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. . .

Lunch on April 12, 2011 - The spa meets the playground

Today is another day where I am forced to prepare lunch ahead of time.  Tonight I am doing a photo shoot for Milkstars (I'm so excited about our new styles coming soon!) and I'll be home way too late to make anything tonight and am hoping to get as much sleep as possible tomorrow morning.

So, today's lunch is a mishmash of things in my refrigerator.  Last night we had friends over for dinner and served salmon and spanikopita (this time we didn't use frozen spinach but we did use the pre-washed bag kind - sorry farmer's market!).  It actually came out better than last time.  We also used a French feta instead of the Greek one we used last week.  We don't normally eat the same thing every week; we just thought it would be a fun dish to serve at a dinner party.  It's really not that difficult to put together and it's an unexpected dish to present to guests.

I cooked some brown rice today (the quick way, in the microwave), let it cool, and cut up some leftover salmon on top.  I have to remember to throw in an extra ice pack tomorrow to make sure the lunch stays really cold.  Lukewarm fish at the lunch table sounds pretty gross.

I didn't intend to make today's lunch look like something you'd find on the menu at a spa or yoga retreat; it just sort of happened that way.  Fingers crossed it passes the kid test.  If all else fails I know she will eat the rice.

We also served large (delicious!) artichokes from the farmer's market for dinner last night and I saved a few baby ones to cook today.  Mini artichokes are really easy to cook up.  In this case I pulled off all the leaves and just sent the hearts to school.  I thought it would be too difficult and time consuming to expect Juju to rip off all the leaves herself.  Plus, when she eats artichokes at home, she insists on dipping each leaf in lots of butter and I would be nervous to send a container of clarified butter to school lest Juju be called out for bringing contraband on the premises.

Finally, I included some grapes and cantaloupe and a clementine.  Cute clementine accessory courtesy of the Tokyo Japanese Outlet I've mentioned in earlier posts.  I was downtown on Thursday and happened to find a parking spot in front of the Japanese Village Plaza.  I took it as a sign that I needed more cute lunch accessories (a treat for Juju and now readers of this blog too) and went in for a few things I didn't pick up last time.

Pink Eye Picnic - faux sushi salmon cream cheese rolls

Today's lunch plans were thwarted by the fact that Juju is suffering from pink eye and won't be going to school today.  I had planned a lunch of an artichoke heart and faux-sushi salmon cream cheese rolls but instead I made the rolls for breakfast and will have to improvise a new lunch around the artichoke.

Yesterday's trial run of a salmon roll-up was a small disaster.  All of the salmon was eaten but as I suspected, Juju ripped apart the entire thing and it was a horrible mess.  I had higher hopes today as I cut the salmon wrap in thin pieces like sushi.  It looked like this:

 

But this clever design didn't fool her.  She sat down and proceeded to unroll each roll picking out the salmon and moving on.  It was however much easier to clean up this way so I still might consider sending a lunch like this to school in the future.

I used a whole wheat and corn tortilla, whipped cream cheese and two pieces of lox.  She wasn't as hungry today as she was yesterday so some of the rolls remained and might show up again at lunch.

Lunch dry run - salmon and cream cheese roll-up

Yesterday I mentioned I had the idea to make a lunch out of some sort of salmon.  I ended up buying lox, one of Juju's favorites and figured I should give her a test run before packing this dish as a lunch.  Juju actually has a problem eating sandwiches/wraps.  She doesn't really get that you're supposed to take one big bite and taste the flavors of the bread, spread, lettuce, protein, etc together.  This is why she is one of the few children I know who does not like grilled cheese.  She just pulls the bread apart and tries to pick at the cheese and seems disatisfied with the whole experience.

I am a little afraid to send her with a salmon and cream cheese sandwich because if she starts to pick it apart at school, the results could be, well, gross for all parties involved in clean up.  So, I made it for breakfast today and we'll see if she is mature enough to handle this lunch at school.

The big reveal

The hardest part about packing a lunch is dealing with the threat of rejection.  You spend a lot of time thinking and preparing and cooking and arranging but at the end of the day, your kid can open up her lunchbox, take one look at your masterpiece and give it a big "Kthxbye" as she picks at two bites before scooting off onto the playground. 

The big reveal comes when you're back at home and you go through the lunchbox to clean it out (I thought potty training meant I no longer had to clean gross stuff out of reusable containers - I was wrong) and you get to see what your kid actually ate. 

It seems Juju gave today's lunch a B+.  She ate all of the fruit, most of the carrots, half of the hummus and half of the pasta salad.  Maybe this just means my portions are too big; I am still trying to figure out how much food to give her.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, when we go out she stuffs herself silly but at school she consumes much less.  She is probably more social at lunch with her friends or perhaps she just wants to get to playtime faster.  She did ask to go to CCC today but I politely declined and she seemed to take no for an answer.

I'm working on ideas for lunch on Thursday.  Considering Juju's love for salmon, particulary raw or cured, I was inspired by this Weelicious recipe for salmon cream cheese bites.  We'll see.