feeling a little lunchy: quick

Showing posts with label quick. Show all posts

feeling like being honest with you, dear reader.

I am. I am lazy. Sometimes I think I may do all this blogging stuff just so I don't have to fold laundry. Or clean out my car. Or unload the dishwasher. Or feed the dog. Please don't tell the Hubs. Don't tell him that I spray Lysol around just before he gets home, either. He thinks I've been cleaning...(insert evil snicker here).

If you're lazy, I mean awesome, like I am...this is the lunch for you. I made spaghetti for dinner last night and we had a lot of leftover noodles, but no more sauce. How about a lazy mom leftover makeover? Take the noodles, squeeze on the ranch dressing, chop up some cold cuts, chuck in some frozen peas and top with grated parmesean cheese. A Babybel cheese, sugar snap peas with a side of ranch and some crunchy mini toast slices adorn their lunches. I say lazy, they say "YUM!"

This is a ten minutes or less lunch for sure. And I made two lunches in that little time. Takes longer to clean up the kitchen. Which I still have to do...but I'd rather force you to have more words to read. Check out some more lazy, I mean quick, lunches over at Bentos on the Bayou 15 Minute Fridays. Each Friday there's a post that bloggers can link their quick lunches to...tons of awesome ideas.

I swear...EasyLunchboxes and PlanetBox make these lazy lunches look spectacular. Here's the same lunch as above in a PlanetBox Shuttle:

If you are interested in any of the products I use, click the affiliate links below, please! Anytime you purchase through one of my links, regardless of what you purchase, I get a small percentage of the sale. It's how lunchy gets paid! Thanks!

feeling a little mismatched

Sometimes the girls get a bit bored with the whole wheat breads often used in their lunches. I do want to try and keep the breads healthier, but white bread is just so freaking good. Instead of going all the way and making an awesome white bread sandwich, I made a mismatched one with both wheat and white. Plus, it looks nice, right?

(Thanks to Bentos on the Bayou for the great little food picks! We love them!)

Slicing the bread diagonally and then flipping two pieces over makes it look a little less boring.

They've been loving a leaf of butter lettuce in their sandwiches lately, too...which is making this mom a little happy. They've got turkey, cheese and lettuce on their sammies, apple straws from Trader Joes, and baby dill pickles. The pickles are wrapped in cellophane to keep their juices from contaminating the other foods. The EasyLunchboxes are not leakproof, folks!

This lunch was quickly made... check out more super quick lunches over at 15 Minute Fridays with Bentos on the Bayou!

Click the frog above.

feeling a little leftover

Our new favorite meal lately has been THIS wonderful recipe from Home Cooking Memories. Meatball grinders...or sandwiches or hoagies. Whatever you call them, they're fantastic! So easy to make, and perfect for a leftover lunch!

Meatballs separated with our big silicone muffin cups from Target, Martin's Hoagie Rolls, snap peas with ranch in the mini dipper, and blueberries. They will assemble the sandwich at lunchtime, so the bread doesn't get soggy. Nothing is worse than soggy bread. Ugh.

feeling a little devilish

The canned "deviled ham" was screaming at me from the grocery aisle. Don't ask me why. I think it was the wrapped packaging and the little devil with his pitchfork.

I was pretty sure it would be nasty...which it kind of is. Looks like cat food, tastes like salty SPAM mixed with cat food. It has a tuna type consistency once you stab it with a fork for a second.

I'm forcing my kids to eat it for lunch. Who wants to place bets on whether or not they eat the whole meal? They're not really fans of snap peas, either...but I put them in there too! Devil Mom...that would be me. I've grown a bit tired of them being so picky lately. I'm guessing if they don't eat the deviled ham and lettuce roll ups, then they're forced to eat the snap peas and like them!

