Halloween!!

I really have been making lunches every day.  I haven't had time to blog but really wanted to get my Halloween week lunches up here, so here it goes.

Monday 10/27: Witches lunch

Turkey/cheese witch with broom sandwiches

Baby carrots and snap peas with ranch dip and a witch pick

Cauldron with grape halves and a skull candy stuck inside

Tuesday 10/28: Mummy Dogs

 Hot dog wrapped in crescent roll dough on a bed of "grass" (lettuce)

Grapes with a Halloween pick

Baby carrots, snap peas and cucumbers with ranch dip and ghost pick

Inside the round container is a ketchup and mustard eye

Wednesday 10/29: Spider Pasta

 Ramen noodle "web" with spider eggs (peas) and spiders on top

Ghost toast

Apple chunks

Instead of ghost toast Maya wanted leftover "Spider Egg" biscuits

Thursday 10/30: National Candy Corn Day

 Cheese quesadilla in shape of candy corn; candy corn; ranch dressing for veggies

Pineapple triangles with candy corn pick

Baby carrots, snap peas and cucumbers

 Maya had a bean quesadilla and I colored the tortilla with food safe markers yellow and red (didn't have orange).

Max didn't want pineapple so he got half a banana and tomatoes added to his veggies

Friday 10/31: Halloween!!  Also Frankenstein Friday

 Frankenstein ham/cheese sandwich with frankenstein pick

Orange chunks under the rind with a pumpkin face

Snap pea and baby carrot "fingers" with skull ring

I loved the natural hole on this bread to make the mouth!

Here are some pictures of the Vampire and Elsa costumes:

Hope you had a great Halloween!!

Thanks for reading!
Deb

Every day is a "Day"

As I have been making these lunches and perusing the blogs I have come to realize that almost every single day of the year is some kind of "Day" to celebrate.  It is a lot of fun trying to come up with creative lunches to honor these, although sometimes it is just too difficult for this girl!

October 6 was Mad Hatter Day.  

I did not have a good idea for this one, although I did briefly think Cheshire Cat....  However, I decided to try my hand at a different item that I had discovered from my extensive reading.  I did add a hat pick as a tribute to Mad Hatter Day.  

French toast casserole muffins!  This uses all the scraps from the sandwiches that I cut out so I didn't waste them!  I thought they were awesome and so did Maya.  Max was not so impressed and didn't even taste them.  No wonder he was such a crab that evening while trying to do homework.  I discovered after dinner while doing the dishes that he had not eaten any of his lunch! 

French toast casserole muffins with a hat pick!

Red and green grapes

Juice box (at least it says it has veggies in it!)

Tuesday was World Smile Day.

This one was fun!  I decided to make pocket sandwiches with lettuce as the hair.  I thought they were so cute that I actually made one for myself and Tim as well, although ours had tuna fish salad inside.  I used bows for the girls and a hat for the boy.  

Here is the whole lunch for the kids:

Ham and cheese and lettuce pita sandwich

Baby carrots, Cucumber smiles and red pepper smiles

Cherry Jello (lucky kids!  But they did smile!)

Wednesday was not a "Day" as far as I know so we had a simple lunch.

Bow tie pasta with sauce in the small container next to it

Peaches

Celery and carrots

Thursday was Moldy Cheese Day.  I do not like moldy cheese and didn't want to make anything with it.  So I decided to celebrate October with my first Halloween lunch.  Spiders!!

Peanut butter and honey sandwich ball with carrot legs

Ramen noodle web with pea, carrot and corn bugs and creepy spiders on top

A plum spider with raison legs

Friday was World Egg Day.  I have been told that the kids are not too keen on the hardboiled eggs anymore.  So I decided to go a different route and make breakfast burritos.  I made some for myself as well and they were very delicious!

Inside they had refried beans, bacon, scrambled egg and hash browns.  I also put cheese on everyone's except Maya's but did that after I took this picture.

I rolled them up inside some foil to keep them warm.

And added some pear chunks on the side with a  grumpy giraffe pick.

Thanks for Reading!

Deb

Week of Sept 29 - Oct 3

What is it about the coming of Fall that overwhelms me so?  This weeks lunches display some a lack of creativity, but at least we still had healthy options (mostly).  

