101025 Monday: The honeymoon may be over....

When Gretta asked to make her own lunch for Friday morning, I didn't object, because she was staying over with her grandparents, and we both knew Grandma was going to edit and supplement her choices. 

But this morning, when she asked again to make her own lunch, I got to do the editing.

Here's the 'before' version:

Gretta's version:  Two boxes with two rolls each, smaller box with potato chips

It seemed a bit light on... everything but starch...  We edited and supplemented it together.  I have a feeling my lunch-making days are numbered, though.  Gretta would like more gastronomic autonomy.  Meanwhile, Hannah, Gretta's 14 year old sister, has asked me to start making her lunch to save her time in the morning.

At first I jumped at the idea, but now I'm not much enthused, as this request came with a long list of instructions and forbidden foods.  ("Nothing too healthy, or weird. Nothing I wouldn't like.  Can you put two cups' worth of hot cocoa mix in everyday?")  I doubt I'm going to be starting another blog called "Hannah's Lunch" anytime soon!

Here's Gretta's lunch, the 'after' version:

Left: potato chips and cheese stick, red peppers in flower shapes, green pimento-stuffed olives

Right:  salad with dressing in Winnie's head

Bottom: two rolls, green grapes

101021 Thursday

Left: salad with dressing in Winnie's head

Right: cheese sandwich cut to look like Winnie's head, with raisin eyes

Bottom: (banana), red grapes, pretzles

101020 Wednesday

Left:  red grapes, carrots, bow-tie pasta

Right:  (store-bought) bagel with cheddar cheese, dried cranberries, cherries, and yellow raisins, pretzels

Bottom: salad with dressing in Winnie's head

101019 Tuesday

(There was nothing posted yesterday because Gretta stayed home with a cold Monday, and made her own lunch.)

Left:  chocolate strudel, tuna salad, red grapes

Right:  pizza

Bottom:  red cherry tomatoes, raisins, rice with duck sauce in Hello Kitty's head and a rainbow of pepper slices

101015 Friday

Left: salad with dressing in Winnie th' Pooh's head, cheese bits with lime green frog toothpick, Melba toast rounds

Right: maraschino cherries with toothpicks Gretta selected:  the letter 'G' and two hats, raisins, basmati rice with duck sauce in another Winnie th' Pooh head, basil leaves

Bottom:  various animal-shaped pieces of cantaloupe with black sesame-seed eyes

101014 Thursday, parshat Lech Lecha

Left: pretzels, yellow raisins with dried cranberries and cherries, fortune cookie

Right:  salad with dressing in the monkey's head

Bottom: (cheese letters spelling this weeks' parsha name, which go on top of the pretzels (see below) when packed, angel hair spaghetti with tomato sauce and basil leaves

101013 Wednesday, Parshat Lech Lecha

Left:  white rice with croutons in a used teabag*, a packet of duck sauce, and dried cranberries in the green silicone star-shaped mini-cup, steamed broccoli with shreds of carrot, cherry tomatoes and black olives  

Right:  lettuce and dressing in Winnie th' Pooh's head, dates, heart-shaped banana muffin (made from Fannie Farmer Baking Book's Kona Inn banana bread recipe minus the nuts, with raisins)

Bottom:  Camel-shaped cheese sandwich with cheese, carrot, and cranberry accents, standing on a cheese stick.  (Camels feature in this week's Torah portion heavily - Rivka gave them water to drink, passing Eliezer's litmus test for kindness, and later she fell off her camel when she first saw Yitzchak.)

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*  The Matcha tea I like comes in fabric bags.  I cut them open, empty and rinse them for re-use.  They make perfect quasi-disposable dried condiment carriers.

101012 Tuesday

Left: salad with dressing in Hello Kitty's head

Right: cheese blintzes, carrots and pea pods, prunes, zucchini kugel

Bottom: Spanish rice, tuna in the blue star-shaped silicone cup, leaves from our basil plants, two cheese/potato pierogies with faces made from black olives, corn, and red pepper

101008 Friday, rosh chodesh Cheshvan, parshat Noach

Left: rice with rainbow sprinkles and a packet of duck sauce, cherry tomatoes, dates

Right: carrots, flower-shaped pepper pieces, pretzels

Bottom: pita bread, soy "bologna", green pepper flower, cheese message

101007 Thursday: Parshat Noach - Migdal Bavel - Tower of Babel

Left:  Mandarin orange slices with blue elephant pick, dried cranberries, angel hair pasta with tomato sauce and flowering sprig of basil from one of our plants

Right:  bear-shaped silicone cup with Irish oatmeal sprinkled with colored sugar to make a rainbow, cheddar cheese cut into cubes with yellow flower pick, Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal

Bottom:  (supposed to look like Migdal Bavel/The Tower of Babel, reaching into the clouds from the ground) tea cracker tower with marshmallow fluff clouds (protected by a bit of cling wrap), green pepper "grass" and yellow, red, and orange pepper flowers, with "windows" made from bits of cheese attached by a smudge of fluff

101006 Wednesday, parshat Noach ("parshat keshet")

Left: carrots and salad dressing in Hello Kitty container, dates, red grapes

Right: pizza and a cheese stick

Bottom: salad "flood waters" with bread cut into an ark shape, pepper rainbow, cheese "dove" with basil as the olive branch and a black sesame seed eye (held together with cream cheese) and pairs of animal crackers (still munching our way through the yom kippur break-the-fast cookie avalanche)

Here are some more Noah-themed menu items.

101005 Tuesday

Left: veggie "buffalo wings", Pritkin fish stick, Hello Kitty container with ketchup, pickles

Right: curried chickpeas with basmati rice, Roma tomatoes, green grapes

Bottom: salad with dressing in the egg-shaped container, cheese stick

101004 Monday

Left: bagel (made yesterday by my husband)* and cream cheese, pretzels

Right: apple slices, cherry tomatoes, animal cookies

Bottom: sesame noodles, pepper cut as flowers, pickles


* We have a Sunday bagel and pizza routine that works well for us:

Once every couple of months, during the week, when there is time, I measure out dry ingredients for pizza and bagel dough, and store them in half-gallon Mason jars. These have labels with the instructions for adding wet ingredients and settings on the bread machines.

When he wakes up on Sunday morning (around 6 a.m.) my husband dumps the dry ingredients and adds the wet ingredients (just water and oil) and sets the bread maker to the dough cycle.

By the time he finishes his early Sunday activities (around 8 a.m.) the dough is ready. He heats the oven and sets a large pot of water to boil. While the water is heating, he forms the bagel dough into shapes and lets them rise. By the time the water boils, the shaped bagel dough has risen, and he's ready to start.

We are usually able to eat them before 9 a.m., with minimal mess or clean-up.