5 Bento #263 - Salami Sandwich & Grapes

Hellooo there!  I'm finally getting back to the land of the living!  I've been battling a severe chest cold, and I'm finally starting to feel better.  Of course I never stopped packing lunch for Miss E, but I just didn't have the energy to document.  We've also been really busy getting new furniture and moving all sorts of stuff around, getting the nursery ready for baby's arrival in a few months, so it's been rather hectic.

Today I made a hard salami and cheddar pocket sandwich with The Pampered Chef Cut-N-Seal tool.

Ella asked if she could have salami every day.  I replied that I didn't think her doctor would approve of her cholesterol levels if I did.  Funny story - last year at her 5 year check up she had to have the obligatory cholesterol blood test.  The nurse came back and told me that her cholesterol was really high, and was rather concerned.  It struck me suddenly that on the way to her appointment she had grabbed a container of sliced salami and had eaten all of it moments before arriving. I swore that it was just an anomaly and she didn't actually eat cured meats all day long!  They had me bring her back in a week for a re-test, and naturally her levels were completely normal, but how embarrassing!

In the small container we have fresh green grapes and sliced orange bell pepper served with ranch dip.  I'm giddy with excitement over my new EasyLunchboxes Mini Dippers that just arrived in the mail!  They are the perfect size for dips and sauces, and have a leak-resistant top.  Yay!  They come in a package of 8, so lots of bang for your buck.

With tops affixed.  It's a princess-y kind of day.

Bento #263 - Salami and cheddar sandwich on wheat, Goldfish crackers, bell pepper, grapes and ranch dip.

11 years, never forget.

0 Bento #256 - First Day of First Grade Bento

New year!  Miss Ella started first grade today.  How fast the summer flew!  Just look how adorable she is in her school uniform.  I got the cute bunting printable from Party On! Designs as a little first day surprise, and she loved it.

For back to school lunch we have an inside-out princess tiara turkey sandwich on wheat.

I cut out some red and yellow sweet bell peppers into flower shapes for her veg.

Served it up with some ranch dip in the panda container, along with a sweet Clementine.  The oranges I've been getting the last few weeks have been amazing!  Also a little snack of Goldfish crackers and some gummy vitamins for dessert.

Packed in her PlanteBox!  This year they aren't doing snack (at least that's what I understand right now!)

Bento #256 - Turkey & cheese sandwich on wheat, sweet bell peppers, Goldfish crackers, ranch dip, Clementine and gummy vitamins.

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1 Bento #245 - Garlic Potatoes & Chicken Sausage

Another Trader Joe's lunch in an Easy Lunchbox.  This is their really delish garlic potatoes in Parmesan sauce and sauteed, sliced spicy Italian sausage.  I cook the potatoes in a skillet with a little olive oil until they are crispy on the outside.  Yum!

Accompanying the potatoes is half a sliced sweet red bell pepper and some blackberries.  Next to it is the day's snack which is an apple-carrot Crusher and organic mini peanut butter crackers.

Bento #245 - Garlic potatoes and Italian chicken sausage, blackberries, red bell pepper and Vidalia onion dressing.  Snack - Apple-carrot Crusher and peanut butter crackers.

3 Bento #224 - Piano Recital Peanut Butter & Jelly Roll

Yesterday Miss E had her winter piano recital!  I'm so proud of her, she's been practicing very hard.  I made this lunch with some cute music notes.

I added a special chocolate treat and a cute note. =)

Here's my little pianist.

Her curtsy just melts my heart!  I'm biased, but I think that's about the best rendition of Yankee Doodle and London Bridge that I've ever heard!  ;)




Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Bento #224 - Organic peanut butter and strawberry jam on 12 grain bread, roasted potatoes and bell peppers, organic ketchup and fresh blackberries.  Snack - Goldfish crackers and apple-carrot Crusher.

0 Bento #223 - Flower & Berry PB&J

I hope my readers who just enjoyed a nice Fall break had a great one!  Today we have a Lunch Punch flower PB&J surrounded by fresh blackberries.  

Accompanied by Mr. Panda and some sliced bell pepper.

