New Year New Lunch

It's been a while.  I almost forgot how to sign into this blog.  Here I am with my first lunch in ages.  I stopped blogging because I had less time to do so but also because my lunches had gotten really uninteresting.  Certainly nothing worth writing about.  Tomorrow's lunch is a little bit better than usual so here I am sharing it.

Juju will be feasting on: Fuyu persimmons.  These are simply amazing right now.  They are contrasted in color and flavor by some rather tart pomegranate seeds.  I am also serving English peas - today was the first day I found them at the Hollywood Farmer's Market since last year.  I am so excited they are back!  I also included cucumbers with purple radish.  My guess is she will ditch the radish without even trying it but they are so beautiful I had to include them.  She also has a lox and cream cheese sammie topped off with home grown chives.  So little actually grows in my garden so I will take what I can get.  The dessert in the middle is a dark chocolate square from an amazing kid-less vacation we just took in Napa.  I spent some time today making a delicious vichyssoise which I will blog about later.  It's good to be back!

Lunch on February 6: Orange and green and lox supreme!

I haven't posted in a while because I've been in Florida visiting friends and my grandparents.  I made an amazing find at my Grandmother's house: her cookbook!  It is filled with fantastic recipes, some for dozens of complicated appetizers she used to serve at dinner parties in the 60s, others for lots of ethnic food her mother used to make (chicken fat is always included as an ingredient).  It also included a week's worth of menu planning that is pretty incredible - I promise to post about it soon.  I also took her Settlement cookbook from the year she got married, 1944.  I'm really excited to go through everything and will post what I make here as much of it will inevitably end up in Juju's lunch.

Today is our first day back at school in about 10 days.  I am serving lots of orange and green.  I made a lox and cream cheese roll-up on whole wheat lavash bread and am pairing it with carrots, peas, orange slices, and muenster cheese with whole grain crackers.  There is an Andes candy mint for dessert.

Lunch on September 15 - Lox of luck for a great school year!

So we've been at school for two days.  It's an adjustment but for the most part things are going well.  I am trying to focus on the things I can control, like what to serve for lunch!

Tomorrow's lunch includes seaweed and crackers for snack, followed by tea sandwiches, cucumber and pomegranate salad, and watermelon for lunch.

The tea sandwiches started out as one big sandwich I cut up to make eating easier.  It is lox with cream cheese and cucumber on whole grain bread with the crusts cut off.  I realize bringing fish to school may not be the best way to make friends during the first week but I am trying to give Juju her own version of comfort foods while she eases her way into a new space and lox is one of her favorites.  Plus, she is now going to a Jewish school so I am assuming lox isn't so foreign to these folks.

I am including a photo of the snack bags because the King of All Media enjoyed that he was able to pack Juju seaweed in a sushi-themed snack bag.

Lunch on April 26 - Riddle: Why can't we keep Juju in jail?

Today we have a lunch riddle.  Why can't we keep Juju in jail?  Answer at the bottom.

Today's lunch is the last Passover-friendly thing I have to pack this year.  Thank goodness.  If I had to make yet another frittata I think I would go crazy.  But alas there is one in this lunch.  I cut it with a heart shaped cookie cutter to make it more appealing and while I used the same recipe as last time I made sure to load this one with plenty of mushrooms.  I have no idea why Juju is so into mushrooms but I am not going to question it since I think they are a pretty good thing to eat.

Joining the frittata is lox with cream cheese on whole wheat matzah.  I am partial to egg matzah but we ran out and whole wheat was all we had left.  We got the smoked salmon this weekend at one of the fish stands at the Hollywood Farmer's Market.  They always have a really long line (and kind of high prices) so we usually skip it but this week there was no wait (ah the benefits of being a Jew on Easter) so we tried the lox people rave about.  It was pretty good.

Lastly we have farmers market strawberries and grapes and a Pucci-esque SnackTaxi filled with dark chocolate covered matzah.  I know I am not supposed to pack sweets for school but I'm hoping this classic Passover treat won't get us thrown out.

Two of the containers I am using came from the Thinkbaby set I mentioned in my last post.  I like the size of the rectangular container and you can't exactly tell from the photo but the bowl the fruit is in is a true bowl with low walls and easier for a toddler to eat from.

Ok, so back to my riddle: Why can't we keep Juju in jail?

Because she eats lox!  Yes, I know, super corny (yet kosher for Passover).  I apologize for the horrible jokes.  I should stick to packing lunches. . .