2 Different Lunches

There are days when the girls are so happy to have the same thing and then there are days when they don't exactly agree on the menu.  Today, we are doing a repeat for Molly and something different for Bean.

Molly enjoyed today's lunch so much that she requested more/bigger pieces of our Healthy Banana Bread with whipped cream cheese sandwiches for her main entree.

Her veggies are cucumber slices.

We mixed blueberries and prune plums for her fruit.

Finally, her dairy side is a Babybel with a little bear cut out of it.

Bean's main entree is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  We used one of our new Lunch Punches to cut out a fun little cupcake and then we used our food safe markers to decorate it. There are a few rainbow goldfish swimming around her sandwich in case she is still hungry.

Her veggie side is cucumber slices, just like Molly.

The fruit mix for Bean is prune plums and strawberries.

Finally, her dairy side is a Babybel with a little heart cut out of it.

Tomorrow is blue day in Bean's Kindergarten class so we skewered some blueberries and added an Archer Farms blueberry and pomegranate 100% real fruit bites.

Pizza Lunch

This summer, Molly's Grammy and Papa had a pool put in their back yard.  It is gorgeous!  The weather today was so nice that Grammy called up to see if we wanted to visit her for a swim after school...and that's exactly what we did.  All three kids were in their glory and enjoyed every minute of it.  Also, all three of them ate huge dinners afterward since they had been swimming so hard.  By the time we got home, they were all ready for bed and now it's time for Mommy and Daddy to get things ready for tomorrow.

Our main entree is a pepperoni pizza.  We usually do this on a Monday but since we had the leftovers that Molly liked, we put it off till Tuesday.  We used our favorite Trader Joe's Middle Eastern Flat Bread as our crust, added sauce, mozzarella made from 2% milk and turkey pepperoni, baked it up and sliced it into pieces that would fit into Molly's lunch box.

Our vegetable side is a rainbow of bell peppers.  We talked about these in yesterday's post.  We got them from Joe at the new produce stand down the road from us.  They are very crunchy and sweet.

Our fruit side is a prune plum, also purchased from Joe.  These things are huge.  Their flavor is sweet and tart with tons of juiciness.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is Chobani Champions Honey 'Nana.  Molly requested this because she enjoyed the other one so much today. We think it might keep her fuller as well.

Marvelous Monday

After a very full weekend I barely have the strength to even think about making lunch.  But, I refuse to give Molly a lunch ticket to what a lot of my parent friends call "carb load Monday."  Every Monday, the school serves Papa John's pizza, tossed salad, "vegetable", chilled fruit and a soft pretzel that is the size of Molly's face.  934 calories!  No wonder there is such a high rate of childhood obesity.  I am going to muster up the strength to make something nutritionally sound so that my child will make it through the school day without a lump of dough in her stomach.

Our main entrée is a ham and American cheese sandwich on home made herbed bread.  We bought the Tastefully Simple Bountiful Beer Bread mix a few weeks ago and took one of their many suggestions on how to enhance it by adding their Spinach and Herb Dip Mix.  We highly recommend keeping a few packages of the Bountiful Beer Bread mix in your pantry.  http://www.tastefullysimple.com/  You can order straight from the web site and they'll send it right to your house.  My good friend Shelley Schutzman is a wonderful consultant for Tastefully Simple, so if you are in need of some great products from a great person, look her up.

Our fruit side consists of some yummy prune plums.  Molly and her sister would eat these every day.  They are nice and small with a very sweet flesh.  *Note, these prune plums were lovingly purchased by Molly's Grammy. ☺

Our vegetables are thinly sliced cucumbers and sugar snap peas.  These are both very and crunchy and still juicy.

For dessert, we have some Ginger Cat cookies from Trader Joe's.  Its the beginning of cold and flu season and ginger has almost a dozen antiviral compounds and has been proven to prevent, as well as, treat colds.  We might as well give Molly a leg up and try to prevent her from catching whatever little bug is flying around her school this week.