Lunch for the Man: Wrap Up Some Leftovers

Sailor Boy's working extra long days this week so he's getting supper much later than the rest of the family. Yesterday I made spaghetti for the sproutlets' supper, then later used the leftover spaghetti sauce to make Sailor Boy a smallish lasagna in a loaf pan. Since I didn't make a full size pan, I ended up with some chopped spinach & ricotta cheese leftovers, but not enough to make another lasagna, so today I wrapped them up for his lunch:

The wraps are tortillas spread with the leftover ricotta & layered with the spinach, some smoked turkey & sharp cheddar, rolled up. I put a Mackintosh's toffee in the centre section of the PlanetBox Rover & it's red & green wrapper seems to have influenced what I chose to pack for his fruit & veggie sides - he has kiwi chunks & raspberries with a red heart fork pick, & cucumber chunks & grape tomatoes with a red pick that says "bite me" :)

Even the Lunchbox Love note I chose is red on one side & green on the other, heheh. When I noticed how festive his lunch was looking I wrapped his fork in a Star Wars print cloth napkin to make it a little less Christmassy :)

Sailor Boy has never beaten me at Scrabble so I had a giggle over the fun fact on the Lunchbox Love note - maybe it will come in handy some day :

First Day of Fall Lunch in PlanetBox

Happy Fall! I have been feeding the sproutlets, just been too busy to blog :) Here's Bella's First Day of Fall lunch from Tuesday last week!

She has pepperoni bites with a maple leaf pick, apple wedges, caramel dip in a Snoopy cup, cucumber slices with an oak leaf pick, a Babybel cheese with Fall carved into the wax, a few Fig newtons, & a Dark Chocolate Caramel Macchiato Balance Bar, packed in her PlanetBox Rover.  Her cloth napkin has a Snoopy & Woodtstock playing in the Fall leaves print :)

Doctor Who Starry Night PlanetBoxes

One of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who is Series 5's Vincent and the Doctor, in which the Eleventh Doctor & Amy spend time with Vincent Van Gogh. I'll not give any spoilers about the episode in case you haven't seen it yet, I'll just tell you that every time I watch it I get a serious case of the feels. Bella loves it too, so she loved this Van Gogh-inspired PlanetBox:

Bella's PlanetBox Rover contains:

• Cucumber & cantaloupe stars
• Chocolate sprinkle-topped oatmeal muffin sunflower 
• Green grapes on the vine
• Cheddar tortilla swirls on swirly picks
• Babybel cheese carved with a really lame DW logo ;)
• Spiced sunflower seeds
• Starry Night cloth napkin from Beneficial-Bento
• Happy little fork - for the stars
• & a Lunchbox Love note

Before closing the lid, I folded the Van Gogh print napkin under the Little Dipper, turned the Babybel over, placed the Lunchbox Love note over the sunflower muffin, & challenged Bella to guess the theme of her lunch. 

Not only did she guess correctly, she also recognized my terrible logo carving :) Pickle, on the other hand, did not get his. I didn't really expect him to - he doesn't truly watch the show, he just watches it here & there when someone else is, because it's on. He did ask me for a Doctor Who lunch not long ago though so I didn't want to make Bella one and leave him out - and once I explained it to him he got it, and seemed to like it :

Pickle's PlanetBox Shuttle contains:

• Mozzarella cheese stick bites with a bow tie pick
• Yogurt with star sprinkles & blue sugar swirls
• Peanut butter sandwich sunflowers with chocolate sprinkles
• A Van Gogh's  Starry Night cloth napkin from Beneficial-Bento
• A happy little spoon for the yogurt
• & a Lunchbox Love note ♥

The sproutlets & I all loved the Eleventh Doctor, but that doesn't mean we aren't looking forward to getting to know the Twelfth! And we don't have to wait much longer, Series 8 begins tomorrow :)  A new season of Doctor Who is an excellent reason for the bento bloggers of Edible Geekery to do a blog hop, so we are! Click the TARDIS button to be taken to Loving Lunches!

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My Bento Packing Secret!

I've often been asked variations of this question: "Doesn't everything just get all messed up / spill out / fall to the bottom when you turn the lunchbox sideways to carry it?" The answer is, not usually. Either I fill the container so there's no "wiggle room", or I use one of our handy-dandy multi-purpose reusable cloth napkins to fill the empty space :) I'll show you...

Here's one of my favourite fun bentos - I love the gummy worm in the apple-shaped sandwich. But it's not tightly packed, so yes, if I just turned it on it's side like this, the ABC biscuits  & the gummy worm probably would fall to the bottom and spoil the effect when Sprout opened her lunch...

No worries - I used her cloth napkin, folded over 3 times for the thickness I needed, to fill the space and keep things from shifting:

With the napkin holding everything in place, I can turn it sideways, the way it will be carried in the lunchbox and nothing moves. Well, not much. There was some minor shifting of the small plastic apple cups, but no spillage :) Yay!

