Look! Lunch! {Gluten Free}

Here are two recent gluten free school lunches. We are trying to keep one of my sons gluten free to determine if that would help with the recent bouts of stomachaches he has been having. I am very new to gluten free so we are still learning :)

Our yubo is packed with a gluten free lunch today:

• a Cocoa Loco bar from Enjoy Life
• Naturebox Cranberry Almond bites
• two tuxedo wearing onigiri
• applesauce and
• a gluten free coconut chocolate chip muffin - home made with rice flour

Our Laptop Lunches bento box is packed with:

• a gluten free coconut and blueberry muffin
• gluten free popcorn
• almonds
• a gluten free cheese sandwich and
• apple sauce

Breakfast-To-Go in our Laptop Lunches Bento Box

The countdown for summer vacation is on. Less then two weeks until my kids are off for the summer! That means I am busier then ever trying to get as much done as possible before school ends. For my daughter that means more time in the car. And in turn I often here a little voice in the back seat calling "Breakfast sandwich? Please?" It is so tempting to just pull over and hand my preschooler a quick breakfast from the drive thru before running errand.

I was thinking on how to provide her with breakfast on the go and realized that the Laptop Lunches bento box is perfect! Great for eating anywhere and the compartments can be rearranged to fit what you want to add.

Our Breakfast-to-Go Laptop Lunch includes:

• watermelon (I cut a watermelon in smaller pieces and cubes at the beginning of the week and stored it in the fridge for convenience)
• an easy egg&cheese breakfast sandwich and
• an organic apple and strawberry sauce pouch on a cloth napkin

My daughter was thrilled and this was much healthier then a drive thru stop and honestly took no time to pack.

{How to Make A} Quick Breakfast Sandwich

You need:

1 croissant 

2 eggs

a little milk

1-2 slices of cheese ( we used American)

1 tbsp oil

To make this super fast sandwich:

Cut croissant in half.

Slice croissant horizontally.

Microwave both croissant halves for 10 sec and set aside.

Heat small frying pan with 1 tbsp of oil.

Scramble the egg with a small amount of milk.

Pour in pan and wait until egg sets. Flip. Cook until cooked through. Approx. 2 min each side.

Fill croissant with 1-2 slices of cheese and add egg. Enjoy!

Pantry Lunches

When life gets hectic and time does not allow for a trip to the grocery store, I rely on my pantry to still have some decent lunch ingredients.

We packed lunch in our Good Lunch Box:

• Pirate Booty,
• stamped peanut butter and blueberry jelly sandwiches,
• all natural apple sauce
• and a few almonds

Lunch in our Easylunchboxes ( I made two identical ones) contains:

• Pirate Booty
• all natural apple sauce
• a peanut butter and blueberry jelly stamped sandwich
• and a cereal bar

Still good lunches when time is not on my side :)

Things I used for this lunch:

Throw (together) & Go Lunches

We have been running late in the morning all week and the result has been quick "Throw (together)&Go" Lunches. Today was no exception and with 5 min to spare lunches were literally packed on the fly with no Friday in sight yet...

A quick Throw&Go Lunch in our Easylunchboxes: Goldfish, apple sauce and a pepperoni and salad sandwich with Spiderman stamp. They also packed water and yogurt.

Another on the fly lunch in Easylunchboxes with Goldfish, apple sauce and bus peanut butter sandwiches. Yogurt and ice water was packed as well :)

We made similar sandwiches yesterday:

A quick and easy Captain America Lunch with apple sauce and Goldfish and...

...an equally fast Hulk and Captain America Lunch with Naturebox Cranberry Energy Bites and grapes with a tangerine. Fast & easy but still fun :)

Super Lunches

My friend Sarah from Bentoriffic sent me an amazing Marvel Hero cookie cutter set from William Sonoma and we were excited to try it out today:

We packed our Easylunchboxes with:

• Naturebox Cranberry Almond Bites
• Green grapes and a cutie clementine
• a Hulk and a Captain America peanut butter and jelly sandwich

and as always they have yogurt, ice water and today also the perfect Lunchbox Love Card!

Love these sandwiches! Even my youngest son wanted a Captain America sandwich and that means a lot since he really does not like sandwiches in general!

I packed him Goldfish crackers, apple sauce and one Captain America peanut butter sandwich. He also has ice water and yogurt.

My oldest son just wanted a plain lunch in his Easylunchboxes and so I packed him: 

• Naturebox Masa Chips and Goldfish crackers
• a cutie clementine and green grapes 
• and a pepperoni and salad sandwich

My four year old wanted to pack her own morning lunch today - for girls without super heroes:

She packed grapes, popcorn and peanut butter and jelly bunnies :)

Energy Lunches

Happy Monday! Hope everyone has a great start into the new week!

We made some no bake energy bites this weekend (recipe below) in preparation for state wide testing this week. They are filled with protein and a great snack for the days the kids need extra energy!

For my two older kids we packed no bake energy bites, all natural apple sauce and a chicken, mustard and salad sandwich with a Chobani Champions blueberry tube. They also packed ice water and a small orange juice.

My first grader packed a Chobani Champions blueberry tube in his yumbox as well as oranges, carrots, no bake energy bites, a protein cereal bar and a small treat.

We have been making no bake energy bites for a while and I first found them HERE. I still use the recipe from Smashed Peas and Carrots as a base recipe but I tweaked it a little bit.

Ingredients:

(it makes about 50 - 70 mini energy bites)

2 cups oatmeal

1 cup peanut butter 

2/3 cup honey

1 cup coconut flakes

1 cup ground flaxseed

1 cup mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup of sliced almonds or 1/2 cup of dried fruit

Add all ingredients into a large bowl and mix until a dough forms. 