Monday was breakfast for lunch, always a favorite.  The muffins were made about a month ago and frozen.  I took them out of the freezer on Sunday night and they were perfect to pack in the morning.

Cantaloupe chunks and raspberries with fruit shaped re-usable ice cubes and a fork pick

Banana bread muffin

Ham and turkey roll ups on a heart pick and a Babybel cheese round

"Juice" (boo!)

Tuesday I made quesadilla's and showed how I wrapped it to keep warm tip lunch time.

 Black refried bean and cheese quesadilla with salsa in the small container

Cucumber rounds, Snap peas, baby carrots and red pepper rings

Cantaloupe chunks

Wednesday I used the apple butter that I made in a previous post.  Delicious!  One of the lunch boxes didn't make it home on Tuesday so I used my Planetbox Shuttle for this lunch.  

 Apple butter "sushi" rolls

Baby carrots and cucumber rounds, celery with peanut butter

Red grapes

This is Maya's to show what the other lunches looked like in their normal lunch boxes.  I kinda like the Planetbox better, but I only have the one.  Also, Maya didn't get peanut butter.

Thursday I made a very fancy lunch!  But I can't show it to you.  I didn't take pictures!  I can't believe it since that was the best lunch of the week!  I made pizza roll-ups.  The kids really liked them!  

Friday I made Max a special lunch that was just like my lunch.  

 Ham and cheese and lettuce roll up with Buzzy Bee picks

A banana with a nice message

Baby carrots, green pepper strip, and cucumber flowers

Everyone else got pig sandwiches.  I'm not sure why I used a pig cutter except that I wanted to.  

Ham and cheese pig sandwich

Baby carrots, green pepper strip, and cucumber flowers

Apple wedges

Thanks for Reading!

Deb

Apples, Apples Everywhere!

We have several fruit trees in our yard, courtesy of the previous owners.  This is the first year we have had an decent crop of apples and we ended up with about 150 apples!  We think they are MacIntosh, so they are good cooking apples.  

We decided to try our hand at making applesauce!  It was a long process due to them having a lot of worms and being inconsistently shaped.  I cored and took out the bugs but did not remove the skins.  I wanted to keep some of the fiber and nutrients.  We eventually got a crockpot full.  I added some brown sugar and cinnamon sticks and set it to cook:

After cooking I put it in the blender and here is the result:

The applesauce was very tasty!  I packed some in lunches with cinnamon sprinkled on top:

Of course this was a lot of apples, but not nearly all the apples.  Therefore I decided to try my hand at apple butter.  All you do for this is put it back in the crockpot after it has been blended.  I added more sugar and some cloves and nutmeg and cooked on low with the lid ajar for 24 hours so it reduced.  Yum!!

There was a LOT of apple butter and applesauce so I went out and bought myself a canning system!  I am now a pioneer woman!  

What a process!  I have new respect for all those who have done this for years.  It's a lot of work but I do think it is worth it.  I will continue to can when our garden grows an abundance.  I am expecting to have a million tomatoes soon.  We have been eating them up to now but our crop is really coming in and I think we will not be able to keep up.  So I might be trying those soon.

Anyway, here I am filling the applesauce jars:

And the apple butter is going in:

Finished products:

In total I canned 2 jars of apple pie filling, 4 jars of applesauce and 9 jars of apple butter.  I made a apple crumble with the pie filling and OMG was it delicious!  The apple butter has been used in lunches and is also a hit.  We also gave one jar as a gift.  I am thinking pumpkin bread with apple butter spread....

My grandmother would be so proud. 

Thanks for Reading!

Deb

5th Week of School

I am a little bit behind with my blogging because this time of year is just so busy, busy!  I have been making lunches every day though so here are Lunches for the week of Sept 22-26.  

Monday was Elephant Day Appreciation Day so we had to celebrate!

