Friday, September 20, 2013

Week 2 of Healthy School Lunches (with recipes!)

 
I've gone two weeks of my son being in first grade without a single tardy and with armed with healthy homemade lunches. This is huge for me. I'm leaps and bounds over last year.
 
One thing that really have helped me on the lunch front? Freezing stuff. No words on how easy it is to grab some frozen peppers or broccoli or whatever, add it to the lunch box, and have it thaw nice and crisp in time for lunch. Plus so much less waste. Also,  freezing greek yogurt in fun molds has totally stepped up the lunch ante for Narls.
 
 
Last week I shared our first week of homemade lunches, and now here is this week's. 
 
Monday:
dried apples & mangos, green grapes, granola bar, veggie tortilla pizza, strawberry greek yogurt
 

Tuesday:
red pepper, turkey dog & mozz/cheddar cheese kabobs, pretzels, cantaloupe
 

Wednesday:
a homemade whole wheat waffle with pure maple syrup, watermelon chunks, and vanilla animal cookies
 

Thursday:
frozen yogurt lightning bolts, turkey & cheese sandwich on whole wheat, broccoli & dip, cutie orange slices, and honey cheerios
 

Friday:
nacho day (after my boy was devastated to miss his school's hot lunch nacho day): multigrain tortilla chips with queso cheese dip and organic salsa, chocolate rice crisps, and strawberries.
 
Here are the recipe cards. Download the image to get the full size suitable for printing.
 







6 comments:

  1. That looks like a lot of food for a child, does he eat all of it?

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    1. Most of the time, yes. Both he and Em are big eaters; always have been. And luckily everything is compartmentalized with lids within the box, so if he doesn't eat everything at lunch then he's able to put the lid back on and either grab it for an afternoon snack at school or he'll eat it at home later in the day while dinner is cooking. Plus I'm kind of playing it by ear with these early recipes; if I need to, I make notes on the recipe card of any adjustments for next month :)

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  2. I'm still LOVING these. Boomer has been really receptive to looking at your pictures and telling me what she'd like to try. Thanks!

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  3. Does Narls seem to enjoy the food that is typically warm when it is cold? I would love to send Amelia some of these options, but she just doesn't really handle "warm" food when it is cold. :(

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    1. For the most part, yes. The only thing I've encountered that he hasn't really cared for cold was the quesadilla from last week; he mentioned at home later that day that quesadillas are supposed to be warm. But he ate the pizza from this week cold without complaint and they're both tortilla-based so I think it's more mental than taste. Today I packed him frozen veggies- a corn, pea, carrot mix which I figured would be dethawed by lunch- and I'm curious to see how he's going to like that. I've been doing a lot of lunch trial runs on the weekend too - in the lunch box even, and that's helped some too.

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