Wet your hands slightly and roll into balls. 

I store mine in parchment paper lined tupperware in the fridge.

For a great picture tutorial visit Smashed Peas and Carrots :)

Whole Grain Pizza Pockets

We are back to school since yesterday!
And to ring in the year with a healthy lunch we packed Whole Grain Pizza Pockets!

In our Easylunchboxes, we packed cucumber slices, an all natural apple sauce and Whole Grain Pizza Pockets! I also packed a Mini Dipper with some extra pizza sauce for dipping!

The last time I made pizza pockets, it was a huge success with my kids since you can really fill these pockets with anything your kids like! However, the dough I used had food dye and I was quite disappointed when I discovered this since we love these pockets. I have looked since into a couple of other options and found that Pillsbury does make a food dye free pizza dough. I was very happy to find that the Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Dough with Whole Grain is food dye free! For the tutorial for the pizza pockets please check my previous post HERE.

 

I made two different kinds of pizza pockets. Some with pizza sauce, mini turkey pepperoni and mozzarella cheese and some with just sauce and pepperoni and no cheese. In order to keep track I added a different number of pepperoni to the top of the pockets. Great tip when you are making several different kinds so you don't end up packing the no cheese pockets for the wrong child :)

 

I also added a Lunchbox Love Note for their first day back!

 

 

Apple Lunch

We still have a couple of sick kids at home so I only made two lunches today. And they are all about apples.

We packed an apple shaped Sunbutter and Jelly sandwich in our Easylunchboxes, cucumbers and an all natural strawberry applesauce. As always there is also yogurt and water.

We packed two apple shaped Sunbutter and Jelly sandwiches in our yubo lunchbox, an apple cereal bar, apple chips and all natural berry apple sauce.

With a couple of picks and an apple ring a very simple lunch is all dressed up.

Here are some things I used to make this lunch. Click for more information :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Schools are opening today again after Hurricane Sandy with a delay but they are opening and so we packed lunch - one more Halloween lunch for everybody :)

We packed popcorn, applesauce, a German dye-free candy, a cereal bar, Somersaults Cinnamon Crunch Crackers in our Mini Dippers and two peanut butter sandwiches decorated with seaweed and grape jelly - I was still working from my hurricane stash and had not been able to go to the store for any fresh food :)

I just used my nori punches to punch the shapes of the eyes and mouth and glued them to the bread with grape jelly. The cheeks on the bat sandwich are dots of grape jelly as well - I also added a spider ring and a Frankenstein Pop Up from the Party Store.

Everybody got the same lunch but I personlized them with the spider rings, Pop Ups and some Cupckake picks I had.

The kids loved seeing all the different fun things in their lunch today :)

Boo!

Same lunch as above. I was surprised that I was even able to put together a Haloween Lunch with the limited choice of food we had but since we had a 2h delay everyone helped :)

My youngest son even picked two different spiders to make it extra creepy ;)

EEK!

Despite the storm my First Grader has a little Halloween Part at school today and I packed him a special snack box with all dye-free foods so he can participate in the celebration.

He chose more popcorn, Italian Cocoa Cookies, Organic chocolate chip cookies and a special German Hazelnut wafer. he loved putting more ghosts, spiders and of course a monster in his special lunch box.

Happy Halloween!

Be Safe tonight and Have Fun!

Snack and Lunch

My kids loved the fairy bread idea so much that they have been taking it every day this week so far. I could not stir them into a different direction, so I am posting snack today first :)

For snack I packed some Enjoy Life Mountain Mambo Trail Mix , a cream cheese stuffed mini pepper carved into a Jack o' lantern, half an apple with a Jack o' lantern face and some whole wheat crackers. The snack is packed in our Lunchbot Trio.

Lunch is packed in Easylunchboxes and packed by my 6 year old :) He choose Goldfish crackers, Honey crackers, a squeezable applesauce and four mini chocolate spread fairy breads. I cut the shape of the car with one of my mini bento cutters and filled it with vegan sprinkles :)

Happy Lunch!

Animal Parade

I recently won the Critter Cutters Lunch Punch set from my friend Kandice of {we aren't scared of sugar} and I had been wanting to use it. It was a cold and dreary morning and I thought the perfect morning for some cheery lunches!

Here is what we packed for lunch today:

I packed apple sauce and some homemade banana bread as well as an organic vanilla yogurt cereal bar to go with our Dog Lunch Punch sandwich. The sandwich is whole wheat bread with chocolate spread and organic artificial color and flavor free sprinkles. My son loved the idea of the dog in his dog house and I loved how easy it was to make this sandwich. Lunch Punches really are a fun lunch making tool!

I love how this came out. Don't you?

I also packed an Elephant Lunch Punch sandwich. Again, with apple sauce, home made banana bread and organic vanilla yogurt bar. This time the sprinkles are regular sprinkles.

I like this elephant sandwich just as much :)

The other matching utensils I had were mini chickens and since the Critter Lunch Punch does not include a chicken I used some of my bento stencils to make this chicken. This lunch as well has home made banana bread, applesauce and a cereal bar.

I cannot get enough of these sprinkle fairy sandwiches - thank you Kandice for the idea!

   

A Fast Bear Lunch

We were running late this morning and so I had very little time for lunches. It only took me about two minutes total to put together this lunch!

I packed Pretzel Goldfish, an organic applesauce, a strawberry yogurt cereal bar and a sunflower seed spread sandwich in bear shape. I used a cookie cutter to make the bear bread and added candy eyes and a chocolate covered sunflower seed for his face. The eyes contain a small amount of food color but my son does not eat them so this is still safe for him!