Lunch on February 24 - stepping up my game

I really enjoy this blog.  Forgetting that I love to pack lunches these days, I just really like the distraction.  I have a lot of work to do tonight and this is a great way to relax and procrastinate.

I was not relaxing in the kitchen on lunch duty tonight though.  I mentioned my friend Leemore in my last post who is also a PlanetBox fan.  She told me she has also photographed her lunches from time to time and yesterday she sent me a few.  They completely put mine to shame.  You'll notice I stepped up my game a bit for tomorrow's lunch and it's all because of Leemore.  More about her in a moment.

Tomorrow I am serving falafel chips with edamame hummus, strawberries and grapes, an egg salad sandwich with cucumber letters, and vegetable "flowers" with string beans as stems and cucumbers as the petals.  I put small circles of carrots and even smaller circles of strawberry pieces in the center for color.  Dessert is a granola bar cut into the shape of a heart.  In case you were wondering the letters are stuck on the sandwich using hummus as glue.  Perhaps I should have used the same method with the flowers.  I don't have any confidence that they will arrive to the lunch table in this condition. . .

I completely stole the flower idea from Leemore who did something similar using cucumbers as stems in this at home lunch to the left.  She told me she served: "cheese and avocado sandwiches in the shapes of airplanes and clouds, flowers made with cucumbers as stems, strawberries, carrots, and pomegranate seeds as flowers."  I took one look at this lunch and wondered how this is not yet a competitive sport.  Keep in mind that not only is Leemore a mom but she is a full-time fancy schmancy lawyer and she still found time to pull this off.

Her other lunches are equally amazing and she makes fantastic use of sandwich cutters.  I'm jealous of her tools but I'm trying to take a break from spending on my lunch stash these days so I will just have to live vicariously through her bread slicing.  Here are just some of the amazing lunches she has sent to school recently with her descriptions below:

"avocado and cheese sandwich in shape of a truck, homemade sweet potato chips, homemade kale chips, apples rubbed with lime (tastes like a green apple jolly rancher, and citrus keeps it from browning), and a sliver of date wrapped in coconut"

"turkey avocado sandwich in shape of whales or dolphins, strawberries and mango, green peas, carrots, and one choco chip for dessert"

"valentine inspired: almond butter and jelly sandwich in shape of a mommy elephant and baby elephant, strawberries and cherry tomatoes, apple with lime, red pepper (which r loves and i now force myself to eat), and tart dried cherries for dessert"

"an avocado crackerwich (i am out of bread and we all love ak-mak crackers), mango and strawberries, leftover potato medley from dinner last night (sweet potato/potato), carrots and cherry tomatoes, and homemade granola for dessert.  cant wait to see if the granola spills over into the other compartments, but i dont think it will."

Amazing, right?  I told you so.  I also have to thank Leemore for reminding me that my family loves kale chips.  We made some tonight and they were delicious!  A warning, watch the kale while it's roasting, I burned the first batch because I wasn't paying attention!

I already knew Leemore was gorgeous and smart, but now that I know she has such a talent at the lunch table, I'm expecting her to share more lunches and ideas with me and all of you.  Maybe we can even get her to guest blog.

Have a great weekend!

Lunch on 2/21/12 and 2/22/12

I am going with an old standby, egg salad, for lunch tomorrow.  My favorite part about making egg salad for Juju's lunch is having the leftovers for my own lunch.  My egg salad recipe is very simple.  Place 6-10 eggs (depending on how much egg salad you want to yield) in a pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil. When the water is boiling, turn off the flame and cover the eggs for 10 minutes.  Give each egg a crack (you can spill out some of the water and smack the eggs against the side of a pot) then place them into an ice bath to cool them down so you can peel them (if you have time you can just let them sit to cool).  Chop celery into tiny cubes, mix with eggs, light mayo, salt and pepper.  I mix everything together with one of my favorite kitchen tools, the Kwik-Kut (it chops and mixes at the same time!)  Chill and serve with bread, crackers, or eat all by itself.  My husband also likes to add dill and/or mustard but I prefer my egg salad plain.

I served the egg salad as a sandwich along with cut up plums (Juju's current favorite fruit), Trader Joe's veggie sticks, carrots, and ranch dressing for dipping.  Dessert is a caramel wafer cookie.

Today's lunch was courtesy of leftovers from dinner the night before.  The KOAM roasted a chicken which was delicious and yielded a ton of leftovers for lunch for everyone in the family.  I also sent rice, plums, celery sticks, grapes, and a piece of a date covered in coconut.  The date dessert idea came from my friend Leemore who is also a Planet Box lover (she has promised to show me some of her lunches soon).  Leemore has great taste in food so I love her recommendations.  And, she was kind enough to bring me a box of her favorite dates!  If I'm not mistaken she also brought me the caramel cookies that Juju will be enjoying for lunch tomorrow.  Thanks Leemore!

I'm out of time to write more tonight but I promise an update on the Planet Box soon.  I wrote an email to the company's founder and I got a sweet and comprehensive note back with information on cleaning the carrybag, (one of my only complaints with the bag).  I promise to report soon.

Lunch on August 10 - Fruit with mint

This is our last week of school and I can't say I am going to miss packing a lunch 3 days a week.  When I started this blog I was so excited about the possibilites of lunch creations. . .but that got old quickly.  Still, I love the opportunity to blog about what I've made (and hearing from all of you!) and I think keeping track of what I've sent to school helps me get a little bit creative.  Maybe I'll get reinvigorated in the next few weeks as I prep to pack a whopping 5 lunches a week!  Oh and soon I'll have information about the hot lunch program at Juju's school but even if I choose to do it, it won't start until October so September is all on me!

Today's lunch is an egg salad sandwich (Juju still doesn't really get the concept of holding two pieces of bread with something in the middle but I sent a fork and am hoping for the best), beets from our CSA box (I just roasted them in the oven with a little bit of water), and watermelon and grapes with mint (also from our CSA box - I am running out of things to throw mint into!).

I should also mention that the sample sale site HauteLook is featuring LunchBots today at around 25% off.  That's not much of a discount but it might appeal to you.  Unfortunately I've never seen Lunchbots deeply discounted anywhere.  If you are not yet a member of Hautelook click here for an invite.

Lunch on May 19, 2011 - eating out of fabric

Lunch today is housed in many fabric snack bags, all have been holding up pretty well since I purchased them not too long ago.

Today I am serving carrots, edamame, watermelon, and a pressed sandwich of egg salad.  Warning: if today's lunch bores you, you might not want to read what I pack tomorrow.  It will probably be much of the same!