Keeping Lunch Fun

  It’s been one week since the Media Detox post, so, how’d it go?  Did you notice a change in your home and how your kids played together? I think a reset is good for all of us once in a while.  I’d love to hear from you, or just leave a comment about how it went!!!  So on to today’s post…..

  I feed 3 of my 4 kiddos lunch at home every day.  It’s pretty easy to get into a rut, so I did an experiment this month and it was a SMASHING success!

{Pax CLEARLY was not impressed with me snapping his picture mid-apple bite}

  We typically have sandwiches or supper leftovers for lunch, with some fun ones thrown in to the mix.  I will be sharing those with you today as well as the results of my mini-experiment!

  The experiment was, if I take the same lunch items, but change-up shape and size, would it be more fun again?

The answer was a resounding YES! 

For our sandwich days, meat and cheese or PB&J I changed bread shapes:

Flat bread

Whole wheat hoagie buns, mini whole wheat cocktail buns and the flat sandwich bread circles.

   I also changed veggies, rotating between celery, snow peas and broccoli.  Carrots are always a staple at our house, so I rotated between big ones peeled, regular baby carrots and petite carrots.  {Don’t forget those wafer chip carrots, too! Not pictured}

 

  Sometimes veggies are served with ranch, sometimes not, because I want them to learn to eat them both ways.

  They were so excited for lunch again, you’d have thought I was coming up with a whole new menu!!!!!!  Who knew it would be that simple?

Here are some of our more “fun” lunches:

Mini Pizzas with a small salad

Pita bread dipped in Hummus, with carrots and grapes

Cheese Roll Ups with cherry tomatoes

Bean Burritos with chips and guacamole

Tuna Bunwiches with carrots and chips

Egg Salad Sandwiches or served on Whole Wheat Ritz Crackers with cheese cubes, raw veggies and apple

  Lots more ideas for simple and unique lunches on this blog post!

More lunch ideas coming tomorrow,

Hugs, T

 

Easy Recipes using Eggs, plus some tips for peeling!

    I didn’t know this until we got chickens, but farm fresh eggs are VERY VERY hard to peel!  We have tried everything from extra salt in the water, to vinegar….nothing but trouble. Think itty bitty teeny tiny flakes of shell coming off bit by painful bit.  It was AWFUL! 

 *Note: did you know the reason its so easy to peel store bought eggs, is because they are typically already 6 months old?  Google it,  I am not kidding!  They dip it some kind of preservative to make it last longer.

I finally found the answer from Dale’s brother who is a great chef:

The key is to pre-crack the uncooked eggs! Who knew?! (still do salt too, I think it helps)

Take a spoon and just thump it once in the middle, to break that outer shell. The inside lining keeps the egg in tact, but allows water to seep through, making the shell easier to break off later.

You’ll be able to tell later, which ones were perfect and which ones were thumped too much!

Perfect

Too much

You’ll get better at it as you go!   🙂

You can’t see the size here, but these are very small pullet eggs.  Our kids love to eat these little eggs for breakfast, hard boiled and rolled in kosher salt.  They are perfectly bite size for Dale, too!  And I am not joking, one bite and they are gone!  He LOVES when I have a dish of these ready in the fridge.  🙂

Speaking of Breakfast, look what we came up with in a bind, when we remembered it was our turn for Sunday school breakfast. 

Canadian Bacon Egg Cups

Ingredients:

Canadian Bacon

Eggs

Cheese

Chopped Veggies

Salt and Pepper and Garlic powder

Take a full sized muffin pan, and place Canadian Bacon circles inside each hole.  Dig around in the veggie drawer and see what needs to be used up quickly, we had green onions in ours, slice or chop accordingly.  Crack a 8 or more eggs into a bowl and whisk with salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Pour a little egg into each Canadian Bacon cup, filling just below the top.  Sprinkle on your veggie of choice and top with cheese.  If you like baked eggs, you could crack the egg directly into each cup and THEN season and top.  Bake at 375* for 17 minutes.

Enjoy!

  Everyone in my family LOVES Egg salad, served on Ritz or wheat bread, with squares of cheese and raw veggies. I love that when we are busy playing, or this week…at Vacation Bible school….lunch is already waiting in the fridge for us. 

  I know everyone has their favorite egg salad recipe, but I am pretty proud of this one. It’s the only one my mom, Grandma and Aunt use, I added a “Tonya Twist” to it, naturally, but it’s a keeper for sure!  We took it on a field trip, and several teachers asked for the recipe, proclaiming it as DELICIOUS!  I told them I’d put it up on the blog so they could print it. 

Dilled Egg Salad Sandwiches

 

• 12 whole Eggs, Hardboiled
• ½ cups Miracle Whip
• 2 teaspoons Lemon Juice
• 2 Tablespoons Sweet Relish
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 teaspoons Very Finely Chopped Onion
• 1 Tablespoon Yellow Mustard
• Generous Dash Of Salt, Pepper And Garlic Powder
• 1 Tablespoon High Quality Dill Weed, I Like Pampered Chef’s Best

Boil, cool and peel eggs. Give them a rough chop and place in a medium sized bowl. Add remaining ingredients, adding more miracle whip or mustard or seasonings per your taste. I always have to taste and add a bit more of this or that.
Refrigerate until serving time. Serve on wheat bread or Ritz crackers with cheese cubes for a delicious, easy lunch!

~T