Category — Lunch box

I tried to make Alden’s lunch extra spooky today. I knew that he wouldn’t be able to take part is some of the foody activities at school, so I wanted to make sure that his lunch was the envy of his classmates. I delegated the carrot pumpkin carving to the husband – he’s far more handy with that sort of thing than I am.

I think my favourite part is the banana mummy. I etched the face on the banana using a toothpick – and within a matter of minutes, the scratches turned brown.   The rest of the lunch is mango cut into spooky bat and cat shapes (yes, I went and bought a Halloween cookie cutter package), owl rice and carrot jack O’lanterns.  This morning I also packed some “ghost toast” – white bread cut into ghost shapes with raisins for eyes.

And tonight, I have several packages of the Enjoy Life chocolate chips and a jar of Sunbutter and I’ll be attempting to make Cybele Pascal’s “sunbutter cups“.  Fingers crossed!

I’ve contacted our neighbours and will be dropping some Alden-friendly treats at their houses in advance so that we can go trick or treating.  I think that will work nicely for this year.

I packed Alden’s first “Aussie apple” this week after seeing the idea over at another lunch.  The idea couldn’t have come at a better time as I had packed an apple into Alden’s lunch box three days in a row… only to see it remained untouched at the end of the day.  (Double sad face from mom and son.)  To make our caregiver’s life a little easier, I sliced up an apple and wrapped a rubber band around it… taking all of the prep work out of his lunch.

And?

It worked!

Happy faces.

I asked the husband (who happens to be an Aussie)  if he had ever had an “Aussie apple”.  He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.  (This happens a lot…  especially when I start rambling on about yarn or webby things or “the twitter”.)  So, the Australian connection seems a bit dubious, but nonetheless an awesome idea for lunch box packing.

Today’s toddler lunch was a total hit for dinner last night, so I know he’s going to be pleased to see these chicken fingers again for lunch today.  Last night I whipped up a batch of chicken fingers using organic chicken thighs and a completely improvised coating recipe.  Alden inisted on helping at the counter so I supplied him with spoons, bowls and flour to make his own mix.  Suffice to say, it got messy.  Really messy.  It is very hard to cook dinner with a two year old… frankly, they are terrible sous chefs!

The coating consisted of corn meal, spelt flour, chili powder, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper.  I dipped the chicken pieces in rice milk, then the coating and placed them on a baking sheet.  Before putting them in the oven, I drizzled a bit of olive oil on the top to make sure they baked up nice and crispy.  And crispy they were!  In fact, they’re on the menu again tonight.

So, today’s toddler lunch is:

• Snack #1: crackers and Sunbutter, banana
• Lunch: chicken fingers, rice, corn and peas (and the last raspberries from the garden – sad face)
• Snack #2: carrot sticks and mini muffin

(Note: all of my reusable food mats were in the wash, hence the plastic bags.  Sigh.  Guilt.)