a routine check-up and they found a tumor in her mouth. It turns out she has a very aggressive form of cancer and got a poor prognosis from the vet. We're still trying to figure out how far the cancer has spread through her body and if it's possible to remove/treat. She has always been such a sweet and loving, but tough as nails type of girl, I could never imagine her getting sick and am still a bit in shock. Almost exactly 2 years ago (March 2, 2010), I lost my other beloved dog, a sweet and gentle golden retriever, when a just few days prior he'd suddenly gotten very sick and we found out he had cancer and his internal organs were failing. I'm currently waiting for some test results and hoping for the best. I'm not yet ready to let another of my dogs go.

A Bento from the Past

I didn't get a chance to make a fresh lunch box today, but I made this bento earlier in the year and hadn't had a chance to post it. As you can see by the little hand in the corner, someone was anxious to eat. This bento contains Apple, Chickpeas, Sweet Potato Snowflakes, Hamburger and Okra. I remember the little man eating this lunch, but refusing the sweet potato shapes! Probably unlike the average kid, Ethan prefers his potatoes with the skin on. These skinless potatoes, despite being cute, were deemed unacceptable for toddler consumption.

Ground Beef and Sweet Potatoes

Today's lunch was a huge hit! Ethan loves "hamburger" so he was thrilled w/ the ground beef. Sweet Potato is also a favorite along w/ Apple and Blueberries, plus he was excited to see a good amount of Coconut Yogurt in his lunch box. I've long since learned, that my child refuses yogurt of any variety other than plain and white, but he did a little bit of fruit dipping of his own. Snack is Grapes and Rice Chex which I have sprinkled with cinnamon (store bought Cinnamon Chex have a peanut warning so it's off limits).

Also posted to What's For Lunch Wednesday.

Sunny Winter Day Lunch

We had a wonderfully sunny day on Monday! Once again, it doesn't make for the best lunch photo, but we had a lot of fun outside enjoying the nice weather. My lunchbox is pictured w/ leftover roasted chicken, raw carrots and green beans w/ ranch dip, pretzel sticks and grapes. I didn't get a photo of Ethan's lunch before he was digging in, but the in-action shot shows leftover roasted chicken; raw peppers, carrots and green beans w/ coconut yogurt dip; leftover roasted potatoes and carrots; plus grapes. He made it very clear that he wants the same lunch box as mommy ... the laptop lunchbox!

Out-to-lunch Box

My husband and I decided to go out to lunch today. Since Ethan can't eat restaurant food due to his food allergies (and cross-contamination/mistake risk), he got a lunch box to bring along. He actually loves eating out even though it's still the same ole food for him. I think he just enjoys the change of scenery and people watching. As you can see from the photo, the sun was out in full force today! It makes getting a good photo a lot harder, but I'm not complaining!

I always overpack Ethan's to-go lunches just to make sure he has enough foods he likes to be satisfied while we eat. His lunch today was Avocado on Tapioca Bread, Red and Yellow Sweet Peppers w/ Coconut Yogurt Dip, Applegate Farms Turkey (his safe lunchmeat brand), EnerG Pretzels and Pear w/ Grapes. He ended up eating all the peppers first, then the turkey and grapes w/ just a few bites of sandwich and pretzels. We had a few errands to run afterwards. By the time we got home, Ethan was hungry and ready to finish his fruit and sandwich. The uneaten pretzels got dumped into his snack cup in his backpack for the next time we're out, so nothing gets wasted.

Simple "Wee-chah" Bento

It was such a dreary day on Friday, but you'd never know it by this photo. We took advantage our our 2 minutes of sunshine just before lunch. Overall we had a very lazy day, so I just made an easy sunbutter on tapioca bread sandwich for Ethan, or "wee-chah" as he calls it in his toddler Spanglish. Funny enough, the child is a little weirded out when I cut his food into shapes. I had to convince him these were actually edible. To balance out the sandwich, I also packed leftover steamed carrots and green beans plus pear and blueberries.

Homemade Chicken Sausage

The little man was a very willing participant in Day 2 of our lunchbox project. He even helped me put the vegetables in the pot, eating several in the process. Last night, I had some defrosted some chicken breasts sitting in the fridge so I decided to make chicken sausage. It's pretty tasty if I do say so myself. The guys of the household concur.

For lunch, we had homemade chicken sausage (of course), the carrots and green beans Ethan helped me make, apple, grapes, and wild rice. Ethan's lunchbox also contains an Enjoy Life Sunbutter bar and pear for his after nap snack. I was very surprised today when Ethan ate all his fruits and veggies first, ate no rice and only one half of a sausage. He usually downs the meat first thing. Since I worked tonight, Ethan had his leftovers for dinner where he was apparently back in the mood for rice and sausage.

40 Days, 40 Boxes

Even though, I am not religious, I was raised in a Catholic family and always loved the challenge set forth during lent. I was recently reading one of my favorite blogs Clover Lane and saw her 40 Bags, 40 Days challenge in which she cleans out her entire house, aiming to get rid of 40 bags of stuff during lent. While I am trying that challenge myself, with only one child and a small house, I'm not sure I can wrangle up a full 40 bags of unnecessary stuff to purge. I was, however, inspired to try another 40 day challenge of my own ... 40 days of lunch boxes. Seeing as I'm working on improving my diet and I'm always looking for an excuse to use my bento boxes, I figured it was the perfect project for me this year.

Today is Day 1! I didn't cook last night, but had some homemade chicken soup in the freezer just waiting to be eaten. I cooked some fresh rice noodles and threw them into the soup (they seem to get mushy if I freeze them in the soup). To get our veggies, we both had okra plus I had a green salad w/ purple cabbage. Ethan is not a salad fan yet (and I'm not a raw pepper fan), so he had raw red and yellow bell pepper sticks plus coconut yogurt for dipping. We both had apple and blueberries, though his has a much higher berry to apple ratio to satisfy his current blueberry addiction. I thought this would be way too much food for a 2.5 year old, so I filled the last portion of Ethan's lunchbox w/ grapes and EnerG pretzels that were set aside for a snack later.

Turns out I under-estimated my son's appetite ...

In the past, I had always removed the inner containers from the box at mealtime to make it easier for him to reach the food. Today, he insisted they stay in the box! Ethan was DELIGHTED with his lunch. First went the soup, then the peppers. After discovering the fruit was also glorious dipped in the yogurt, it was quickly inhaled. He even dunked a few pieces of okra in the stuff. That part grossed me out, but if he's eating his veggies I'm not complaining! The child was so hungry, I refilled his soup twice. About 1/3 of the noodles lost their way off the spoon and ended up all over the chair, but that's still a lot of food. Someone much be about to hit a growth spurt!

I'm so grateful for our time together this morning. We had such a great Mommy-Son lunch today!

Also posted at Whats For Lunch Wednesday.