Snap peas, deviled ham and lettuce rolled up on flour tortillas, chocolate covered sunflower seed drops from Trader Joes (I had to give them a treat since I made a questionable lunch) ranch dressing in the mini-dipper and blueberries all packed in our EasyLunchboxes container. The large silicone cup comes from Target...they're in the dollar spot right now...2/$1! They're perfect for separating foods.

feeling a little duplicated

People ask quite frequently what I do with all the scraps from the lunches I make...often there isn't much leftover, so I dole that out to the little doggie waiting patiently at my feet. There are times when there's a bunch leftover...too much to not feel guilty about feeding to a dog. Therefore, I simply make two lunches from one. The dog did get the bread scraps off this one. The meat and cheese, however, ended up hiding inside the mini woman's sandwich.

Using the scraps from the lunch with the stars, I made a second sandwich for my grown up seventh grader.

Their lunches are Trader Joe's heavy...with yogurt stars, white cheddar corn puffs and kiwi from our latest venture to Trader Joe's. They each have turkey and cheese on wheat bread as well.

feeling a little ordinary

No picks, no flair, no excitement...must be a lunch for a seventh grader. I know it's boring, but I wanted to share because I was rather pleased with the little mozzarella pearls I found at the grocery store over the weekend. We love fresh mozzarella. The girls will begrudgingly eat mozzarella cheese sticks, but they love the real stuff. The little package of pearls was a great find. The mini woman has a few pearls with fresh basil from our garden on top, goldfish, a clementine and a turkey and cheese sandwich. If only she liked tomatoes and balsamic vinegar! Yum!

The wild child has a lunch, too...but I'm saving it for a special post.

feeling a little short and sweet

What's for lunch on Wednesday? A bagel with strawberry cream cheese, blueberries and some Goldfish Mix-Up Adventures (pretzel and blasted cheddar flavor).

I'm keeping it short and sweet today. We've got some homework to do...ugh.

f you are interested in any of the products I use, click the affiliate links below, please! Anytime you purchase through one of my links, regardless of what you purchase, I get a small percentage of the sale. It's how lunchy gets paid! Thanks!

feeling a little wiped out

Day one of the 2013-14 school year is under our belt. Having been up a couple of hours earlier than we have been, we are all wiped out!

If your kids started today, I hope it was as good as ours.

For lunch on day two I made them each some leftover chicken noodle soup in the mustachioed thermos food jars, blueberries, carrots and ranch and a turkey, cheese and lettuce wrap.

feeling like summer is over

It's back to school time already! I can't believe that my girls are in fifth and seventh grade now. This was quite an easy lunch to prepare, and I had some inspiration from a fellow luncher, Bento-logy. Thanks for the idea! I used three slices of bread. I cut the crust off all slices, then took one slice and cut it diagonally in half for the pencil top. I trimmed all the meat and cheese to fit. The scraps were eaten by the hungry helper I had...no waste!

This lunch contains a turkey and cheese sandwich pencil, tomatoes, blueberries, Hello Panda strawberry cookies and Wheat Thins. I used a food pen to add the details to the pencil.

The seventh grader has a similar lunch, without all the fun, of course. She even refused the panda cookies, but she will happily eat them at home!

Good luck in the coming school year! While I'm eager to get back to the routine, I'm surely going to miss summer.

http://bento-logy.blogspot.com/2011/08/first-day-of-school.html

feeling like giving you 5 tips for better back to school lunches

It's almost time for back to school. Down here in Atlanta, we head back on August 12. Too bad for my seventh grader...that's her 12th birthday. Yikes. Twelve. I digress...

This post here is to give you some quick tips to packing great lunches. There's a ton of posts just like this one, and I may be hijacking some ideas, but we are all in this together, folks!

1. Having things for lunch on hand at all times. I am not a planner by any means. What I do plan for is having to make lunch. And dinner. And some sort of breakfast. So tip 1 is NOT planning, but having things on hand. Having things like breads, cheeses, hard boiled eggs, frozen peas, vegetables, trail mixes, traditional sandwich makings like peanut butter and jelly and cold cuts on hand makes for easy lunch packing. Yogurts and frozen yogurt pops are good too. Over the weekend, I usually make pancakes and waffles to freeze for breakfasts...they do double duty for lunch too!

