Time on My Hands

One of the comments I get most is "you must have lots of time on your hands". While the comment really bugs me, I understand where it's coming from. I will start off by saying like most moms I do not have enough hours in the day to get everything I would like to get done accomplished.You can tell this by my blog slacking lately ;) So like most of you I have to decide what's a priority for me and my family. One of my top priorities is making sure my daughter eats healthy foods.  Her lunches are a part of that and so I make the time to do them.

With that said most of her lunches take me less than 15 minutes from start to finish. That includes the mad scramble to find the right cutter or pik or any last minute requests! I make them in the morning before school while I enjoy my latte. I suppose I could do them the night before but that's family time as my hubby works alot so for us the morning works best.

As I'm sure you can tell from my lunches some are more detailed than others. And I don't make a "cool" lunch everyday and some days are more healthy than others. The point is you don't need to spend a ton of time to make it fun and healthy and get you kids to eat better lunches. For example, the other day I packed a snack of apple slices and a baby cuke for my daughter in a small bento box. At first it looked like this:

As I was packing it my daughter walked by, picked up a pink dog pik from the counter and stuck it in. It then looked like this:

I don't know about you, but given the choice I'd pick the snack with the doggy in it :)

So it doesn't really matter how much time you have or don't have even something as small as a dog pik can make a big difference. So start small but think big!!

                                                            Have a Great Weekend!!

                                                                     ~Jen

Disposable Lunch

On Tuesday my daughter and her 3rd grade class made a trip to our local zoo. So of course she needed a lunch that could be thrown away when she was done. Since I never use paper bags or plastic baggies, I needed an alternative solution. I decided to use the plastic strawberry container that was about to make it's way to our recycle bin. You probably have these in your fridge or recycle bin right now too. The best thing is you can find them in all shapes and sizes and unlike paper bags, they keep the lunch from being crushed as well! We also used one of our Menchie's fro yo spoons. Menchie's is a great frozen yogurt place and the spoons are just too cute and nice to throw away,lol! To wrap her sandwich I used wax paper. Of course for a zoo trip we had to have animal crackers and I just put those in an animal themed cupcake liner.

For her sandwich she requested a tiger. Which was good because it is super easy! I used a cat face cutter and then some small candies for the eyes and a choc chip for his nose. I then used my food color markers to fill in the features and that's it!

I was also a chaperon for this trip and I did the same for my lunch but I made a salad in mine. I will also tell you that by lunch the kids with paper bags were trying to hold the bags together because the sweat from their cold drinks had made a hole in the bags and things were starting to fall out so the plastic container prevented that as well. As a bonus our zoo has recycling bins and we were still able to recycle the container and spoon too!

Oh the Thinks You Can Think!!

Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday and what better way to celebrate than with a fun Dr. Seuss themed lunch and blog hop!!  I think the possibilities are endless with Dr. Seuss as a lunch theme. I hope you follow the link at the end of this post to the next awesome blogger who has created a Dr. Seuss lunch of their own! If you follow all the links you will see over 20 different lunch ideas, Oh the Thinks you can Think with all those amazing ideas!! I know I am excited to follow and see what everyone has thought up!

For my daughter's lunch I chose to make the sandwich into the Lorax and the meat stick and cheese are the Truffula trees. I had to have red fish of course( swedish fish are a staple in our house,lol) and the cucumber stars are for the Star-bellied Sneetches ,which is one of her favorite stories! I packed it all up in our new PlanetBox, which so far we like very much ;)  She loved it!! It was also a great way to get ready for The Lorax movie that opens up today too! We are very excited to see it!

If you liked what you saw and want to see more, please follow this link to the blogger next door, I'm sure Keitha's Chaos has great things in store! ( Blog Hop officially goes live March 2nd)

Happy March is Reading month to you all!!

Are you ready for some football?

I had planned a really cute Super Bowl themed lunch, but then my daughter came home with the worst news: she ordered hot lunch!!! What?! Apparently they started using these really cute baskets to serve the lunch at school and she just had to try it,lol!! See, even the school knows it's all about the presentation ;)

So instead all I have for you are my Super Bowl Strawberries. Due to the colors of this years teams,these would also be great for 4th of July and Memorial Day! So file this away for those summer parties!

As you probably have noticed, I like strawberries. I think it's the fact that they are easily manipulated into different things and they are so sweet, it's like eating a dessert. You know, a dessert that is actually good for you! And well most kids love them! Now these are not as healthy but they are better than a slice cake! And they are a piece of cake to make!

Wash and dry your strawberries, the bigger the better for these.

Put some blue sanding sugar( you could use jimmies too) in a bowl

Put out a piece of wax paper for cooling

Melt white chocolate candy pieces in your double boiler. Once the chocolate is melted, dip the strawberry part way in, you want to see the red so you get the red, white and blue effect. Make sure the excess drips off and then dip the bottom tip into the sugar. Allow to cool and harden on wax paper.

And that's it!!

These are best made day of or night before as the sugar can get weird if it's stored too long in the fridge.

Hope you have a great weekend and don't indulge in too much bad Super Bowl foods and I hope your team wins!

Strawberry-orange Jello Bites!

While cruising around Pinterest the other day, a place I visit too many times in a day,I stumbled upon some really cool strawberry margarita jello shots. I knew that these would make a cool lunch or snack item, all I had to do was remove the alcohol !! Easy Peasy! I used orange jello for mine but I think lime, strawberry or really any flavor you have would work as well.