 Ham, turkey and salami Elephant mom and baby sandwich

Pirate Booty with an "E" pick

Raspberries with a pink elephant pick

Celery, baby carrots and grape tomatoes with ranch to dip

The only differences in Maya's lunch is using Veggie Booty (looks more like grass!) and no ranch dressing.  Instead she got cucumbers with an E cut out covering her other veggies

Tuesday I decided to use up the hot dogs and buns in the fridge.  I like to make these lunches because they are quick and easy but seem like they are on a picnic in the park.

 Hot dog in a bun with ketchup and mustard in small bottles

Red grapes

Cherry and grape tomatoes, snap peas, mini bell pepper and baby carrots

Here is the hot dog wrapped up in aluminum foil to stay warm and I added some ranch dressing in the veggie compartment

Wednesday I made lunchables.

Maya got ham and turkey and salami triangles with Triscuit crackers.  The other kids also got a Babybel cheese round in this container but I forgot to get a picture of that.

Pear chunks with a leaf pick

Cucumber Fall leaves with baby carrots

Usually I make all the lunches the same every day to make things easier on me.  Obviously I have to make some changes due to Maya's allergies.  However, sometimes one of my kids will ask for a special lunch.  On this day Max did not want to have lunchables, so I made him something different:

Grapes with music picks

Cherry tomatoes, snap peas and cucumber slices

Apple butter and Peanut butter Piano sandwich with music pick

Thursday we did not go to school due to Rosh Hashana. 

Friday was Johnny Appleseed Day!

Homemade Apple Butter and Peanut butter apple shaped sandwich with apple pick

Broccoli trees and apple shaped cucumber and rainbow carrot

Apple slices

I thought about adding honey into this lunch to dip the apples in and celebrate Rosh Hashana but thought it would be too messy and too much sugar.  

That completes the 5th week of school for this year!

Thanks for Reading!

Deb

Dots, Cheeseburgers and Pirates - Oh My!!

What a busy week!  We had lots of specialty lunches and fun times.

Monday Sept 15 was International Dot Day.  Why, you ask, is there a International Dot Day?  Well, I'll tell you.  International Dot Day celebrates Creativity, Courage and Collaboration.  The kids came home on the Friday before and educated me about this.  They had read a book in school called "The Dot" and it was all about how a girl who thought she couldn't draw, so the teacher told her to make a mark and see where it took her.  The girl made a dot and the teacher said "Sign It!!".  Then the girl made lots of dots and at the art show the walls were covered with her dot art.  A boy came and said he loved her drawing but he couldn't even draw a line with a ruler.  The girl said "show me" and the boy drew a squiggle and the girl said "Sign It!!" So we had to honor and celebrate this special day!

Ham and Pepperoni "Dot" sandwich; dot bread pieces

Green grapes with dot picks

Snap peas, "dot" rainbow carrots, cucumber with pepper dots

Tuesday we had simple lunches:

Snap peas, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes from the garden

Rainbow pasta with sauce in the orange lidded container

Green and red grapes

Wednesday we had breakfast for lunch.  Not the healthiest with all the convenience foods but I was not feeling creative on this day.

Maya carried her new Frozen lunch box with banana and ham/turkey skewers in the bottom section and Cinnamon bread in the top section.  She also had a fruit sauce pouch and a fruit juice box.  

Max and the other kids had Cinnamon bread, hard boiled egg, banana, applesauce pouch and fruit juice box.

Thursday Sept 18 was National Cheeseburger Day!  Yum!  We had a huge party not too long ago so we had a lot of burgers left over.

Max's cheeseburger with Ketchup and Mustard in little squeeze bottles and pickles in the green small container

Grapes with a bear pick (Max doesn't like cantaloupe)

Baby carrots, yellow pepper rounds, cherry tomatoes from the garden and cucumber "burger" rounds

I wrapped the burgers in tin foil to keep them warm and Maya along with the other kids had cantaloupe instead of grapes

Friday Sept 19 was International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  ARGH!  

 PB&J sandwich maps with X marking the spot below the treasure of cookies (Max got graham crackers because he doesn't like chocolate - crazy kid!)

Multi colored carrot and cucumber coins for treasure

Pirate booty

Grapes

Everyone else got mini chocolate chip cookies and cantaloupe.  Maya got Veggie booty since she can't eat cheese.

Hope you enjoyed the treasure hunt!

Thanks for Reading!

Deb