2. Make lunch the night before. I always make lunch for the next day when I get home from work. I get off around 2pm, so right after I shower, and before the kids get home from school, lunch for the next day is rearing to go. Then I don't have to think about it in the morning before the coffee kicks in. I store it in the fridge until it needs to hit the lunchbag. If its a hot meal, I usually set out the thermos containers. Then in the morning, I fill the thermos with hot water while I heat up the lunch. I usually over heat it a bit so it stays hot until lunch time. I store the lunches in the fridge, but if there's something that doesn't do well with refrigeration, I place a silicone cupcake mold inside the box and leave that item out on the counter.

3. Leftovers for lunch are always easy and ready to go. Make an extra serving or two of that casserole or soup. It can make your life a lot easier! Have your kids outgrown the decal on their expensive stainless steel food jars? Duck tape is your best friend. And it's even been through the dishwasher safely.

4. Lunch doesn't always have to be awesome. But a little flair goes a long way. Since I make lunch the day before, I usually have a little more time to use picks and cookie cutters. I don't always make creative lunches...but the presentation is usually appealing with or without the added flair. Even one cute (mustache) pick will make my daughters feel like I took the time to make it fun, so they should take the time to eat it. And usually they eat it all. Sometimes I save things, like the mustache and tongue below...that was a lollipop. But it's sturdy plastic. Why toss it out?

5. Have the right tools ready to use. Having a variety of different boxes helps a lot, too. We have several bento-style boxes, Lunchbots, and of course, the ever popular, easy to use, long lasting, EasyLunchboxes. If you only have room in your life for one kind of lunch container...the EasyLunchboxes is the way to go. It's the most versatile, and honestly my favorite box and the whole reason why I started this lunch making blog and method in the first place. Even if you don't add flair like using picks and cutters at all, the right box can make the meal perfect.

Packing lunches isn't rocket science...but taking the time to prepare lunches for those you love is worthwhile. They'll remember that you cared enough to spare them the horrors of mystery meat and hot dogs that bounce off the lunch table. They'll remember that good lunches are just that...good.

Good luck to you in the coming school year! Make it count!

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I love Bento USA for everything bento! Click the images and go check them out!

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feeling like making baby calzones

Calzones...yum! Don't you just love the cheese and the bread and the sauce and everything? I've never made them before, but gave it a whirl tonight. We made baby calzones. They were so simple to make...In fact, I made up the recipe on the fly. I really hope you're comfortable eyeballing the cheese and such on this one...because you really just have to! Let the photos be your guide. Measurements are not important. (But if you're really a stickler for measurements, I've added approximations to the bottom of this post)

You will need:

Pillsbury canned Grands biscuits

Parmesan cheese, grated

Ricotta cheese

Shredded mozzarella or we used Publix Six Cheese Italian blend

Garlic powder

Salt

Preheat oven to 350.

Pop that can of biscuits open. Once you've recovered from the scare, take a rolling pin and flatten out the biscuit. I rolled it only in one direction, giving it an oblong shape which I found easier to manage in the long run.

Shake some Parmesan cheese onto one half of the flattened biscuit. Then a bit of shredded cheese, then about a teaspoon of ricotta. Sprinkle with garlic powder and a little salt. Make sure to leave room on the edges for the fold as shown above. Fold the biscuit over on itself. Crimp with a fork:

Place in the oven at 350 for 14-17 minutes or until the biscuit is golden brown.

Serve with spaghetti sauce for dipping and a salad. Yum.

Of course, you can also use the leftovers for lunch!

Served with spinach, cherries and sauce for dipping:

For each biscuit you will use about a teaspoon of ricotta, a teaspoon of shredded mozzarella, a dash of garlic powder and a dash of salt. One can of biscuits usually has 8 biscuits.

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