The Week in Bentos: August 30-September 3, 2010

Monday

Monday’s 1st grade lunch was two little turkey and cheese sandwiches (on mini hamburger buns) some grapes and melon chunks.

I sent a snack too — I’m sure of it! — but I don’t have a picture of it so I’m not sure what it was.

Tuesday

You learn a lot about yourself by blogging regularly and one of the things I’ve discovered is that I often make pasta with meat sauce for dinner on Monday night because it shows up in Tuesday bento boxes a lot. True to tradition, the toddler’s lunch box had leftover pasta with meat sauce along with steamed carrots, fresh corn and some figs.

My 1st grader’s lunch had the same pasta (heated and packed in the Thermos) along with pretzel sticks, aged gouda cheese (which he surprisingly loves), and thawed blueberries from the freezer. This lunch was packed in the OOTS Lunchbox.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, Augie’s lunch was packed with leftovers from his 2nd birthday party the night before, so it was chock full of some of his favorite foods. He had leftover pulled pork, watermelon chunks and BLT pasta salad (recipe here).

Wyatt also had leftover pulled pork (heated and placed in the Thermos). I also packed some mini buns and half a cupcake from his brother’s party.

He had strawberries for a snack.

Really, I did a pretty crappy job on this lunch. It didn’t seem so bad at the time, but there wasn’t a lot of nutrition there and Wyatt came home from school starving.

Thursday

Wyatt begged me to let him get school lunch all week and on Thursday I finally relented. We’ve agreed that Wyatt will be allowed to buy school lunch once per week and only if I approve the menu for a particular day. And when I say “we’ve agreed” I mean “I’ve laid down the law”. I won’t be giving my approval on days when things like “kookies”, flourescent blue Trix yogurt, or strawberry waffle grahams are on the menu though. Since that appears to be most days he’s not going to get it very often, I’m afraid. Thursday’s menu was:

Choice of beefy bean dip or french bread pizza (he chose pizza)
apple (which he ate!)
carrot sticks (he didn’t pick any up)
tortilla chips (he didn’t get these either)
milk (he chose the chocolate, of course)

One argument for buying school lunch is that it’s easier for me in the morning but I actually found that was only marginally true. I still had to pack a snack (what you see above) and I had to root around coming up with exact change for lunch money because my wallet was inconveniently empty. It’s possible it would have been easier for me to make lunch, actually.

Wyatt’s verdict on school lunch: “It was the most delicious thing ever and I want to eat it every day!!”

Awesome.

Friday

Today, Wyatt’s lunch had leftover turkey taco meat with cheese sprinkled on top, tortilla chips to eat the meat with, a few chocolate chips, grapes and strawberries. This lunch was a big hit! I’ll be doing this again for sure.

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