MOMables Monday - Butterfly Cracker Stackers (and a Salad for Mama!)

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These are one of my favorites from my weekly MOMables menu plan subscription. Cracker Stackers are both easy and versatile - with mini cutters, I can make the meat and cheese shaped to fit any theme I want! And they're a great option for that day you're out of bread and haven't gone shopping yet! 

The MOMables subscription service plans out your weekly lunches (and even a few dinner ideas!) with shopping lists and recipes and everything. Right now you can get 30% off your first three months, and/or 25% off the 8-week gluten (and nut)-free menu! (I did both - I got the gluten-free menu plan, plus I subscribe to the regular service.)

Little Z's Butterfly Stackers

Van's GF crackers, dye-free gummy stars, organic white and sharp cheddar, uncured turkey and ham;
organic strawberries, carrots, golden beets, sugar snap peas, purple broccoli

 

This was one of those lunches that took a little bit more time, since the mini butterfly cutter takes more cuts than a larger cutter to use up a slice of cheese or meat. But I think it was totally worth the effort! And I love any excuse to use my silicone butterfly cups. They're kind of big, so don't fit well with a shaped sandwich. But they're perfect for Cracker Stackers!

I tucked the orange cheddar scraps underneath the cheddar butterflies since Z tends to prefer the orange cheese, and after all the meat and white cheddar scraps, Baby had plenty.

Just for fun, I made a little veggie garden, even though I knew Z probably wouldn't eat much of it. She's not very adventurous with her veggies. I cut some organic carrot coins with a flower veggie cutter for the bulk of her vegetable portion, and added a few golden beet butterflies, purple broccoli florets, and an opened sugar snap pea.

The dye-free gummy stars came from Whole Foods. A Lunchbox Love note tucked in on top of her cloth napkin (not shown) helps remind her how special she is to me. (I fold the napkin and fit it in the large compartment - it helps keep everything in place!)

Baby's Butterfly Lunch

Organic cheddar scraps, uncured ham and turkey scraps, Van's GF crackers;
organic raspberries, sugar snap peas, apples

 

Since Baby wouldn't be actually stacking the meat and cheese on her crackers, I gave her the scraps, and just put a few shapes on top. Since Z takes her lunch to start on at snack time and then brings the rest home, the girls sit by each other for lunch and Baby is starting to compare... and complain! Most days I have to point out all the similarities. "Z's ham, Baby's ham. Z's cheese, Baby's cheese. Z's berries, Baby's berries..." etc. I knew there was no danger of Baby seeing Big Sister's gummy stars. Candy almost never makes it home after snack time!

Mama's Butterfly Salad

Salted organic cucumber, salted pistachios, chocolate mint things; organic salad w/lettuce, red savoy cabbage, beets (regular, golden, and Chioggia,) carrots, and purple broccoli; hemp hearts, sunflower seeds, raisins, raspberry vinaigrette

Since I had the butterfly cutter out anyway...

Tools of the Trade

         

Preschool Snacks - April 2013, Week 4

Monday, 4/22/13 through Wednesday, 4/24/13

No snack on Thursday because Z had a dentist appointment and had to miss school.

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Monday

GF tortilla chips, organic sugar snap peas, antioxidant dried fruit blend

The dried fruit mix is in a Fred and Friends Aristocakes crown cup. They're too tall for most things, and I still had to fold the top a little to fit it in.

Tuesday

Kale chips, frozen Stonyfield YoKids tube

Little Z had a field trip to a nearby windmill garden place with her class. Siblings aren't allowed, so I didn't get to go with. If the weather was nice, the kids would be eating snack there, so I sent a disposable "box" so the teachers or chaperones wouldn't have to keep track of and return my reusable box.
I didn't have any of those small raspberry pint boxes, and my 1-lb strawberry clamshells were too big, so I used a thin little clamshell that had contained organic cilantro bought from Trader Joes.

I froze the yogurt tube in the box the night before, so it would be the right shape to fit. I used a paper towel to separate the kale chips from the yogurt tube to help protect them from the moisture of the tube "sweating." And the yogurt would either thaw by snack time, or be thawed enough to enjoy as frozen yogurt.

For the outside of the container, I just cut out a piece of scrap paper and "taped" it on with stickers. I wrote her name on it before sending it with her. The clamshell closed nice and securely, so I didn't bother with a rubberband to help it stay closed. But Z knows to wear the rubber bands home as bracelets so we can use them again!

Wednesday

GF Wellaby's Cheese-Ups, GF frosted corn flakes, kale chips 

Served in a Rilakkuma nesting box.

Tools of the Trade

 

Peace*Love*Bento - Happy Armed Forces Day!

America's National Armed Forces Day is always observed on the third Saturday in May. It's a much cheerier holiday than Memorial Day (also in May,) which honors the men and women who died while serving in the US Armed Forces. I get all weepy just thinking about it. So we'll see if I get a Memorial Day lunch done this year. Probably not, since I'll be out of town at a blogger conference (squee!) that weekend.

We Love Our Troops!

Z's Lunch: Organic strawberries, blackberries, and sugar snap peas; leftover gluten-free pizza, olives, organic white cheddar, homemade gluten-free rhubarb donut chunks

We had gone to a birthday party a Chuck E Cheese so I'd ordered a gluten-free Dominos pizza to bring with us. Well, they wouldn't let me bring it in. Turns out they have gluten-free pizzas there now! And there's no cross-contamination risk because they come sealed from a gluten-free facility and are baked in their wrapper! You even get a sealed plastic pizza cutter for each one! So with the Chuck E Cheese leftovers plus my uneaten Dominos, I had a lot of leftover pizza to go through! MOMables leftover pizza skewers to the rescue!

I used a mini heart cutter on the pizza and some cheese and put them onto plastic heart skewers along with some olives.

The berries have a plastic heart cupcake pick just for fun and more love (found at Dollar Tree for Valentine's.)

Peace, Baby

Baby's Lunch: Gluten-free pizza, olives, organic white cheddar scraps, homemade gluten-free rhubarb donut chunk; organic strawberries, blackberries, and frozen peas; organic brown and white rice with quinoa mix w/cheese and olives

For Baby I just used the pizza and cheese scraps on some plastic peace sign swizzle sticks (with the bottoms snipped off to fit in the EasyLunchbox.) There was one cheese heart left over, so she got that on top.

Tools of the Trade