bento lunch Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

21 Bloggers Share Salad Lunches For Kids

September 3, 2013 By Deirdre

Last month I shared with you lunches without sandwiches created by 21 different bloggers. Many of them were in bento boxes. All of them were delicious. I decided to continue the lunches without sandwiches theme with a focus on salad lunches this month. A call was put out to my amazing bento blogging friends. They were asked to share lunches with salad as the main dishes. They answered my call with amazing salads that kids and adults are going to love.

Salad Lunches

Biting the Hand That Feeds You made an awesome salad with flower cutouts scattered throughout it. It is so pretty. The sides that go with it look delicious too.

Bento Lunch made a wonderful chef salad with a super cute face made from hard-boiled eggs, blueberries, and tomatoes.

Eclectic Lamb’s star-themed salad lunch is filled with a wonderful salad and yummy sides.

Becoming a Bentoholic made a super delicious lunch in a Lego bento. It contains an antipasto salad and fruit salad.

My Epicurean Adventure’s Post NYC Gluttony Lunch looks so good. It is filled with yummy ingredients and has wonderful side dishes. It looks delicious.

Eating Well’s Bento has a wonderful egg salad.

More Salad Lunches

Biting the Hand that Feeds You’s fish food salad is something special. It is so cute.

Healthy Eating Starts at Home took a leftover chicken patty and created a chicken salad lunch JDaniel would love.

Beneficial Bento created a collection of low-calorie salads. Her Greek Salad (featured in a Trader Joe’s cookbook looks wonderful. I also like her chef salad on a stick.

More Salad Lunches

JDaniel4’s Mom made a tossed salad with bunny croutons. Yes, this is one I made.

Oh! Bento has a wonderful curried chicken lunch with yummy vegetables. JDaniel hasn’t tried curried chicken, but I think he might really like it.

Lunch Box Dad shares how to serve a strawberry mango chicken salad in three different ways. Each of the options is wonderful. I think the finger food version would be JDaniel’s favorite.

Beneficial Bento has created a really cute daisy and ladybug salad. Kids will love finding this in their lunch.

Healthy Eating Starts at Home shares two delicious salads side by side. Both are vegan, but I think non-vegans will love them.

Bento for Kidlet’s salad with stars displays wonderful foods that children will love to eat. There is something cool about stars in a lunch.

Diane Rambles’ chicken salad sandwich looks wonderful in this post as does her yummy Asian salad. I think both would be great to try.

Even More Salad Lunches

My Epicurean Adventure made a post-fasting lunch that has the cutest mini tomatoes in two colors. Bentos on the Bayou made a wonderful chicken salad. You have to stop by to check out the face on her chicken salad. It will totally make you smile. Creative Food selected a veggie pasta salad for her Back to School Essentials post. It is filled with brightly colored veggies and many colors of pasta.Oh! Bento made a bento with several salads. There is a noodle salad, fresh green salad, and yummy cherry tomatoes.Lunches Fit for a Kid wonderful salads for the whole family in Bentos. I love that the meat in the salads is served on a butterfly-themed skewer.

Final Group of Salad Lunches

JDaniel4’s Mom created a three-salad meal with a spring flower theme. Yes, this is another one of mine. It isn’t in a bento, but it is fun.Blame It On the Bento used small butterfly cookie cutters to create a salad lunch that is filled with butterflies. It is so cute! Bento for Kidlet has a super cute roll decorated to look like a boy along with an awesome salad.Beneficial Bento mentioned a post on How to Make a Salad Bar. I seriously love her salad bar container from a craft store. So cool!Bento for Kidlet made a super easy lunch that features checkerboard designs.

Do you have a favorite salad-centered lunch?

{Healthy Lunch Idea} Seas of Success Lunch

August 26, 2013 By Deirdre

Healthy Lunch Idea- This idea and several others will help you sail the sea of lunch time success.

The cruise ship is really a ham and cheese sandwich made with a tortilla, American cheese, honey baked ham, and string cheese. I was so pleased to see that he ate the whole ship when I cleaned out his backpack.

The ship is cruising on a sea of blueberries. JDaniel loves blueberries so I knew these would be missing from his Easy Lunch Box bento.