To start I washed and dried my strawberries. Then I cut the bottoms flat so they could stand on their own. You only need to cut a tiny bit on most of them. I put the bits  I cut off  on my salad for lunch since I hate wasting! Then I used  my strawberry huller to clean off the tops and insides. It works great for this. If you don't have a huller a small sharp knife will work too. Next I made the jello and used a straw to easily get the jello into the strawberries. The I put them in the fridge. Once they were done I used sour apple Laffy Taffy to make the  "stems". * Do not put the "stems" in until ready to serve, the Laffy Taffy can get weird in the fridge*

My daughter who does not like jello, I know it's hard to believe their is a kid who won't eat it, even liked them!  I think they make a cute party snack as well and are perfect size for lunches!

I still plan to make the margarita ones for a Mom's Night Out sometime because even moms want a cool treat ;)


Jen

Dolphin Tale

This weekend my daughter will be going to her BFF's b-day party. They will be going to the movies to see Dolphin Tale. So when I stumbled upon a dolphin sandwich cutter the other day, I knew I had to do a lunch to honor her b-day.

I used the Goodbyn Bynto for this one. We have dolphin ham sandwiches for which I used my food writers to add eyes and a mouth. Fish butter cookies that have chocolate on the back for a treat, and a beach umbrella in the red peppers. I think it turned out cute.  Here is what the cutter looks like:

I found the cutter by accident at my local Wal-Mart store when I ran in for a few things. As we waited in the 10 items or less line I noticed some things hanging behind the counter by the cigarettes and low and behold they were sandwich cutters. I have no idea why they were hanging there, it's not like they are high ticket theft items, it was only $1.98!! And I am not sure how they go with cigarettes either, but it just goes to show you always have to have your eyes open for cool stuff!

Goodbyn Bynto Review

When the great folks at Goodbyn asked me to do a review of their new smaller version the Bynto I was obviously very excited!  I have a Goodbyn original already and have been pretty happy with it. The only downside was sometimes it was just too big for our needs. The Bynto looked like a great alternative for days when we didn't need so much space.

First let me tell you a little about Goodbyn. They are made in the USA and we all know how important that is and how hard it is to find products made here. They are free of BPA and Phthalates, so they are safe for you and your children. They are 100% recyclable and help you create a waste free lunch which is good for the Earth! And last, but most important to busy moms, they are top drawer dishwasher safe ;)

For my review I received a strawberry colored Bynto, a large ice pack and a pack of limited edition stickers as seen here:

All Goodbyns will come with stickers to decorate your Byn and the Byns come in a variety of colors and with or without ears too. The stickers pictured here are in addition to the ones that already come with your Bynto. Goodbyn offers additional packs of stickers by different artists and you can check them out here . The stickers are also dishwasher safe as well, bonus! My daughter loved decorating her Bynto, and we had more than enough stickers to do so and you can even use the stickers on other containers or water bottles you may have. I like that you can create your own personal lunch box style! Here is my daughter's Bynto.

Next it was time to pack a lunch. The Bynto also comes with it's own water bottle so you don't have to worry about that either. I found the Bynto to be a good size for my daughters lunch. Wasn't too big but wasn't too small. It might be too small for older kids but for lower elementary it seems to be a good size. The key to the Bynto is making sure you the top on tightly. Do a few practice runs with your child and they will be an old pro after just a couple times. The Bynto is not leak-proof so you wouldn't want to try putting soup in there! But it does seal nicely and I have never had a leaking problem if the lid was on correctly. Here are a couple we did.

Goodbyn does not make an insulated bag for their products, yet. But I have heard they are working on it and hope to have one out in 2012. I use bags that I already have on hand. The Goodbyn  ice pack was very nice quality and only filled with water so it is safe to use in your lunch. It was the perfect size for the Bynto.

If you would like a Goodbyn original or a Bynto  you can purchase one for yourself from the Goodbyn Store or you can look for a retailer new you. I know in my neck of the woods Whole Foods carries them. You can also "check out the Goodbyn  Facebook page too!

*This is not a paid post. I received a Goodbyn Bynto for the purpose of review. All opinions and ideas expressed are my own. This post was written by me and not edited by anyone.*

Mice

Yesterday I made this cat and mouse lunch for my daughter. The mice are one of her favorite fun things that I make.  And they are super easy!! 

You Need:

Strawberries

Mini Choc Chips

Choc. Chips

Red or Black licorice laces

First hull your strawberries and cut in half. Use mini chips for the eyes and nose and large chips for the ears. You can also use jumbo sprinkles in heart or confetti shapes. I used heart ones for the ears in the lunch above. Next cut  apiece of the licorice string and make a tail. I try to stick the licorice into the strawberry to keep it secure but you can also just simply sit the strawberry on top.  Strawberries and choc. chips also make great ladybugs as well. And since I know everyone will ask the lunchbox is a My Square Meal box .

Welcome!

Welcome to One Cool Lunch!!  My  actual lunch journey starts a few years ago when my daughter was in first grade. Like many of you I was not happy with what the school offered for hot lunches. They were not healthy and often not even appetizing. So each day I got up and began the chore of lunch making. I found that even when I packed her favorite things they weren't getting eaten and traditional lunches and boxes weren't working for us. There had to be a better and much more fun way of doing this.

The first step was to research and find the best lunch box out there. While I haven't found the perfect box yet , I have found some that come pretty close. You will see those in my daily lunches and I'll give more information as I use them.

The next thing was to make it fun, for us both! This is the easy part. All you need is a little creativity, imagination and some inspiration. I find inspiration everywhere and you and your child's unique interests and personalities will make it that much more fun. I am happy to report that lunch making is no longer a chore and they usually come home empty now!

I hope you enjoy the blog and I hope you can bear with me as I figure out how this whole blogging thing works,LOL!

Have a great day!!