I *heart* brown bag lunches

I have said before that I love my job. I love the job of being a stay at home mom, I love everything about it. I’m not saying I love laundry and dirty dishes but I am saying I love it- does that make sense? Part of loving your job is taking pride in it. I take pride in my job, my home, my life, I wouldn’t change a thing (well much anyway- hey I’m not perfect).

I have been thinking of doing posts about my job and I think I’ll start with lunches. I have had a lot of questions lately about how I do the kids lunches and I’m not saying my way is perfect I’m just saying that it works for me.

On a quest to be organized I have found that it works best for me to make the lunches ahead of time. I actually discovered this many years ago when my kids were little and I called Sunday “15 sandwich day”. I had little bins of school snacks and sandwiches that they could pick from. They would choose one sandwich and if a bin had the number 2 on it, they could choose 2 items from that particular bin. As they have grown older I have found that it’s just really easier for me to pack their lunches myself.

On Saturday I open up 15 bags and put the kid’s names on them- 5 each. I put a drink a day for each. Kid1 likes to drink the same thing every day- green tea. Kids 2 and 3 like to have something different everyday so I buy lemonades, fruit juice, sunny delight and usually something special like mandarin orange juice or Guava juice that I can get in the ethnic isle of the grocery store.

Then I add a starch like chips, pretzels or crackers and I put one in each of their bags. I pick something different for each day. So Monday may have chips, Tuesday pretzels and Wednesday a pack of crackers.

Then I pick a protein like nuts, I use nuts a lot because it’s such a good healthy thing to snack on. I usually buy 3 or 4 kinds of nuts so if Monday has almonds, Tuesday may have sunflower seeds and Wednesday will have trail mix. I try to put a fresh fruit in their lunch too, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. I try to add raisins, my kids like the gold ones, I may add dried strawberries, blueberries or a fruit sauce (you know apple, or peach there are so many to chose from now).

I then go for a milk group by dropping in a pudding, cottage cheese or yogurt. If I drop in a pudding I usually add a little snack bag of marshmallows to add to the top of the pudding, if it’s yogurt I put a little baggie of wheat germ in to put on top.

The cooking part is a little more time consuming but this is the part I love! I love to cook and I love to create so making little lunches in muffin tins really appeal to me! Once a week I do peanut butter and jelly always- it’s yummy and it’s easy. I have been trying new things last week I tried little meatloaf’s smooshed into muffin tins and they turned out great. I just used my favorite meat loaf recipe and everyone likes cold meatloaf…. Right? I put them in little baggies and put them into my lunch box area in the fridge. The week before I made macaroni cups. I just made macaroni and decreased the milk a little bit, I cooked them in muffin cups (cute ones) and they cooled and held their shape like rock stars! I also tried little scalloped potatoes in muffin cups and they were fantastic too, although they didn’t hold their shape like I had hoped. So I’m on a “what can I make in muffin cups kick”… and loving it! This week I’m doing little pizzas in muffin cups and grilled cheese in muffin cups. I figure if you can buy grilled cheese in a box you can make them right? I have a tried and true wheat roll recipe that I use. I derived it from the Duggar’s roll recipe and I love it. I’m using that recipe for mini pizzas. I usually make up 2 different kinds of home made cookies and bag them up as well. It's nice to have home made things in your lunch and don't tell them but I hide healthy things in them. (Have you ever read the sneaky chef cookbook?) I hide spinach in brownies, sweet potatoe puree in pizza sauce, and zucchini puree in cookies- I SWEAR you can't tell at all, they don't know it!

So this week their lunches will look like this

Monday- sun chips, peanuts, banana, yogurt with wheat germ, snickerdoodles and a mini pizza.
Tuesday- Pretzels, almonds with cranberries, peach cup, peanut butter and jelly and tiny candy bar (have you tried sunflower butter? It's divine and if there's a child in your child's class that has peanut allergies this is a perfectly safe alternative and SO GOOD!)

Wednesday- buffalo wing flavored pretzel pieces, trail mix, pudding with marshmallows, grilled cheese sandwich and chocolate chip cookies and an apple with peanut butter.

Thursday- lays potato chips, honey roasted peanuts with dried blueberries, smores kit (2graham crackers, some small marshmallows and a half of a Hershey’s bar) chicken salad on pita bread with lettuce and tomatoes.

You get the picture right? It’s all about variety at our house, but here’s the key thing; I enjoy making lunches! If I didn’t enjoy making them, I wouldn’t do as much as I do. I actually enjoy making little tiny pizzas, or tiny apple pies. I actually enjoy putting together a little tiny smores’ kit for their lunch. I think its fun, and yes I also know I am crazy, but I’m okay with it! I’m crazy about making lunches, I’m crazy about cooking and I’m crazy about my job, its simple- it’s just me!!!

P.S. Kid4 is whole different story, she eats totally different than the other kids. I'll do a blog about her lunches a different day. (and she takes a cute little purple lunch box with her little cute name on it- oooooh I love girls!)