Lunch on 1/5/2012 - The return of cucumber art!

It was another late night and I was in a rush to get lunch made.  And since I haven't been to the grocery store in a few days, once again Juju is eating whatever is in the fridge (which looks remarkably similar to everything else she ate this week).  I decided if I can't change up her food for tomorrow's lunch, I can at least attempt to make it more visually appealing.  So, once again, I pulled out my cookie cutters and went to town on a hot house cucumber.  Tomorrow I am serving cucumber stars and flowers along with orange slices, grapes, edamame, avocado, and macaroni and cheese and peas.  I made some cheddar cheese stars to decorate the top of the mac and cheese.  Incidentally this mac and cheese is not the homemade one I mentioned yesterday but something my great babysitter made for dinner for the two of them tonight.

Also captured in the photograph is a new Klean Kanteen kid's water bottle in the "Navy Bird" pattern that matches Juju's Pottery Barn Kids lunch box.  I was too cheap to buy the matching water bottle in the fall when it was around $20 but since it's now on sale for $9.99 and I had a PBK gift certificate, I couldn't resist.

Lunch on October 13, 2011 - showing some restraint!

I continue to love the Planet Box lunchbox I blogged about yesterday.  It's so sleek and really well designed.  There are a few kinks to work out, or just accept.  For example I have just resigned myself to the fact that the once beautiful carrying case is going to get gross.  I spot clean it each time it comes home but there are always stains on it.  Either food has leaked onto it, or Juju touched it with dirty hands, or she dropped food on it (she eats from the stainless steel container while it's still in the carrying case).  But I'm still in the honeymoon phase with this lunch container so I'm sticking with it.  I looked at one of Juju's other lunchboxes on the counter today and felt sorry for it; it's not going to see the light of day for a while.  My friend Lirona mentioned in the comments in yesterday's post that her daughter's preschool likes the Planet Box because it's only one container for them to help her daughter open.  That's a good point.  And Lirona likes that it's only one thing to clean.  I agree but I don't like that the magnets need to be removed to clean the lunchbox because I clean it every day which means I am removing and then replacing them each time.  It gets a little annoying.  I wish they were washable stickers instead.

After a whole lot of today's lunch came home in the Planet Box, I came to terms with the fact that I am sending too much food for lunch.  So, for tomorrow's meal I tried to show a little restraint.  One of Juju's classmates who was playing with Juju's Planet Box during pick-up time showed me that Juju's fork set can fit perfectly into one of the compartments in the unit.  Brilliant!  You never know how much you can learn from a 3-year old.

I took the friend's advice and filled one of the compartments with a fork for tomorrow's lunch which kept me from filling that area with food.  Along with the fork I am serving mac and cheese with veggies, edamame, and orange slices.  I really tried hard to leave the center section empty but I had some dark chocolate covered sunflower seeds in my pantry and I couldn't resist adding a little bit of color to the lunch!

I happened to be at Target today when I stumbled upon a great sale on Thermos brand stainless steel straw water bottles.  Ok fine, I didn't exactly stumble upon it, I often check out the kid's lunch section for fun (call it research for this blog).  Anyway, these water bottles usually cost around $18-$20 dollars each and today they were on sale for about $13.  Unfortunately none of them are plain, they all have characters on them but at this price, I don't really mind Juju shilling for Hello Kitty at the lunch table.  I can't find a link on the website but you can find them in person.  While I was there I checked out the variety of lunch bags, boxes, and containers available for sale.  They didn't have any interesting stainless steel options but some of the lunch bags themselves were really cute and well priced.  If I were in the market for a lunch bag (I'm not, I'm not, I'm really not!) my choice would be the Rambler lunch bag or a super cute one that isn't online but is in the shape of a frog and comes with a frog ice pack.