"Joe and Sparky Go to School" - The perfect Back to School book!

Today's lunch is all about Joe and Sparky! My kids love the "Joe and Sparky" book series by Jamie Michalak. Her books are always funny and sweet. Her new book "Joe and Sparky Go to School" is funny, creative and a great read for all ages! And - of course- the perfect book to read before school starts or even during the year. Absolutely hilarious!

If you haven't read this amazing book yet, here is the description from Amazon:

Sparky the turtle may be cautious, but when the strange vehicle full of noisy short people pulls away from Safari World, he finds himself stuck on the bus’s roof just the same. Luckily his giraffe friend, Joe, is adventurous enough to take a running jump, too! When they arrive at school, they discover that there’s a lot to learn, like the fact that the restroom is full of little magic "ponds," that you’re supposed to count the peas, not eat them, and that the goal of the day seems to be to get a star. But just when Joe fears that he may have to go home starless, Sparky reminds him of all the ways that his loyal friend already shines. Readers will roll over laughing — and find lots to relate to — in this hilarious new adventure.

We packed our Easylunchboxes with a fun Joe and Sparky lunch:

• strawberry hearts because we love Joe and Sparky
• a cheese star on cheese crackers to make sure we get that star
• and of course Joe and Sparky looking out through the broccoli trees. Joe is made out of rice, cheese and nori and Sparky is a turtle pick. The broccoli trees also have a few carrot flowers.

Pandas and Onigiris

My kids love rice and what they consider Onigiri: plain sushi rice wrapped in seaweed. We finally found some Furikake seasoning this week and everybody liked it so now I need to get some Furikake containers for their lunch boxes :)

Our lunch consists of three Onigiri, apples and orange slices, energy bites and seaweed Arare which are Japanese crackers wrapped in seaweed.

For the younger kids I made smaller Onigiri and they packed apples, oranges, energy bites and Arare as well.

The kids loved decorating with our new panda picks and I think they came out very cute :)

My sister asked me the other day for a quick picture tutorial on how to make these very plain Onigiri because she wanted to make some to dip in different sauces and I made this tutorial on my phone - so pardon the light and quality - but I though some of you might like to see it.

Typically, I steam the rice and let it cool until it is only slightly warm. I put about one Tablespoon of rice on a small piece of plastic wrap and either form a ball by kneading the rice or twist the top of the foil until a ball forms. In this tutorial I used some seaweed and a seaweed stamp and made first a round rice ball with face. You can also cut a long strip of seaweed and wrap the rice ball in it to look more like an Onigiri. Beware that the seaweed will "shrink" once it absorbs some of the moisture from the rice so cut the strip a little longer then necessary!

Hope this helps if you are looking to make some very simple rice lunches!