Bento #223 - Organic peanut butter & strawberry jam on whole wheat, fresh blackberries, orange bell pepper and ranch dip.  Snack - Banana

1 Bento #222 - Angry Birds, Reprised

I just like calling it Angry Birds because of the adorable piggy.  I seriously can't get enough of his rotund body.

Today Ella has camp with some of her best girlfriends from her previous school.  All I had to do was pack her lunch, since they're providing the snack. She was very specific in telling me what she wanted in her lunchbox.  PB&J shaped like a puzzle piece and Goldfish.  The angry, angry fowl were my contribution.  And the Lego lunch box, of course.

Also she wanted bell pepper with dip.  Thus, we have a rampart made of orange bell pepper with a naughty piggy full of ranch dip.  He is perched atop some juicy red grapes.

Bento #222 - Organic peanut butter and strawberry jelly on 12 grain toast, orange bell pepper, ranch dip, grapes and Goldfish.

0 Bento #210 - BBQ Pulled Pork & Rice

What week of school is this?  I've lost track.  Third week, I think.  The early mornings are doing a number on me.  We finally were able to do some grocery shopping, though I swear my daughter tries to find new and exciting ways to hurt herself, especially in public.  This time she stuck her hand in the back of one of my MIL's auto-closing van doors.  Oh my goodness.  I was on the other side of the van getting my baby niece out, and another passing mom ran over and was able to open the door lickety-split.  She was fine, though, thank goodness!  This child is going to give me heart palpitations. We are already having to bandage her leg daily for the next several weeks, don't need any broken bones or [more] missing teeth on top of it.

Where was I?  Oh, grocery shopping (so exciting, aren't you jealous?) at Wholefoods. Whenever I go shopping with E we spend lots of time in the fresh produce section.  I almost always encourage her pick out which veggies she wants, but now I'm going to start making a point of having her try one new fruit or vegetable each visit.  This time she chose her favorite sugar snap peas and carrots as well as some fresh green beans, which we don't usually get.

This yummy pulled pork is from our friendly neighborhood butcher who smokes the pork himself.  So good.

The veggies are sauteed carrots, bell peppers and baby portabella mushrooms, leftover from a stir-fry I did for dinner, along with some rice and sugar snap peas.

Fresh blueberries round out lunch, with a playful seal pick.

Snack consists of some of Stacy's sea salt pita chips and some fresh ground honey roasted peanut butter, which is awesome except that they don't use salted peanuts.  So...all of the fresh ground butters at Wholefoods lack that essential bit of salt.  Boo.  But, the salted pita chips ought to take care of that nicely.

Bento #210 - Smoked pulled pork with BBQ sauce, rice, sauteed bell peppers, mushrooms and carrots and fresh blueberries.  Snack - pita chips, honey roasted peanut butter and multi-vitamins.

0 Bento #206 - Mac n' Apple Sausage

We have a Planetbox lunch today with Aidell's chicken & apple sausage and Trader Joe's organic white mac n' cheese.  Yummy!  The bell peppers didn't photograph too well, but they are cut in the shape of flowers.

Snack was an apple & banana crusher, (also from TJ's) which was completely new to us.  Also some organic baby carrots and dip.

Bento #206 - Chicken & apple sausage, organic white mac n' cheese, yellow bell peppers, dried blueberries and organic craisins.  Snack:  Organic baby carrots, dip and an apple banana Crusher.

0 Bento #202 - Vegetarian Yellow Day

Ladies & gentlemen, I think we have a theme.  Today is Yellow Day in Ella's class, and so I planned a nice lunch with all yellow(ish) foods. At least she's getting her daily doses of vitamins A, C & D. Yesterday happened to be Blue Day, but I really couldn't think of all that many natural blue foods (and I don't like to use artificial dyes.)  I let her go through the school lunch line that day for the first time, after discussing her choices.  Instead of popcorn shrimp, she decided to get a vegetarian Caesar salad, peas & carrots, mac n' cheese, cornbread and her ubiquitous water, which is her favourite drink in the entire world.  That sounds good to me!

