Same Lunch - 3 Ways

Packing lunches does not have to take long or be stressful - even if you pack multiple lunches in the morning! The end of the school year is in sight and I know a lot of us are loosing our lunch packing mojo. Me included! After several weeks of pizza wheels and homemade lunchables, lunches were coming home uneaten and I had lost my patience with lunch packing.

So, I decided to go back to the basics. We all sat down and decided on a few thing everyone wanted in their lunchbox. Tastes differ and not every kid likes everything, but we could agree on the basics.

Here are today's lunches. Same ingredients - almost - and ranging from first to eighth grade!

First Grade Lunch

My daughter does not eat much for lunch, so I choose our Lock&Lock box today. She has:

• mini cucumber slices
• a raspberry greek yogurt muffin
• a ham, cheese and spinach mini roll
• grapes
• and a Superwoman Chobani tube yogurt 

Fourth Grade

This lunch is packed in our Arctic Zone lunchbox and contains the exact same ingredients as above - just more of it! My son has:

• mini cucumber slices 
• a raspberry greek yogurt muffin
• three ham mini rolls
• grapes
• and a Batman Chobani tube yogurt 

Eighth Grade

My middle schooler needs more food than his siblings, so we packed his lunch in Easylunchboxes and added a cereal bar. However, still the same ingredients:

• mini cucumber slices
• raspberry greek yogurt muffin instead he had:
• a peanut butter mini cereal bar instead of the muffin
• four chicken, cheese and spinach mini rolls
• grapes
• a Flash Chobani tube yogurt 

Planning with your kids makes packing lunches so much easier! If the basics are the same, you can pack lunches so much faster! Swapping an ingredient is not a big deal and everyone is happy in the end.

What I used to make these lunches (contains affiliate links):

Pumpkin Lunches

 My kids asked for pumpkins in their lunches today and here they are:

.

I packed our yubo with a chocolate spread sandwich pumpkin, Chobani vanilla yogurt with a frozen peach yogurt pumpkin and some pistachios. I don't have a pumpkin face cutter so I just cut the shape with a vegetable knife and added a leaf :)

For this lunch I cut up some apples and carved one of the bigger pieces into a pumpkin, also packed a cheese crackers with a Mummy pop up and another chocolate spread pumpkin sandwich. This pumpkin did not come out quite as good as the first one o-O

Chobani Raspberry Chocolate Scones {with Recipe}

It was a rainy weekend and therefore great for baking yummy treats for this week!

If you read my blog regularly you know I love baking with Chobani and using the yummy recipes from Chobani Kitchen. However, I mostly bake spontaneously and never have all the ingredients on hand needed so I tweak them to fit what I have at home.

This time we made Raspberry Lemon Scones with mini chocolate chips based on the Strawberry Scone Recipe! Find the recipe at the end of my post..

My kids love to help and my 5 year old son wanted to make the scones into fun shapes instead of just triangles. I did not mind so he picked a car and a firetruck cookie cutter and helped cut them out.

We had so much fun together in the kitchen!

Here are the cars and firetrucks my son made...

...I also made some round ones to use in our lunches this week! They smelled so good baking we could not wait to try them!

How amazing do these look! And they taste delicious! 

I had a hard time saving some for this weeks lunches. I think I have to bake some more!

Chobani Raspberry Lemon Scones with Mini Chocolate Chips

You will need:

• 3/4 cup Chobani Lemon Greek Yogurt
• 2 c all-purpose flour plus extra for dusting work surface
  (I added a little flax seed to the flour :)
• ¼ c sugar plus 2 T for sprinkling
• 2 t baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp kosher salt
• 4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter cut into ¼-inch cubes
• 1/2 c whole frozen raspberries
  1/4 c mini dark chocolate chips
  
  
  How to make the scones: 
  
  

  Step 1

  Preheat oven to 425°F (Gas Mark 7). In a large bowl whisk together flour, ¼ cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add butter and using a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal.

  Step 2

  Stir in raspberries and mini chocolate chips, then gently incorporate Chobani, taking care not to over mix.

  Step 3

  Turn dough onto a heavily floured work surface. Fold dough on top of itself to knead, 3 to 4 turns, then pat into 1½-in thick rectangle. Fold rectangle into thirds and shape into a 1-in thick circle. Cut into 8 wedges or use cookie cutters to shape your dough instead.

  Step 4

  Arrange wedges/shapes on parchment paper-lined baking sheet and sprinkle tops of scones with remaining 2 T sugar. Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack before serving.

  
  

  Happy Baking and a good Start into your week!

  
  
  
  

Flower Lunch

I found some ripe and sweet strawberries at the store over the weekend and had some left over whole wheat pancakes left over so lunch today is breakfast for lunch :)

I packed whole wheat pancakes cut into flower shapes and decorated with FruitaBü fruit strips as well as homemade strawberry yogurt, fresh strawberries decorated with flower picks and granola. 

Strawberry Yogurt with Chobani Non-Fat Vanilla Yogurt

(for 2 lunches)

6  TBS Vanilla Chobani

4 Strawberries

Honey/Sugar or Agave Syrup to taste

(I added 1/8 Teaspoon of Vanilla sugar)

Blend all ingredients in the blender until smooth.