I thought he would love the goldfish crackers. He loves them at home. He informed me that if I made his lunch the night before and put his lunch in the fridge the goldfish get mushy. Mushy goldfish are not very appealing to me either. I thought that they wee thick enough to not get mushy.

The grapes and dried cranberries disappeared from the fridge too. Thank goodness they don’t get mushy!

Have you made special Back to School lunches for your kids? What did you put in them?

My Back to School Traditions link up continues through September 8th. If you have a Back to School post, I would love for you to share it. One of the bloggers who links up will be randomly picked to win a set of Tiger Tale Books. One commenter that leave a kind comment will get a CamelBack water bottle and one commenter who leaves a comment saying that they have visited a post in the link up will get a KizMos Kid’s Kitchen Tool Collection.

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Back to School Lunches without Sandwiches

August 9, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel is starting back to school in just over a week. This year he will be entering full-day kindergarten. That means he will need to bring his lunch every day. I am looking forward to making him fun or at least healthy lunches for him. JDaniel loves cheese sandwiches of all kinds, but I tend to think that he may be tired of them after a while. I touched base with members of the Kid Blog Network and the Bento Blogger Facebook groups I belong to and asked them to suggest lunches without sandwiches that I could send to school with him.

These ladies and gentlemen are brilliant. They have given me some amazing links to their best lunches without sandwiches. I hope that you will love them and try them out on with your children too.

Lunches Without Sandwiches

Lunch Box Dad – 1 Meal 3 Ways-Mango Strawberry Chicken Salad

JDaniel4’s Mom-Signs of Spring Lunch

Momables– 10 Non-Sandwich Lunch Ideas

Eclectic Lamb– Dinosaur and Volcano Pizza

Lunch Box Dad– Kermit the Frog’s Green Food Lunch

We Should Be Folding Laundry – Veggie Wraps, Apple and Fruit with Veggie Shreds

JDaniel4’s Mom– Despicable Me: Minion Lunch

Keeley McGuire– 20 None Sandwich School Lunch Ideas for Kids

We Should Be Folding Laundry– Mac and Cheese with Fruit and Veggie Sides

What the Girls are Having– Taco Salad

Eats Amazing– 10 Alternative to Sandwiches for Lunch Boxes

Picture used with permission from Healthy Eating Starts at Home

Healthy Eating Starts at Home– Quesadilla Strips with Layered Dip

Feeling a Little Lunchy- Feeling Like Making Baby Calzones

JDaniel4’s Mom– Salad with Bunny Croutons

Bento for My Girls– Delicious Leftovers (includes a Reese Poke Cake that looks awesome)

Keitha’s Chaos– Katy the Caterpillar Lunch (spinach tortellini with a cheese caterpillar)

Healthy Eating Starts at Home– Steamed Salmon Sushi Rolls

Mama Miss– Edible Fun Bento

Life at the Zoo- Simple Homemade Quiche

East Coast Mommy– French Toast in a Thermal Container

Kids Chaos– Garlic Rocket Pasta

You Are The Roots– Kale and Quinoa Nuggets

East Coast Mommy– Cereal for Lunch

Mama Miss– Easter Themed Bento

Inspired by Family Magazine– 10 Sandwich Less Lunches

Here are the other Kid Blogger Network blogs that are participating:

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Kids Lunch Ideas – Painted Milk Sandwich

April 29, 2013 By Deirdre

I like to give him a sandwich that is special in some way. Just plain bread is nice, but it isn’t fun. I have a few kids lunch ideas that focus on sandwich presentation. Sometimes we don’t have the correct cookie cutter to cut out a shape for JDaniel’s lunch. I love it when I do, but many times we just don’t. Then I try to figure out if shape can be cut out with a knife or kitchen scissors. If it has simple lines and edges, I can usually freehand cut it out. When I don’t have the right cutter and it is going to be to difficult to cut out, a third option is available. JDaniel can have a painted milk sandwich.The recipe for paint milk is really easy. You just add a little food coloring to about 1/4 cup of milk. Keep adding food coloring until the mixture is the color you like. If it gets too dark, just add a little milk.

