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 June 16, 2011 - Shells and cheese and peas

The problem with keeping a lunch blog is that I open myself up to judgment every time I pack a lunch bag.  I'm not particularly proud of tomorrow's lunch but I think it would be disingenuous if I only blogged about the pretty or wholesome lunches I put together.  At the end of the day this is not a health food blog or a "nominate me for mom of the year award" blog so here goes.

For tomorrow's lunch I am serving mac and cheese. . .from a box (cue the audible gasp!).  Technically it's organic but who am I kidding, it is still dehydrated cheese and lots of sodium.  Our great babysitter had the idea once to mix peas in with the mac and cheese and Juju loves it so I threw in some fresh peas to make it "healthy."  The mac and cheese is in a new thermos I recently acquired.  I'm experimenting with it to see if it really will keep items particularly hot (or cold).  Tomorrow morning I will (try to remember to) transfer the mac and cheese to another bowl, heat it, and then put it back in the thermos.  This sounds like a lot of work which makes me think I won't be doing this often.  Maybe in the winter I'll send some soup like this though.

In addition to the mac and cheese I am serving cantaloupe and strawberries and leftover cous cous with cottage cheese.  Not a very appealing combination, I know, but it's what we had in the fridge and I'm too tired to make something else.

Tomorrow is the last day of school before a 3 week summer break.  I'll probably still be packing lunches though so I will try to blog about them when I do.  Happy Summer!!

Lunch on April 14, 2011 - with love from the farmer's market

I'm writing today's post quickly.  I took the morning off to hang out with Juju and I have a bunch of work to catch up on.  I apologize in advance for any typos.

This morning we headed to Santa Monica to walk around the farmer's market. I haven't been to that one in years and somehow remember it much bigger (maybe it's bigger on the weekend?).  But it was certainly big enough for our needs today.  And although her first choice was to go to the zoo, I think Juju was happy we went because she had her first taste of one of my favorite snacks, peas in the pod (or English peas if you prefer) and she is hooked!

I have fond memories of eating fresh peas as a very young child.  I remember at our old house in NY we had a vegetable garden out back (I think my Grandpa Leo who had a green thumb planted it for us) and we grew peas.  I loved running out there and eating the peas right off the stalk.  This reminds me I want to figure out a way to grow vegetables in our backyard.  We tried once with tomatoes but we live in a canyon and some of our animal neighbors kept harvesting everything for us before we could get to them.  I also want to compost since peas in the pod leave a good amount of waste.  I'll work on both of those ideas when I have some more time.

Juju wasn't interested in the peas at first but once I showed her how to eat them she was obsessed.  She ate the entire bag in about a block and a half so I had to go back and buy some more for tomorrow's lunch.  It was actually a great way to move around the farmer's market.  Her eyes and hands were so focused on not dropping any peas on the ground that she moved slowly and stuck by me stand after stand.  We also bought some beautiful strawberries.  They are finally starting to taste as they should which means summer will be here before I know it.  Time really does fly.

I made lunch ahead of time again; our mornings are just too crazy to make a fresh lunch and I certainly wouldn't have time to blog about lunch if I made it in the morning!  Joining the peas in the pod are clementine segments, strawberries, and cream cheese hearts.  I made the hearts by slathering a bunch of cream cheese on two pieces of whole grain bread and using one of my handy dandy Tokyo Japanese Outlet heart-shaped cookie cutters.  I've never given Juju a cream cheese sandwich before but my guess is she is going to love it.  I am concerned that the lunch might not have enough protein so I might throw something else in the snailbox like yogurt or hummus and carrots. 

 

When I asked Juju today what she wanted for lunch tomorrow she replied "carrots and ice."  Let's hope this is a welcome substitute.

Inspired by reading this piece on artichokes I bought some beauties at the farmer's market today.  I once had a fantastic raw artichoke salad.  Maybe I'll try making it but I'm guessing the taste will be a little too sophisticated for a toddler's lunch.