Into the garden - bento lunch

Today I decided to go with a garden theme.   The boy's lunch includes: fried rice, scrambled eggs, snap/sugar peas, ham, grapes, a cup of milk, and a small dipping container with ketchup.  I used the lunch bot thermal container so hopefully the food with keep warm.  I decorated it with a cute bunny food pick, flower and leaf food picks, a flower silicone cup and a couple of baran (food divider) silicone leaves.

I prepared 2-3 cups of rice the night before (because day-old rice is easier to fry and less mushy).  I also diced the following: 2 stalks of celery, a handful of snap peas (maybe 7-10?), 3 slices of ham, 1-2 chinese sausage,  2 green onion.  I fry the celery and snap peas for a few minutes over medium heat.  I add in the chinese sausage and stir fry for 2-3 minutes.  Then I toss in a handful of frozen peas.  I stir in ham and green onions and fry for another minute.  Next I scramble a couple of eggs and mix it with the rice.  Finally, I add in the rice to the frying pan and mix well.  I cover it and let it heat through (maybe another 5 minutes or so), stirring occasionally.  This is one of those dishes that you can just toss in whatever you have on hand - chicken, bbq pork, beef, shrimp, lettuce, carrots, other vegetables, fish egg roe, etc.

In case anyone is curious lunch and bento supplies.  I picked up the Lunch Bot Thermal container from Steveston Village Maternity.  The bunny food pick, flower food picks and leaf baran are from Daiso.  The Wilton flower cup is from Amazon.  The Colibri snack bag.  We're trying out the myColdCup for the milk today to see if it keeps cool.  The Monbento temple sauce cup and leaf pics are from Bento & co.  I use the Rume bag for cutlery from Fenigo.  The Laptop Lunches cutlery I picked up from a local group buy.  And his rubbermaid container for water was from Superstore.

Minecraft creeper bento lunch

First full day back at school.  This is my attempt at a Minecraft-inspired lunch for the boy (grade 1).  Sandwich creepers, yogurt with frozen strawberries, ham and cucumber skewers, and some ranch dip for the cucumbers.  I cut up some nori for the creeper faces.  His recess snack was a bag of grapes and a couple of home-made strawberry fruit roll ups.  I'm unlikely to do this daily, but just thought I'd try to do something special for today.

I packed the lunch in our panino yumbox.  I used long heart food picks for the ham and cucumber skewers.  Pig and pink dot food picks for the ham and green dot food picks for the cucumbers.  The creepers are on my lettuce-shaped silicone cups.  Eye ball food picks in the yogurt monster.  And I added in some minecraft collectible figures for decoration.

I bought my bento and accessories for this lunch from Daiso, Fenigo, and Bento & co.

Homemade Strawberry Fruit Roll Ups

It's been over 5 years since I last attempted to make strawberry fruit roll ups.  In my last go, I had a hand blender and used parchment paper to line a baking sheet.  This time, I've got upgraded kitchen gadgets and a kitchen helper (the boy).

3 cups of strawberries - washed and roughly chopped
3-4 tbsp sugar

I preheated the oven to my lowest temperature (170F).  We pureed the strawberries and sugar in the blender.  Next we poured the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat.  I evened out/spread out the mixture over the baking sheet.  Then I placed it into the oven.  Now we wait... 6-8 hours.

They turned out pretty good - just a bit crispy around the edges.  Four rolls were eaten before I got a chance to take a picture.  I loved how easy it was to peel off the silicone mat!  Now I want to get a second mat so that we can make two batches at a time.

I want to experiment with some different fruits to see what my fruit-picky kid will eat.

Strawberry Banana Skewers drizzled with chocolate

 

My son's picky about fruits... He eats grapes, oranges and the occasional apple.  The only way to get him to have other fruits is blending it in a smoothy... and even then, he'll only drink certain fruit combinations (strawberry, grapes, bananas and blueberries)

I had high hopes for a chocolate drizzled strawberry banana skewer, but it was rejected. :(

It was simple to make and pretty to look at.

- bamboo skewers

- strawberries (one strawberry for each skewer)

- 1-2 bananas

- chocolate chips

I washed some large strawberries and sliced them into 4-6 pieces.  Left the peel on the bananas and sliced them.  I peeled the banana slices as I made each skewer (alternating between strawberry slices and banana slices).