This lunch is packed in a Greentainer.  It's a two-tier, so what you see above is all combined into one container.  I have a little yellow "Y" in the spicy yellow lentil hummus, with a sweet apricot salsa topping from Eat Well Enjoy Life that we just discovered at Costco.  Delicious!!  They also have edamame hummus which is also great.

Her snack below (which isn't yellow, unfortunately) is packed in a separate Greentainer.

Bento #202 - Fresh corn-off-the-cob with sea salt and cracked pepper, sliced yellow bell pepper, yellow lentil hummus, Pasta Prima five cheese ravioli with herb Parmesan and extra-virgin olive oil.  Snack:  Mozzarella cheese and fresh strawberries.

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0 Bento #198 - Chicken Gyoza & Bell Pepper

We are ramping up for Kindergarten over here.  Yesterday we had her screening for placement, and we also did a bunch of clothes shopping.  I'm in the poorhouse now!  I used to love getting all new clothes and school supplies when I was a kid.  I'm kind of bummed I purchased them through the school a few months ago and I don't have to go hunting for them.  School starts on August 15th, and then I'll be making school bentos every day!

Bento #198 - All natural chicken gyoza, half a sliced red bell pepper, fresh strawberries, ranch dip and three gummy vitamins.

1 Bento #183 - Earth Day Lunch

First, this lunch is in a Planet Box, and the pasta is Barilla PLUS with Omega 3s and a lot of other goodness.  I made a huge batch for the volunteers at school, and packed some for Ella as well.  It's tossed with roasted organic veggies in a balsamic butter sauce and Parmesan cheese.

Bento #183 - Vegetarian organic pasta salad, dried blueberries and cherries, pretzel sticks, roast turkey slices and vitamins.

Officially, Earth Day is today, but E's school had their Earth Day celebration on Wednesday, marked with a school-wide parade, awards, booths, activities and presentations.  It's such great fun, and so informative!  This year we had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Marcus Eriksen, co-founder of the 5 Gyres Institute.  He spoke about the pollution, specifically plastic, that is inundating the Pacific with huge floating garbage patches.  He and his colleagues built a raft out of thousands of empty water bottles and an airplane cockpit and floated on it for 3 months from California to Hawaii, braving the elements and studying water and sea life along the way. It was so interesting!  Certainly makes one think twice about using disposable plastics.  One tip he gave which I hadn't even thought about was to skip the plastic straws when you go out to eat.

Dr. Eriksen speaking in front of the Earth Balloon in the community center.

Showing some of the empty cigarette lighters he picked up on remote Pacific islands that wildlife is ingesting.

A sea turtle which grew around a plastic milk jug ring.

 Later I sat with E's class as they ate.  Her friend L also brought a PlanetBox lunch!

1 Bento #174 - Turkey Sushi & Snap Pea Garden

So in our house we have a nice big 2 lb bag of sugar snap peas.  We love sugar snap peas, and it's both a blessing and a curse that they keep so long and hardy in the veggie drawer.

Here are the five stages of sugar snap peas.

Stage 1:  Hooray!  Sugar snap peas are back, good golly and joy to the world!
Stage 2:  Yum, sugar snap peas, they sure are sweet.  And snappy!
Stage 3:  Goodness, look at all these snap peas.  I'm thankful for the fiber.
Stage 4:  Wow, sugar snap peas...again?
Stage 5:  So, do you think we can plant these suckers outside?

Today's bento is a veggie and fruit garden on the left, with sugar snap peas as the flower stalks, yellow bell peppers as the flowers, a cheddar cheese butterfly and some grape "hyacinths" (...eh, it's a stretch.)  It was inspired by my trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens this weekend with my husband and friends who are photography enthusiasts (...or in my case, amateur.  E went to the zoo with her Nana.)  On the right we have turkey & cheese "sushi" tortilla rollups, also with finely minced yellow bell peppers inside.  E isn't hugely keen on bell peppers yet, but we are getting there.

Spring in the South!

Bento #174 - Sugar snap peas, yellow bell pepper, red grapes, turkey & cheese on a flour tortilla and salad dressing (not shown.)