10 Non-Sandwich School Lunch Ideas In Easylunchboxes

Well, hello there! I hope everyone is doing well. We are in fantastic good cheer, though it has been just a little hectic like everyone else, especially during the holidays. Now we are planning a fun trip to Disney; it's high time that we use the free tickets which we received from them last year.

I'm still been packing lunches daily, with Nikolai packing his own at times, though often I don't bother to snap photos of them. To be sure, not ALL of them are wildly photogenic if you know what I mean!
I have combined several of Nikolai's lunches which were packed in his Easylunchboxes in this one post. They are non-sandwich lunches which he had enjoyed a while back. You can see that Easylunchboxes is one of the lunchboxes that we used quite often and it's one of our favorites. It's easy to pack, easy to wash and they are still in great condition after all these years.

I'll try to describe what we included in each of these lunches.

Bento lunch 1: Main compartment contains a cream cheese bagel which I added a couple of eye picks to look like a face and a cheese stick.  Sides are cucumber slices and orange slices.

Bento lunch 2: French toast from our freezer stash (Eggo brand) with a dragonfly pick and a spoon for his applesauce. Yes, there are hectic days or low on grocery days and we pack what we can find on hand. Sides are Babybel cheese on cheddar crackers and organic apple sauce in our leak-proof mini dipper.

Bento lunch 3: Mickey and Friends kebabs, crackers and organic granola bar in the main compartment. Sides are cucumber and apple slices.

Bento lunch 4: Main compartment contains ham roll ups topped with a baran sheet, cheese stick and crackers. Sides are seedless grapes and organic baby carrots.

Bento lunch 5: Homemade choc chip pancake muffin, baby carrots and I forgot what is in the small container (raisins maybe?). Sides are ham roll ups and watermelon chunks with a cute pick.

Bento lunch 6: Main section contains a cream cheese bagel, cheddar crackers and a granola bar. Sides are grapes and baby carrots.

Bento lunch 7: DIY homemade lunchables. I've been packing similar ones lately. Main compartment contains cheese slices and crackers in my favorite square silicone cups, nitrate free pepperoni slices and granola bar cut into half. Sides are blueberries and grapes.

Bento lunch 8: Pita (stacked) with a cute panda baran sheet, granola bar and cheese crackers in the main compartment. Sides are applesauce and grapes.

Bento lunch 9: Breakfast for lunch - Mini waffles, a cheese stick and a couple of eye picks...does this look like a butterfly? Sides are cheese crackers and grapes.

Bento lunch 10: A large crescent with eye picks and a granola bar in the main section. Sides are some crackers and apple slices.

These lunches are also quick and easy to pack!

Below is a collage that I made for those who might like to pin.

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10 Easy Sandwich Lunches Packed In 5 Minutes Or Less

I hope everyone is doing great. We are doing fantastic although life is a little hectic with many after school practices. Have I mentioned that Nikolai has ventured into acting, which is yet another activity. The current play which they are rehearsing is Beauty and The Beast in which he will be playing Maurice, Belle's dad, and we can't wait to watch! I personally LOVE Beauty and The Beast  in movies and songs, and I hope that I'll be able to pull myself together during the end of the show, lol! I'm still packing lunches every single day, though they are just very simple ones.

The other day, I was listening to my favorite pastor speak on Sirius XM while driving. He said that some moms may be packing a simple lunch and feel it's just simple, nothing special, BUT, we may be packing for someone special in the future, our kid could be the next doctor, the next President, the next Bill Gates, etc. That message really inspired me to share these lunches which I initially thought of not posting! All of these lunches were packed in our Easylunchboxes.

These lunches were packed in a flash, less than 5 minutes or so, because some days that has to be enough! I suspect others find themselves in a similar circumstance.

Last year I've shared a post  of easy lunches packed in 10 minutes or less which can be found HERE.

Keep reading for the description of each lunch.

Bento lunch 1: Main compartment contains bread roll-ups, sweet red and yellow pepper slices and a babybel cheese in my favorite square silicone cups. Sides are seedless green grapes and organic granola bar.

