Veggie lunch

Artichoke heart, avocado, tomato, cheese and crackers, strawberries, and dark chocolate for dessert.

Chicken noodle casserole

Leftover chicken noodle casserole, edamame, cucumbers, oranges.

Mango lunch

Mango, edamame, watermelon, pita chips, cheese.

Pizza for lunch

Leftover Caioti pizza, edamame, watermelon, oranges.

Fresh fish dinner 2

Fresh fish dinner

Salmon with olive oil, salt and pepper, fresh corn, salad.

Fresh corn lunch

Fresh corn on the cob, hard boiled eggs, watermelon and edamame.

Egg salad lunch

Egg salad on challah, avocado, strawberries, watermelon.

Stir fry lunch

Chicken and veggie stir fry with rice, strawberries, peas, tomatoes, watermelon.

Veggie lunch

Avocado on challah sammie, edamame, strawberries, watermelon.

More of the same for lunch

Avocado on challah, strawberries, peas, sugar plum tomatoes, watermelon.

More Greek for lunch

Leftover homemade spanikopita, string beans, sugar plum tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon.

Avocado sandwich

Avocado on challah sandwich, carrots, cucumbers, pineapple, watermelon.

Greek for lunch

Homemade spanikopita, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, strawberries, and watermelon.

Lunch on June 1

Cucumbers, tomatoes, string beans, peas, strawberries, chicken and cous cous.

More chicken and rice

Leftover roast chicken and brown rice, carrots, strawberries, artichoke, an dark chocolate for dessert.

Chicken and rice lunch

Leftover roast chicken and brown rice, strawberries, pineapple, artichoke, and dark chocolate for dessert.

Deli for lunch

Corned beef and pastrami on rye, orange slices, peas, strawberries, cucumber slices, robin's eggs for dessert.

Vegan dinner

Fake ground meat, onions, celery, mushrooms, and cashews over white rice, steamed artichoke.

Kitchen help

Mini corn husker!

Vegan sloppy Joe's for dinner!

Fresh corn on the cob, vegan sloppy Joe's on whole wheat bun.

Chicken noodle casserole lunch

Chicken noodle casserole with peas and corn, cucumber, edamame, oranges, robin's eggs for dessert.

Mango lunch

Mango, edamame, watermelon, fresh mozzarella cheese with whole grain pita chips, robin's eggs for dessert.

Lunch on 5/14/2012

Leftover Caioti pizza, watermelon, edamame, orange slices, robin's eggs for dessert.

Little foodie dinner

Salmon with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, corn on the cob, salad with homemade dressing (olive oil, lime, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper).

Vegan dinner

Avocado, quinoa, peas, tempeh with onions, mushrooms, and cashews.

One more lunch

Hummus and carrots, fresh peas and plums, strawberries, quinoa and chicken, chocolate for dessert.

And another lost lunch

Artichokes leaves with sour cream dipping sauce, string beans, salmon with pasta, plums, chocolate covered almond bits for dessert.

Another lost lunch

Peas and tomatoes, plums and strawberries, cantaloupe, homemade veggie meat sauce with macaroni, chocolate covered almond bits for dessert.

Yet another lunch from last week

Cantaloupe, tomatoes and cucumbers, cottage cheese with Cheerios, artichoke leaves, chocolate for dessert.

Another lunch from last week

Homemade guacamole (in small steel container) with flax seed chips, peas, plums, strawberries, dark chocolate covered apple, cucumbers and chicken

Lunch last week

Watermelon, pineapple, peas, cucumber, carrot, shells and cheese with peas and a chocolate covered pretzel for dessert.

Lunch on Monday April 30

Chicken and brown rice, carrots, artichoke leaves and dark chocolate square for dessert.

Bunch of lunches catch-up

A million apologies for not updating this blog sooner; I know many of you can't start your day without checking out whether I sent apples or plums to school. . .

It has been a really crazy (and exciting) time with work so I haven't had too much time to write but I have been packing lunches and photographing them so here's what you missed:

One of my favorite lunches packed was right before Purim, a Jewish holiday associated with eating hamentaschen, a triangular shaped butter or sugar cookie with a filling in the middle.  Juju and I made a zillion batches (they are really easy to make) and I loved seeing my Facebook newsfeed fill up with photos of friends making the same cookies with their kids.  Hamantaschen are usually filled with apricot jam or poppy seed pie filling or some other fruit preserve but my friend Lirona gave me a great idea (via Facebook) to use Nutella.  In our case we used chocolate almond butter from Trader Joe's but it was an absolute hit in our house and among Juju's classmates (we sent a batch of choco/almond and apricot ones to school).  I made a few mini cookies perfect for the center square in the Planet Box as you can see in the lunch below.  In addition to the cookie I sent oranges, strawberries, peas, plums, a cheese and avocado sandwich, and small flowers made with cucumber and strawberries. 

My amazingly talented friend Jill told me that I inspired her to get a Planetbox for her son and she sent me a photo of the first lunch her husband Bruce packed.  They are self-conscious that it isn't "good enough" but I think it looks great.  I also loved that Bruce pointed out creative lunches like these are a fantastic way to teach our kids to design.  I completely agree and hope they send me more photos like this one!:

Lunch by Jill & Bruce:

And here are a few more lunches I packed over the last two weeks:

Heart-shaped sandwich (I can't remember what was inside - cheese and avocado maybe?  Or it coud be hummus. . .) oranges, tomatoes and peas, a cut up nectarine, and mini hamentaschen for dessert.

Homemade chicken fingers cut up, strawberries and plums, cucumbers in the shapes of hearts and stars, avocado, orange slices, cut up hamentaschen.

Homemade chicken fingers with marinara dipping sauce, strawberries and cantaloupe, cucumber sticks, avocado, and granola for dessert.

Gemelli pasta with cheese and broccoli, orange slices, cantaloupe, strawberries, cucumber, and a half of a Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie.

Homemade chicken finger (made with almondmeal instead of breadcrumbs) with marinara dipping sauce, spinach pasta, strawberries, carrots, cucumber sticks with hummus for dipping, chocolate for dessert.

Chicken meatballs, avocado, peas, string beans with cucumber and strawberry "flowers," hummus with carrots and cucumber for dipping, and a chocolate chip cookie for dessert.

More updates soon!

Leap day lunch

Tomorrow is leap day.  I thought about coming up with some sort of fun leap-themed lunch but Juju is 3 and a half which means she doesn't even know tomorrow is a Wednesday, let alone a day that only happens once every four years.  I think I'll just include a cute drawing in her lunch and call it a day.

Leaping off an idea from one of Leemore's lunches, I made star avocado and muenster cheese sandwiches.  They are joined by Persian cucumbers from the Hollywood Farmer's market that are among the best cucumbers I've ever had, HFM fresh peas, strawberries, kiwis, heirloom tomato slices and pomegranate seeds for dessert.  I also packed some Greek yogurt (not shown) for snack.

Today's lunch was leftover chicken and rice (the KOAM made a roast chicken again on Monday, I'm starting to feel like the Jeffrey to his Ina Garten. . .and I like it!), plums, strawberries, avocado, clementines, cucumber teddy bears and a caramel wafer cookie for dessert.  The cookies came to me from my friend Lynn, and not Leemore as previously reported (I can not credit Leemore with everything here!  Thanks Marisa for the heads up!).

Happy leap day everyone!

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.