A simple paint brush can be used to paint the mixture onto the bread. We have a couple paint brushes that I have set aside just for painting bread and other kids lunch ideas that need to be painted or spread. I think I got a bunch of them for less than $1. They are run through the dishwasher before we use them.

Here is a lunch JDaniel just had last week with a painted milk sandwich:

It contains a ham, cheese and spinach sandwich that has an umbrella painted onto it. The top of the umbrella was painted first. A dash or two more of blue dye was added to the milk to make the mixture darker and than I painted on the umbrella’s handle.

JDaniel also had applesauce with flower sprinkles and rainbow colored goldfish. The bento lunch had a April showers bring rainbows and flowers theme.

Here are so more kids lunch ideas:

Apple Chicken Salad Bento Lunch

Summer Sunshine Bento

Do you have favorite kid lunch ideas you use over and over again?

Lunch Recipes for Kids- Simple Creative Ideas

January 28, 2013 By Deirdre

Many of you have commented that you don’t have the time or the creativity to put together a lunch for you children the way I do. Putting to together lunch recipes for kids lunches doesn’t have to be hard. It can be as simple as using a food marker to write a message on a sandwich.

There are mornings that I don’t have time to pull out my cookie cutters or think of a fun theme for lunch. I barely get JDaniel’s Easy Lunch Box and thermos pulled out. The super simple turkey and cheese sandwich is throw together and I rummage through the fridge for some fruit and vegetables.

JDaniel is fine with a regular lunch especially if I add in some cheese crackers. (He loves them). I still want to do something special for him though so, I reach into my jar of muffin liners and grab one to dress up the compartment with the cheese crackers. Then I whip out a food marker and write a quick message on the bread of his sandwich.

Lunches Recipes for Kids Get Flair with Food Markers

The message on this lunch was Love U. It took only a couple of second to put on the bread, but JDaniel was thrilled to find it in his lunch when he sat down to eat it a Lunch Bunch.

I found the food markers at A.C. Moore, but I think you can find them at most hobby stores. The muffin liner I got at an after Christmas sale for 40 cents for the package.

Creating fun lunches doesn’t have to take a lot of time or require lots of special tools. I think it makes lunch fun for my son and that is why I do it.

Here are some lunch recipes for kids creative lunches:

-sandwiches cut into shapes with cookie cutters ( I save the scraps to make croutons.)

-toothpick kabobs of fruit or vegetables.

-muffin liners in bento boxes

-messages written on ziplock bags

– messages written on food (Bananas skins are great to write messages on.)

-napkins leftover from birthday parties

– a small bag of sprinkles to put on yogurt or apple sauce

– stickers added to a napkin

You will find more lunch ideas on my Food Creations board on Pinterest.

What are some lunch recipes for kids you have created?

Kids Lunch – Who was Martin Luther King ?

January 20, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel had no idea who Martin Luther King was until we checked out some books from the library. I loved getting to share that he was a man of peace that wanted all people to be known not by what they looked like, but by who they were. I think all kids should be able to answer the question “Who was Martin Luther King ?”

Kids Lunch - Who was Martin Luther King ?

It was too easy I told him after reading the books to look at someone and judge who they were by what they wore or the color of their skin or their bodily imperfections. Who was Martin Luther King? He was a man that wanted us to look deep inside people and get to know them for who they were.

During his time I told him, people were really mean to people they didn’t know just because they judge them base on color. JDaniel was surprised. He hasn’t been around people that say the horrible things that can be said about others yet. I hope that he will look back at who Martin Luther King was and try to be like him.

Making a Who was Martin Luther King? Lunch

I made a lunch and a snack with a peace theme to represent the peace that Martin Luther King talked about. The lunch above featured a slice of bread with a tan dove place in white bread. It also includes turkey and cheese doves that can be placed on the sandwich or eaten separately. Finally, I placed a rainbow fruit salad in the upper left-hand corners compartment to represent the fact that our world is made of a people that are a rainbow of colors.

The outside of the bread from the dove in the lunch and the inside of the bread from the outside of the dove lunch were placed together to create this snack plate. It has a fruit rainbow underneath the dove. JDaniel inhaled the fruit and the brown sandwich thin. The Italian bread dove he told me tasted like play dough. Ironically he ate the Italian bread and left the sandwich thin behind.