Toby - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself!

Meet TOBY, the star of Hazel Mitchell's new heartwarming book about a boy, a rescue dog and the challenges to grow into a family. The book is based on the author's own experience of rescuing her dog Toby.

We made a lovable lunch to match:

• grapes with Toby's name (although never feed your dog grapes!)
• ham with a (dog) friend
• cucumber and carrot hearts representing the love between Toby and the boy
• animal crackers for the other shelter dogs waiting to be adopted
• and a Toby cream cheese sandwich

Salad Pie - a Literary Lunch

There is nothing better than finding the playground empty and having it all to yourself. Maggie is overjoyed. Everything is perfect for making Salad Pie. That is until Herbert arrives. Herbert wants to help make Salad Pie. But can Maggie make room for him in her game?

I love SALAD PIE written by Wendy BooydeGraaff and illustrated by Bryan Langdo because I can remember making mud pies and salad pies when I was little. My daughter likes making salad soups in the backyard and the concept of this book is just a reminder of growing up. But besides salad pie this book is also about friendship. Maggie is not thrilled at first when Herbert wants to join. But little by little she realizes that two cooks make a fantastic Salad Pie.

We made our own Salad Pie in our Three-in-One ECOlunchbox:

• about 19 spinach leaves
• 6 snow peas
• 2 "crab apple" radishes
• 2 radish halves
• 11 blueberries
• 9 roasted chick peas and
• 3 cracker "sticks"

What I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

Night Owl and Early Bird - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself! 

Meet Early Bird and Night Owl, the wonderful stars of Toni Yuly's books. Early Bird likes to get up early and Night Owl loves to stay up late. Both books are beautifully illustrated with bright colors and clean shapes.

Early Bird tells the story of the search for breakfast early in the morning while emphasizing action words.

Night Owl, on the other side, emphasizes sound words and listening skills while telling the tales of one owl at night. No matter if your little one is an early Bird or Night Owl, they will surely enjoy these books!

Lunch for both early birds and night owls everywhere is packed in our ECOlunchbox:

• Night Owl's lunch includes blueberries and a peanut butter and almond Night Owl sandwich
• Early Bird's lunch includes blueberries as well (it has to be fair), a raspberry jelly Early Bird sandwich and of course an Early (Gummy) Worm

You can find the lunchbox and Toni Yuly's books on Amazon (contains affiliate links):

Henny - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interview with Mr. Pig himself!

Meet Henny. She is an average chicken. Well, almost. There is one tiny little thing different about Henny. 

Have you spotted it yet?

I have made it easier for you by putting our Literary Lunch on a baby chick paper. Anything you can see? Well,..., Henny was born with arms. There it is! Which is pretty unusual for a chicken. But, Henny likes being different. And she can do lots of fun things with her arms that other chickens can't. Like eating little bugs with chop sticks...

My kids loved this book and this was their favorite page so I used it for our Literary Lunch inspiration! They could not stop imagining all the other things Henny would be able to do with arms. We had so much fun imagining all the neat and silly things she would be able to do. 

We packed our ECOlunchbox with an egg-cellent lunch chock full of:

• Fruit Booty Corn Puff Worms to eat with chop sticks 
• A Henny sunflower seed sandwich with cheese, seaweed and carrot pieces
• An egg (very important part of the book. But, I can't give away everything now, can I?)
• And some spinach leaves to keep those arms strong underneath all the yummy food

If you want to see what I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

HOW TO PACK A BENTO BOX {with picture tutorial}

I have gotten lots of questions on HOW TO PACK A BENTO BOX so everything actually looks as cute as it was when you packed it. So I decided to show you how I packed my Moose bento box from the previous Literary Lunch post: Duck, Duck, Moose! Instructions on how to make the Moose sandwich can be found in that post as well!

1.) Get all your bento box ingredients ready.

• the sandwich (how-to instructions HERE) 
• fruit or vegetables, washed and ready to use
• crackers, nuts or any other smaller foods that can fill the empty spaces of the bento

2.) Place the sandwich first.

Since the sandwich was the biggest part of this lunch I placed the sandwich carefully first (the blueberries are glued on with peanut butter and the nose and nostrils are "glued' with peanut butter as well so I know those parts won't move (more DETAILS here).

3.) Place the rest of the lunch items to fill the spaces around the sandwich.

I started with the crackers on one side...

...and added the fruit to the other side to separate the two foods and prevent the crackers from getting soggy.

Then I filled the spaces between the antlers with almonds.

Lastly, I added a sprinkle smile to the sandwich and used honey to make them stick to the sandwich.

All you need now is a lid and a hungry child :)

ECOlunchbox Tri Bento Accessories Review

I mostly pack lunches for the kids but I usually also pack for my husband and me. It helps greatly with portion control for me - especially when at home - where snacks seem to be readily available all the time. I am a typical on-the-go Mom and I love having a healthy packed lunch I can grab to-go or simply eat at home depending on what my day looks like. That is why I was very excited when ECOlunchbox agreed to send me their Tri Bento Bag and spork to review that matches our new Tri Bento lunch box! {you can find my Tri Bento Review HERE} Now I can carry my own lunch in this beautiful Ecolunchbox bag!

And this is what I packed for lunch today:

• Tier 1 has a pasta salad with left over spaghetti, feta cheese, corn, tomatoes and a simple homemade vinagrette
• Tier 2 has carrots, lightly buttered toast and a mandarin orange and
• Tier 3 has a German Gingerbread cookie, almonds and a chocolate snowman

The bag - aren't the colors just beautiful? - is made out of colorful cotton and sewn out of artisian handmade textiles. Ecolunchboxes offers 6 beautiful color combinations. I love that the cotton is fair trade sourced and did I mention the colors? 

