Fish and Minion and a molded rice lunch

I put a little more effort than and time into lunch today. I think it took me a whole 10 minutes for all 3 lunches. The Elder has leftovers. Easy lunch right there!



I put just a hair more effort into it this morning. I cut a banana down and tried to make it into a minion. Like it? I was to lazy to put him in overalls.

This is picture number 666 on my phone. 

For lunch we have a pack of fruit snacks that I am trying to get out of the house, a pack of raisins with a minion sticker on it, 3 fish sandwiches (yes, I know it does not belong), and some yogurt in the disposable container.

This picture is sideways, but can you tell what I molded the rice and turkey casserole into? It is a train. I used a cookie cutter and packed the rice in. Then I let it chill over night and removed the cookie cutter from the lunch. It was set. The Elder said it held up pretty well.

Lunch Punches came!

Please forgive me. I know my pictures are not the greatest. My camera died in the spring so I get my have been using my phone. Sometimes I cannot get my computer to flip the pictures and I fail at any photo editing.

Once again, this lunch was made in under 15 minutes. Mainly because The Elder has leftovers as part of his lunch and I make the sandwiches while the meat for The Elder cooks. I think this lunch was about 13 minutes. Yes, I am out of practice. I am sure as the year goes on I will get faster.

*Not pictured was a mini candy bar in each of the minion lunches that separates the cucumber and the sandwich.



Lunch Punches came!!! So I opted to try them out.

Tyke has a car sandwich with a cheese road, tires, and windshield. Sadly I only had cheddar cheese. I need to keep some mozzarella cheese in the fridge. He also has some cucumber slices, a mini chocolate bar (not pictured) and canned mandarin oranges and pineapple per request.

Clark loves trains. I wish I could find my organic powder food coloring. I could have some quick and lazy fun with it. Clark has a sandwich with cheese window, that piece that moves the wheels (I am so technical), and lazy person train track. Sides are the same as Tyke.

Before I go on to The Elder, today's containers only cost me $3 for the minions. In the Target dollar bin I picked up 2 sandwich boxes for $1 each and the monster containers came 2 for $1.

I have given up trying to make this picture flip. The Elder was given frozen green beans, leftover cheese potatoes, and medium rare steak with mushrooms and onions. I cooked the steak medium rare because by the time he warms it up, it will be medium. Just the way he likes it.

Fun boxes today.

 I decided we wanted to use some fun bento boxes today. Sadly they are all hidden on that shelf. I need to reorganize them and maybe put them on 2 shelves so that I can see them.

The colonel has a baguette peanut butter and jelly sandwich, blueberries, orange slice, strawberries, cheese and a cookie left over from making mini cheesecakes.

The boys had cheese, orange slices, blueberries, a cookie, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a baguette.

Hard boiled eggs

I know you do not see them to often, but I made hard boiled eggs for everyone's lunches today! I have a Thomas, Percy, Fish, Hello Kitty, Bunny, and Car hard boiled eggs today. How did I make these? Egg molds.

Here is another sight you don't see every day! Today was a snow day. Clark was in the kitchen when I decided to make lunch, so I had him pick out what bento he wanted to eat out of, he wanted the police car. To keep the others from fighting to much, I picked out the other rescue vehicles for them to eat from. Poor Clark could not wait to sit down and have lunch today. Sadly he did not eat well. None the less, he was desperate to sit down and open op his police car. I may have to order another police car and fire truck at some point. I just hate spending $30 on a smallish lunchbox that I am afraid to lose. Yes, I know some moms have lunchboxes of that price for their kids to take to school every day and they never have an issue. I am just very cheap and well, I really like these. The minions do like to eat from bentos, but I also collect them (for their use).

Everyone had their own egg today. I sliced all eggs in half, made deviled eggs, and then put the 2 halves back together. This is Colonel Sanders lunch. The green outline is done with a food safe marker.  

Clark's lunch. He had the Thomas egg. I also have blood orange slices, ham, cheese, and some blueberries.... I'm not sure why his are not pictured. Oh yeah, HE ATE THEM!

Pork got the "flat" fire truck. As you can see, it still holds quite a bit of food. The eggs are super easy to make. Hard boil some eggs. While they are still warm you need to peel them. I always put the peeled eggs back in the hot water for a minute before I put them into the egg molds. Next put them in the egg mold and close it. If you want it done "fast", put the mold in a bowl of ice water (or very cold water) for 10-15 minutes. Open it up and there you go!

Tyke got the car egg mold. I do not think my egg was warm enough when I put it in (it was the last egg and I was getting bored). It did form pretty well, but the tires have been better other times I have used this mold. Tyke had turkey for his meat. Come to think of it, I think Clark was the only one who had ham.

I know this lunch lacks some sort of fiber, trust me, we had plenty of it for breakfast (homemade whole wheat chocolate waffles), snack (homemade granola), and for dinner we are having homemade mac and cheese using whole grain noodles. While they may not have any in this meal, they are easily meeting their daily amount between other meals and snacks.

