Easy Lunchboxes Mini Dippers!!!

I had a plan for sandwiches tomorrow but when I was asking the girls what they wanted for their vegetable, they both were all about salads.  Molly then suggested that they have big salads for lunch.  Luckily, we just got our shipment of the new Mini Dippers by Easy Lunchboxes.  They are perfect for a lunch like this.  The only difference between the two lunches is the dressing choices.  They agree about most things but are completely different when it comes to condiments.

Our main entree/vegetable is a salad with black olives, mozzarella and salami.  One of their Mini Dippers has their dressing of choice (Ranch and Italian) and the other has some cottage cheese.  We were trying to increase their protein by adding the cottage cheese.

Our fruit side is a mix of berries.  The berries aren't quite as sweet as they were at the beginning of the summer but they are still really tasty.  We have strawberries, blueberries and black berries.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is Chobani Champions Vanilla Orange Greek yogurt.  We put a few little heart sprinkles on top to dress it up.

Tomorrow is the color black day in Bean's Kindergarten class, so we decided to make her snack blackberries.  We put a few little black and white animal picks in for fun.

Something New

Our local grocery store intrigued me today by offering new and exotic fruits.  I had seen some of them before and some, I hadn't.  Most of these were pretty expensive and if I'm going to dip deep into my budget, I want to make sure that I at least like it.  We went for the least expensive variety of "fruit" so that we could all try it without breaking the bank.

Our main entree is mini-ravioli pasta salad.  We cooked up a bunch of Trader Joe's dried mini cheese ravioli for dinner and saved some for Molly's lunch.  We added black olives, light shredded mozzarella, turkey pepperoni and light Italian dressing.

Our vegetable side is a garden salad.  Molly loves black olives so we added a few extra to her salad.  On the side is more of her favorite light Italian dressing.  We figured it would go nicely with the pasta salad.  We added a Babybel cheese on top for extra protein.

Our fruit side is our "something new".  We decided on a pepino melon.  These originate mostly in South America and are really neat looking.  The pepino melon is small, like a large lemon and the skin is a pale yellow with dark purple stripes.  Pepino translates into cucumber and it is a very good translation.  The flavor (minus the skin, which is edible but not very tasty) is a mix between cucumber, pear and banana.  Very interesting.  The texture is soft, like a cantaloupe so it was easy to cut with our crinkle knife.  We're excited to see what Molly's verdict it.

Finally, our dessert is unsweetened applesauce.  Molly has been asking for this lately and since the pepino melon isn't all that sweet, we figured that it would be a nice addition to her lunch.

Back to it!

We had the day off today so that means a short week of school.  Yes, a four day week!  But the question is; is it really worth it?  Doesn't it seem like that the four days is crammed with all of the normal things plus whatever was missed on the day off?  It's like a constant game of catch up.  Then, isn't the rest of the week thrown off?  "It feels like Monday" will be heard by the majority of us tomorrow.  But, then again, it was SO nice to have today off.  I got a lot accomplished.  The kids' closets and dressers have been emptied and most of the clothes replaced with fall and winter clothes.  I left a few things in there for the possibility of an Indian Summer day, where it feels like summer in the middle of fall.  All of our Halloween decorations are up and my house is mostly clean by default because while putting up the decorations, I had to clean the places they where were going.  I'm glad that I had this day to get things done but it's back to the old grind tomorrow.

Our main entrée is cheese tortellini with light Italian dressing.  Molly requested this because she says that it is one of her favorite lunches.  We have to agree with her.  There is just something about a filling pasta salad that helps to get you through the day.

We have strawberries for our fruit side.  These little beauties smell incredible.  Strawberries are loaded with vitamin C, so hopefully it will help Molly ward off whatever little cold is going around at her school.

For our vegetable, we've chosen black olives.  Since Molly won't get a ton of protein from her main entrée, she'll more than make up for it with the black olives.  Plus, it will make a nice accompaniment to the pasta because olives go so nicely with Italian Dressing.

Molly's dessert for today's lunch is Trader Joe's Schoolhouse Cookies.  Hopefully they will give her inspiration for her spelling test.

This lunch is a mix of Molly's favorites.  I took inspiration from my grandmother, Nana.  She was the one that got me interested in cookie cutters and because of her, I have quite a collection.  Nana has always been very particular about the way that she presents her food.  She had 8 kids and always made sure that they had beautiful meals every day.  Her traditions are something that I strive to emulate.  

Our main entrée is a Castle Wood Thinly Sliced Honey Ham and Castle Wood Pepper Jack Cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread with a little mustard.  We cut this sandwich with a large heart cookie cutter and several micro cookie cutters, just for fun.  Molly raved about this ham and requested a ham sandwich.  We all agree, the ham is pretty darn yummy and has only 60 calories for 2 oz.  

The vegetable side is a pretty unconventional "vegetable" but they are both favorites of Molly's.  We have mini dill pickles and black olives.  Every time we go to my grandmother's house for lunch she serves pickles and olives on a relish tray to go with sandwiches.  So, we are taking Nana's lead and and serving them as a compliment to Molly's sandwich.  

We have Trader Joe's no sugar added applesauce for our fruit.  We topped it with a little dash of cinnamon, just like Nana does.  We find that it enhances the flavor of the applesauce, especially since there is no sugar added.

Finally we have a special dessert.  We made a Cinnamon Muffin Melt by Tastefully Simple.  This is like a cross between a cupcake, a doughnut and a muffin.  We HIGHLY recommend these because not only are they absolutely scrumptious, they are incredibly easy to make.