The bag is about  8 1/2 inches tall and the base is 6 inches in diameter.

It fits the Tri Bento perfectly with room for a cloth napkin, spork and a piece of fruit or small snack container. 

I am in love with this bag to say the least and happy that it is both machine washable and able to go in the dryer. I am after all a Mom of 4 and I honestly wash very little things by hand. 

The ECOstainless spork is a great accessory! I love the versatility of having both a spoon and fork and it is very easy to eat with (and dishwasher safe!). I love the stainless look ( it is made with 18/10 stainless steel) and compact size (it measures about 3 1/4 inches) which makes it easy to tuck into the Tri Bento bag, purse, lunchbox, or glove box (for those times you actually forgot your utensil and have the choice to eat your salad with your fingers or run to the car and grab your spare ECOstainless spork :)

{Please excuse the smeary look on the spork. It is very hard to photograph without being reflected in the spork so I blurred it a little. It is however shiny and beautiful!}

(image courtesy of ecolunchboxes.com)

I like both items and they compliment the Tri Bento perfectly. Plus, if you purchase both the Tri Bento and bag together from ECOlunchboxes.com the bag is only $5! A great deal in my opinion! Plus, this spork rocks!

Little Red Writing - a Literary Lunch

Do you love the story of Little Red Riding Hood? Well, then you will absolutely adore this hilarious retelling of the original story by Joan Holub and Melissa Sweet: Little Red Writing!

Acclaimed writer Joan Holub and Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet team up in this hilarious and exuberant retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, in which a brave, little red pencil finds her way through the many perils of writing a story, faces a ravenous pencil sharpener (the Wolf 3000)... and saves the day. - Amazon.com

We packed a picnic lunch worth taking through the literary forest in our new Tri Bento from ECOlunchboxes (I only packed food in two of the layers, the third layer contained a smoothie pouch):

• cucumber trees
• wild strawberries
• yogurt raisin mushrooms
• mini leaf shaped peanut butter sandwiches decorated with cheese words
• a Little Red Writing cream cheese sandwich with fresh strawberries and cheese and nori features
• a salad, carrot and cucumber forest

Little Red Writing on her way through the Literary Forest. 

And I had some trouble keeping the food in the lunch box until lunch ;) Someone thought they could snatch a strawberry or two while I was distracted trying to get a good picture! Of course the owner of the little hand got some strawberries after the pictures. 

Now head over to The Little Crooked Cottage for an exclusive Mr. Pig LIVE! interview with Little Red Writing and to see my lunch over there!

Things I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

ECOlunchbox Tri Bento Review and GIVEAWAY

ECOlunchboxes added a new bento box to their collection: The Tri Bento. I am excited to review it and I am also hosting a giveaway so stay tuned until the end of the post! 

The Tri Bento ECOlunchbox is made of food-grade Stainless Steel 205. It is made in India in a family-owned factory ECOlunchboxes has worked with since it's beginning. Therefore the Tri Bento is plastic-free, lead-free, BPA-free, phthalate-free and waste-free!

I immediately liked the tiffin style of the lunchbox! It reminded me of lunch containers used in India and the old fashioned metal lunch containers used in the 50's. However with a lot more beauty and style!

The Tri Bento is a larger lunch box .Each layer holds about 1 1/2 cups for a total capacity of about 4 3/4 cups of food. The larger size of this container makes it appropriate for either adults or children who like to pack a larger lunch.

The only issue I had was that my kids could not easily open the Tri Bento. However, the clips can be adjusted to desired stiffness. For very small children, the clips may be loosened using pliers. Adults may prefer clips very snug. For more information about how to adjust the clips, visit the ECOlunchboxes FAQ page. This is a great tip as well if you have other ECOLunchboxes with clips.

After adjusting the clips to make them slightly looser.

Success! My 4 year old was able to open the box by herself after I adjusted the clips. 

Our first Tri Bento lunch was packed for my preschooler to show you that this would even work for smaller kids (it held enough for lunch and a snack):

• cucumber trees, carrots and cucumber flowers
• a snack layer with grapes, crackers and cheese
• as well as a round Nutella sandwich

And how does it all stack up?

We packed and layered as following: 

1. the sandwich
2. the veggies
3. the snack
4. the packed lunchbox

Our Pros:

• elegant tiffin style lunch box
• big capacity and therefore versatile (for adults and kids)
• clips are kid tested and can be adjusted. Pinch safe!
• plastic-free, lead-free, BPA-free, phthalate-free and waste-free
• highly durable
• dishwasher safe

Things to think about:

• The lunchbox is definitely on the bigger side but that also means that with a few dividers and silicone cups you can pack for a smaller appetite and the lunchbox grows with your child.
• The Tri Bento is not leak proof! All runny ingredients like applesauce and yogurt have to be packed separately.
• The lunchbox does not fit into all standard lunch bags. However, ECOlunchboxes offers a matching lunch bag which if purchased as a set is only $5 more and they come in beautiful color combinations:

Would you love to win a Tri Bento ECOlunchbox? Enter my giveaway here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Open only to US Residents. Winner will be notified via email and has 24 h to claim their prize before a new winner is drawn.

Disclaimer: ECOlunchboxes sent me the Tri Bento to review. However, I was not compensated for this post and all opinions are my own!