I made Julie lunch too. She has cheese and a leftover slice of blood orange. I cooked down some fruit until it became thick (when cooled) and put some homemade granola on top. I added a few blueberries for color. The sandwich is on homemade bread and consists of egg salad and spinach. On top of it is half one of one of the molded eggs. She got a bunny.

The boys are checking out what Mama made them for lunch. Mmm.....

Aunt Julie and The Colonel. Notice the Colonel. I think she wants Julie's egg.

Train lunch

Tyke wanted me to use his craft (from 2 months ago!) for my background. I can never say no to a child that proud of his work.

Today we have a biscoff and jelly sandwich in the shape of a train. Above that I have nitrate free salami and provolone cheese roll.



The bottom consists of zucchini slices, apple slices, a few blackberries, and some kiwi.

Recently someone asked about toddler bentos. The Colonel normally does get a lunch in a bento. It is not always to pretty and sometimes it just consists of scraps. Yes, I said I feed her scraps. That nice tractor sandwich above leaves a decent size piece of sandwich left. I cannot cut out another train and I may not have a cookie cutter that goes with a train to add to the lunch. So I will take that piece and give it to Colonel Sanders. Same with cheese and meat pieces. At her age, it makes no difference to her.

The Colonel turns 14 months old today! Let me tell you, she has a full mouth of teeth. I do cut some things up, but others I leave whole. She does very well eating this way. I do watch her and make sure there is no issues. If there is, I am always right there to cut items up or help in any way she may need (but has not needed).  Today Colonel Sanders has blackberries, thinly sliced apple, thin slices zucchini, Sandwich pieces, string cheese broken up, and some nitrate free salami.

Pork and Tyke opening up their bento boxes. The boxes are the same, just different colors. So I switched the 2nd tier in the lunches to change up the color a bit.

Do you like the rocket cup? I found that at Target.

There is Colonel Sanders! Today she likes her meat.

I need to clear off her high chair or move it to the garage. Since it is not in use (She prefers to stand at the table) it has become the nesting ground for various items.

Time to take Tyke to school! I decided we would walk today. So I bundled up Colonel Sanders extra warm.

Normally in the cooler months I take the lazy way out and drive to school to drop off Tyke and then at the end of the day pick up both the older minions. In the summer I walk and put minions in the wagon. We live 1/16 of a mile from the school. So that is what... 5 houses? It is around the corner from us. Clark will only ride the bus this year because he is in a special needs program.

Can you tell from my yard that I have kids? That orange thing is another part to my wagon. Tyke decided he wanted to pull his sister to school. Pork was holding my hand at this point, so you cannot see him.

P is for Percy and Pasta

Can you tell what that is? I made homemade pasta! I used my Percy cookie cutter and made a train ravioli. Then I cut out some of the remaining pasta and make P's. I put some grated mozerella cheese for the sky and a slice of orange sweet pepper for the sun.  To the right I have blackberries, snap peas, carrots, grape tomatoes, and some small slices of cheddar cheese. On top of that we have some Mounds M&M's.

The Elder had a similar lunch. We have some steamed zucchini for him. Looking back, I wish I would have added some carrots or maybe sweet peppers. Oh well, maybe next time. I also gave him some Mounds M&M's.

The Elder has a bed of hand shaped ravioli, then I poured some lemon pepper butter on it, a light layer of mozzarella cheese, then some zucchini so that he could make out the train ravioli and the letter P. He had no clue what was going on. *sighs* You can

tell he does not watch much Thomas the Train.

Colonel Sanders also had her own bento. The bottom layer consists of steamed carrots and sweet potato. I also have small pieces of mozzarella cheese and blackberries.

Homemade pasta is not hard to make. All you need is some flour, salt or herbs, eggs, and a little oil. Mix that together, then roll it into a ball and let it rest in the fridge for a little bit.

Up until this year, I hand rolled and cut my pasta. Last Christmas my father-in-law gave me a pasta machine. Now it is much easier to roll out. Sometimes I even use it to cut pasta too.

Look at my fridge! Isn't that a beautiful sight! Everyone's lunches are all set and ready to go for the next day. The Elder loves his lunch bag. They are sold at www.easylunchboxes.com. They are made to fit the Easy Lunchboxes and there is plenty of room for other items. The Elder has a bottled water, milk, and a juice in that bag in addition to his ELB.

I promise there is more in my fridge that just that. There are still 2 shelves and 2 drawers of food. I just had to share the beauty of the Easy Lunchboxes sitting there in a rainbow and waiting for lunch the next day.





Oh look! It's Clark! Yes, Clark did not have school today. I really miss his lunch dialog. Clark knew who the train was right away. Clark is obsessed with trains. Colonel Sanders was giving me one of those "I'm
trying to eat" looks.

Tyke and Pork are so use to a camera in their faces that they just ignore me.

Mama bento #5 Sushi train

How do you like my new bento? I found the police car on Ebay. I have to admit it was smaller than I thought it was going to be. Still, it is pretty cute.

Can you tell it's a train? Look closely. The sushi is filled with tuna, carrot, cucumber, and avocado. I have baby carrots on the bottom and mini portabella mushrooms. In the small top compartment I have cut up carrots, cucumber, and grape tomatoes. I have just a little bit of Italian dressing on it.