So that's it, that's my bento packing secret! Nothing exciting, just a useful tip ;) 

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We have lots of cloth napkins in many colourful prints! They not only help keep the lunch trash-free, they make it more fun! Here are some of them:

from Beneficial Bento

from Red Poppy Crafts

A Pirate Lunch for my Treasured Girl

I'm so proud of my Bella! She does her best to help me out around the house, and with her little sisters, and she tries her best at school too. She even won an award at school last week! So today she has a treat for lunch, one of our treasured Iced Gingerbread Clif bars :) I'm not kidding - they're a seasonal flavour, and a favourite of hers, and we don't have many left!

Bella's Pirate Treasure lunch is packed in one of our new purple-lidded EasyLunchboxes Brights.  She has English cucumber slices, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes,  a Fig Newton & Oreo, & the Gingerbread Clif bar treasure :) I also tucked in a pirate map cloth napkin, & a Lunchbox Love note to thank her for her help & let her know I treasure her! ♥

Today's lunch is linked up to Bento for Kidlet's Meatless Monday!

Stuff used for this lunch:

Edible Geekery : A Star Trek Lunch is Cool For School!

Beanstalk went off to school with a cool space themed PlanetBox lunch. He has beef jerky in the Little Dipper, fruit leather, a satsuma orange, space shape Goldfish crackers, little chocolate covered "asteroids" for a treat, & a Star Trek phaser peanut butter sandwich surrounded by mini starburst sandwiches:

I've been itching to use these new Star Trek cutters from ThinkGeek!

They're actually cookie cutters, but I'm no baker, I'll be using them for sandwiches :) I'll have to get creative with using the scraps though, they aren't the ideal size for bread... I asked Beanstalk which one he wanted today and he chose the phaser, which leaves the most bread behind, so I made the stars.

I usually include a cloth napkin with lunch, placed over the sandwich cut-outs. It keeps them from shifting, and keeps the crumbs from migrating too :) I did that after I snapped the pic. And the Horizon chocolate milk box went in the pocket of the PlanetBox Rover bag, with a little ice pack that you can't see :

The PlanetBox Rover is just his size & style. And off he goes!

Johnny Appleseed Day Bento

Today, some say, is Johnny Appleseed Day.  Beanstalk wanted to buy lunch at school, Pickle wanted a peanut butter pizza sandwich (it's not what you think) and Sprout & Birdie are both home today (I'll make them apple-themed muffin tin meals later), but Bella said "yes, please" to an apple bento :)

Bella's apple-icious Laptop Lunches bento box contains:

• Gala apple wedges with a caramel dip
• Fig Newtons skewered with an apple cupcake pick
• A few pieces of caramel apple candy corn
• Apple shaped peanut butter sandwiches - the tiny ones were made with the apple shape from a Fall themed mini cookie cutter set that was a gift from Kat of Obento Momma - so cute and they used up all the bread :)
• A few fruit snacks in a little apple cup 
• Cucumber spears topped with one apple shaped cucumber slice
• For snack, an Enjoy Life Caramel Apple bar

Here's everything all packed. Her cute owl print cloth napkin from The Red Poppy cushions her sandwiches and keeps the fruit snacks from falling out. And a LunchBox Love note reminds her of how proud I am of her :)

Click the apple for more bento goodness:

After you read the rest of my post, of course :)

Here's Pickle's peanut butter pizza sandwich :)

Told you it wasn't what you were thinking!

And for my Sailor Boy, leftover ginger teriyaki chicken, bacon horseradish deviled eggs nestled in a garden salad, a satsuma orange, and a Gouda Babybel cheese with a heart shape cut from the wax and stuck on top of the orange, packed in his personal favourite container, EasyLunchboxes.

 I remembered the dressing this time! He got Mandarin Orange Sesame packed in an EasyLunchboxes Mini-Dipper. And a Light My Fire spork :)

Stuff used for these lunches:

Pretty PlanetBox & Spidey LunchBot

My bigger sproutlets love our stainless steel containers - I think they feel really grown-up having metal lunchboxes :) Metal lunchboxes are cool!

Bella has a pretty PlanetBox Launch, packed with apple wedges & a dip cup of caramel, a TimBit donut hole with a daisy pick, an EasyLunchboxes Mini Dipper full of Craisins, celery & carrots surrounding a flower muffin cup full of grapes, and a flower-shaped peanut butter sandwich. Tucked under the sandwich is a colorful owl print cloth napkin from The Red Poppy on Etsy.

Beanstalk has a Spider-man LunchBots Quad, packed with gummy fruit snacks, beef jerky, red grapes, and Spider-Man graham crackers. I stuck a spider cupcake ring in with his grapes expecting him to say it was too cute for middle school, but he said it could stay :) His cloth napkin, also from The Red Poppy, has a Marvel hero print. He has blueberry pomegranate juice to drink in the bottle in the background.

Containers used to pack these lunches: