4 Resources for Lunch Inspiration

I tell everyone how crazy busy I am, while that's true. I really love taking the time out of my day to fix the kids lunches, even though they are homeschooled. Our children are all over the place with different schedules and different levels of school. I'm grateful to have this time to hopefully convey that I love them so much with food.


“A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.”  ― Aldous Huxley

When Pinterest was just starting out (back when you had to be sent an invite from someone you knew who was a member) that is when I learned about making fun "bento" type lunches. I knew then that if I ever had children I was going to at least attempt to make a few lunches like this. However, it is now something I do weekly, if not daily. I love it so much!

BentOnBetterLunches



In the top left, he has a satsuma orange, and in the top right, Gala apple slices. In the main section, cheese quesadillas on a bed of romaine lettuce, carrot, & cucumber salad. And in the Mini Dipper, a chocolatey peanut butter yogurt dip for the apples. Oh, almost forgot - in the little Squinkies ball, a couple of fruit snacks.

While she no longer blogs, or she hasn't blogged on this website in over a year I still return to her blog for inspiration of how to make leftovers look cute! It's amazing how to take something so simple and make it so amazingly fun. This was the blog that started this for me, and still remains my favorite!

BentoLunch.net



In this lunch, we have two ham and cheese elf sandwiches on whole wheat bread, cut with one of my elf stamp cookie cutters. Since the elves do need shelves, they are sitting on granola bar shelves. Up above, we have some grapes and a Cutie orange, decorated with assorted Christmas picks...

Same theme as the first blog. This one is still active, but not as creative with meals. But still interesting just enough. I do love this idea for this kind of holiday themed lunch!

Wendolonia



I found these grody a severed finger candies at the craft store a couple weeks ago, so I used those as a jumping off point and went with a death and body parts theme in this PlanetBox* lunch. The pièce de rĂ©sistance in this lunch is one of those same fingers with a bloody (cookie) butcher knife next to it on a bed of apple slices. (The blood is a bit of red gel icing that I squirted on the candies.) Blech! So gross! I also included skull and bone ham sandwiches on a blood red napkin. Shocking! Grape tomatoes stand in for bloody eyeballs with an eyeball pick to enhance the idea. And finally I added some black bean dip earth with tortilla chip grave stones for dipping.  I made the grave stones by cutting tortillas, spraying them with a little oil and sprinkling with chili powder and baking them at 350 for about 15 minutes...

Ok her blog is still active and is so good! She uses leftovers. She has kids that are way different in age, which is great because so do I. Plus, she just gets so creative. I love making the extra effort like she does for lunches!

Happy Little Bento



...I'm not expert with the egg white zigzag cut, especially when the yolk is so close. I'm told if you want the yolk to be perfectly centered, you must constantly roll the egg during boiling. Um, okay; that's why mine will have to be off-centered. The trick is to use a small blade and work with a light touch, but you can see that I punctured the yolk a few times. No matter, TS was still thrilled to see this duo! I'm so happy I've been able to use my supercute wings picks so much this past week. Here, the mama is flapping her wings in happiness over her hatchling chick's appearance. Aww! There's also miso butterfish (method and recipe here), roasted kabocha (tossed with parmesan) and brussels sprouts. Yes, I've taken to tossing all kinds of vegetables with parmesan, and you know what? It suddenly makes them a lot more desirable to the kiddos. The rest of the bento contains ripe strawberries, blueberries and grapes...

This one is the most with the tradition bento lunches. She also does reviews of lunch containers as well. It's fascinating to see different methods, and learning the real way of a bento lunch. Granted, that these are not traditional bento lunches, but they are closer than the others.

And there you have it! My favorite lunch inspiration for the lunches I make my children. Do you make lunches for your children? Do you like the touch of creativity to kids lunches?

No comments