After all the fruit was arranged on the skewers, I put a handful of chocolate chips into a bowl and microwaved at 10-second intervals (stirring in between) until the chocolate started melting.  Once the chocolate melted, I drizzled the chocolate with a spoon over the skewers and let them set.  You can put them on wax/parchment paper, but I just turned over one of our take-out drink holder cartons, poked holes in it and stuck the skewers in the holes so that they could set without touching anything.

I just dipped extra strawberries in the extra chocolate left over and placed them on parchment paper.

After about 8-10 minutes, they were set and ready to eat.

Day 1

It seems I mostly update when DH goes out of town.  This trip he took the boy with him.  They took a taxi to the airport at 4:30am.  The girl went back to sleep at around 5am or so.  I couldn't fall back asleep until closer to 6:30am.  I got up at 8am and heard the girl saying "No Daddy" repeatedly.

I told her I was hungry and she went downstairs first.  Then she came back up saying "Uh oh".  She broke a bead bracelet so I replaced the elastic with embroidery floss and restrung it.  Then she broke a plastic bracelet.  I tried to glue it back together but it didn't work so we tossed it out.  We had toast for breakfast.  Then I let her watch Tingp and Wonderpets while I did the dishes.

11:30am - she's napping now.  I'm debating moving the bookshelves.  I guess I have to figure out something for lunch also.  On my to do list for today: prepping the compost and recycling.  My wishlist includes taking the girl out on a bus ride but it would've been preferable to go out in the morning, booking an appointment to get the car repaired (was hoping to get a couple of quotes before deciding where to go).  I might just nap with the girl instead of getting anything done. :p

I got the recycling ready and the girl woke up and helped me put boxes into the blue bin.  I couldn't find the twine to tie the boxes together... so I hope they won't reject it when they pick up the recycling tomorrow.

For lunch, we raided the fridge for leftovers.  Did the dishes, watered the plants, then went grocery shopping.  Came home and I wanted to nap but the girl didn't want to nap... So we made rice, marinated the pork chops, prepped the mushrooms and broccoli.

While I made dinner, Audrey played on the balcony and let in a fly.  After dinner, I tidied up and we went out to the playground.  We came home, soaked in the tub and got ready for bed.  I didn't end up getting any rearrangements done. :(

A house of germs

I'm tired of being sick.  We've been sick the entire month of May with no signs of improved health.  The boy has been coughing since the end of April.  Then he got the girl sick, she got better but he's still coughing and got another cold.  Then I got sick.  I started getting better, but I never quite got over the first cold and now I'm sick again.  DH is also showing signs of having whatever we have.  I'm worried that the girl will get sick again and I'm also concerned with the boy's prolonged coughing.

We're out of kleenex.

It sucks.

Just had to get it out there.

Time to fight back and get out of this seemingly endless cycle of illness.  We have a strict hand washing policy implemented as part of our infection control management.

4 Doctor visits, 2 antibiotics, 2 inhalers for the boy... I'm hopeful the last prescription will help the boy.

Paper Mâché with kids

Here's a messy activity I did with my 6 year old and 2 year old.  We made paper mache cups.  We still need to paint them and maybe add a coat of glue or something to protect it a little.

What we used:
- 2 cups flour
- 3 cups water
- 2 tsp salt
- 5 disposable plastic cups
- strips of newsprint

We mixed together the flour, water and salt in a big mixing bowl.  Then I poured the mixture into smaller mixing bowls for each kid.  We dipped the strips of newsprint into the bowl, and tried to gently remove the excess before layering the strip onto our plastic cup.  We continued layering on more strips dipped with the paste until we covered the cups several times in different directions.  Then we let our cups dry for 1-2 days before I removed the plastic cup.  I just cut strips of the cup and carefully separated the paper mache from the cup surface.

It's probably easier doing paper ache with a balloon because you can just pop it and remove the balloon, but I didn't happen to have any balloons on hand that afternoon.  You can trim the top edge of the cup or leave it jagged.  We might paint or layer coloured tissue paper with glue/paste to decorate the cups another day.

I have a big water/sand tub table that we worked in and had a mat under that to catch drips that inevitably made their way out of the tub.  It helps to try to smooth out the strips of paper against the cup before layering more strips on top.  You get a stronger cup if there are less air pockets while you're layering the strips.  If you want stronger cups, you can use white glue instead of flour... but with little kids, I prefer sticking with the basics.


Update: Here are the cups we made after painting them and adding a layer of glue on top.