Enjoy!

Chobani Chocolate Honey Blueberry Breakfast Muffins

The last 8 days of school have begun before summer vacation will be here. My kids are ready for summer and so am I. To make this last full week of school a little more fun I wanted to make some healthy but still yummy breakfast muffins for school lunches. I found a yummy recipe over at Chobani Kitchen and tweaked it for my family (I know, I know, I never can really stick to a recipe without changing it a little. But that is the fun of baking ;)

Don't these look fantastic?

Here is the recipe for you:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 C whole-wheat flour, plus 1 Tbsp flour reserved

1/2 C all purpose flour

1/2 C granulated sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp iodized salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 large egg

3 Tbsp canola oil

1 tsp real vanilla extract

1 C Honey 0% Chobani Greek Yogurt

1/2 C blueberries, fresh or frozen

1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips

a small amount of milk (1-3 Tbsp)

(I added 1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips instead of using a full cup of blueberries. I know my kids will be more likely to eat the muffins if they kind of look like chocolate chip muffins. Plus, you know me by now. I love chocolate ;)

How to bake the yummy Chobani Muffins:

Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
In another bowl, whisk together egg, vegetable oil, vanilla and Chobani yogurt.
In a small bowl toss the blueberries with reserved flour until lightly coated, add to egg mixture.
Add chocolate chips.
Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture.
Using a spatula, fold ingredients together just until dry ingredients are moistened.
(I had to add a little milk since my dough was too dry.)
Be careful to not overmix the batter, as it will cause the batter to be slightly stiff and not smooth.
Line muffin pans with paper muffin cups, spray lightly with non-stick spray.
Fill muffin cups halfway and place in oven.
Bake at 375°F for 8-12 minutes until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean.

Muffins may be served warm or chilled with dollops of Honey Chobani Greek Yogurt on top.

We did try them with a little Chobani Honey Yogurt on top and it was unbelievably yummy. So much better then icing and my kids loved adding the yogurt on top!

We loved them so much I packed them for lunch today, too. They are very airy and light and the slight yogurt-vanilla-honey taste makes them the perfect snack for summer!

Today I packed a Chobani Chocolate Honey Blueberry Muffin, a Chobani Champions Vanilla Chocolate Chunk yogurt (so they can add their dollop of goodness to their muffin at school), whole wheat crackers with cheddar and cheddar jack cheese and a star sandwich with turkey and salad. I added letters stenciled out of cheddar cheese to spell: You are a star!

Hope your week starts off as full of goodness as mine!

I made my lunch with the help of this:

Chobani Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

I was wondering the other day what snacks to buy or make for my children this week especially since we all kind of had gotten fed up with the store bought ones. I went to Chobani Kitchen and found this great recipe for Cranberry Oatmeal bars. I did not have everything on hand so I improvised a little bit.

The original recipe for the Cranberry Oatmeal bars can be found here.

  

I followed the recipe and my only changes were that I substitued 6 oz of mini chocolate chips for the 6 oz of cranberries and instead of using 0% Vanilla Chobani Yogurt and the orange zest, I used the Orange Vanilla Chobani Champions Yogurt. I only substituted because I had everything else in the pantry and really wanted to make those. I also doubled the recipe because I wanted to make sure we had enough for the lunchboxes this week :)

Here is the adapted recipe for a casserole dish :

{Ingredients}

• vegetable oil cooking spray
• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 2 C quick-cooking oats
• 1 C packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 6 Tbsp canola oil
• 6 Tbsp orange juice
• 2 2/3 C Orange Vanilla Chobani Champions
• 1 C sugar
• 4Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 large egg white, lightly beaten

{How to make them}

• Preheat oven to 325°F.
• Spray an 11 x 7-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
• Whisk together flour, oats, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in bowl.
• Drizzle butter, oil and orange juice over dry mixture, stirring until moistened and crumbly.
• Reserve 1/2 cup mixture.
• Press remaining oat mixture into the bottom of prepared pan.
• Combine mini chocolate chips, Chobani, sugar, flour, and egg white in medium bowl, stirring well.
• Spread yogurt mixture over prepared crust.
• Evenly sprinkle reserved oat mixture over filling.
• Bake for 40 minutes or until edges are golden.
• Cool completely in pan on a wire rack before slicing.

When they came out of the oven it was hard to wait for them to cool because they smelled so good!

They are delicious and so easy to make! I really enjoyed the yogurt layer and my kids thought they were perfect for after school :)

We enjoyed this recipe so much I will make the original recipe with cranberries next week!

Happy Monday!

Chobani Champions Winner Announced! Updated!

And we do have
2 Winners!

Our first winner is Janice! Comment #44 :) I have emailed you, Janice! Congratulations!

Our second winner is Keeley from the wonderful  Keeley McGuire Blog! She was lucky comment #10! Congratulations! I emailed you, Keeley!

CONGRATULATIONS to both winners! And thank you everyone for commenting!