Bento lunch 2: Sandwich cut into half and stacked with a pick, crackers, with laughing cow cheese and a granola bar in the main compartment. The sides are apple sauce and strawberries with cute eye picks.

Bento lunch 3: Sandwich made with Pumpernickel bread and a cute ladybug baran sheet, laughing cow cheese and crackers. Sides are seedless grapes with a ladybug pick and granola bar cut into half.

Bento lunch 4: Main compartment contains sandwich with rye bread cut into half and apple sauce. Sides are organic baby carrots, cheese crackers and granola bar. Of course I had to add the little penguin pick!

Bento lunch 5: Pumpernickel bread with a star cut-out for the sandwich with an organic granola bar make up the main section. Sides are Babybel cheese, Annie's organic crackers and peach slices in a silicone cup.

Bento lunch 6: Sandwich cut into half with a string cheese divider. Organic apple slices and seedless grapes populate the smaller sections.

Bento lunch 7: Need to go grocery shopping day! Sandwich, string cheese, apple sauce and seedless grapes.

Bento lunch 8: Sandwich topped with a cute baran sheet, and string cheese in the main section, orange and apple slices are in the others.

Bento lunch 9: Sandwich cut into half (stacked) with a cute hat pick, cheese crackers, cucumber slices share the main part, seedless grapes and apple sauce occupy the others.

Bento lunch 10: The main section has cheese cut into tea-pots, shaped with my mini cutter,  topping the stacks of quartered sandwich sharing space with sugar snap peas and baby carrots in my favorite square silicone cups. The other sections have grapes and a fiber one lemon bar.

Besides me, is anyone else losing their lunch packing mojo, and thinking of summer break?

Below is a collage that I made for those who might like to pin.

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Bee Mine Valentine's Day Bento Lunch

Valentine's Day is around the corner, and love is in the air!💕 Hubby and I will also be celebrating our 18 amazing, wonderful, fantastic years together. I guess that time flies when you are having fun!

This will be my first and only Valentine's Day themed lunch for this year, you can find my previous ones HERE.

In this bento lunch: I used a large circle cookie cutter to cut the body of the Bee, with the end of the loaf as an extra layer for the sandwich which created the bumble bee stripped effect when sliced and the pieces alternated. I used a heart shaped cutter to shape the tiny wings from Colby-Jack cheese. I used a candy eye while the mouth was made from a slice of raisin and the antennae are picks. Also included are some flatbread crackers, an apple which was decorated using two heart shaped picks and removing the outer layer carefully with a knife, and a Babybel cheese which was cut using the same cutter. This lunch is packed in our Easylunchboxes container.

Do you have any plans for this Valentine's Day?

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The Flash Superhero Lunch - Justice League

"Run, Barry, Run!" is one of my favorite lines in The Flash episodes that I watch on t.v weekly. Since we watched the movie Justice League during the weekend, I decided to make a superhero lunch for Nikolai. A while back I acquired a set of superhero cookie cutters and one of them is The Flash, one of my favorite characters.

Time has been flying by like flash especially this time of year. Thanksgiving is around the corner as well as Nikolai's birthday. Those of you who have been following along may already know that Nikolai was born on Thanksgiving day, thus, his birthday will always be around or on American Thanksgiving. It may be a little hectic, but always fun to host parties.

In his planetbox. For the bento lunch pictured above I made use of that Flash cutter to decorate a hero sized sandwich. With that I included some slices of apple, red grapes, Babybel cheese, organic granola bar and cheese crackers. 

For those who might be celebrating perhaps Thanksgiving, a birthday, a bit of mad shopping on 'Black Friday' or just chilling for a relaxed weekend at home, I wish you a safe and enjoyable time.

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Fun Lunches With UpChefs Sandwich Cutters

Recently I was very pleased to received a set of very cute cutters from UpChefs, which I was happy to put to good use straight away.

First, however, while I am not one who attaches labels to others or would illogically categorize them, I have discovered that some "picky" eaters, which Nikolai can be at times, will eat better when the lunch is presented in a fun or cute style. Sometimes these little things can make a big difference!

UpChefs have come to the market with a set of cutters that can make cuteness easy and quickly attainable. Their cutter set includes nine sandwich bread or cookie cutters, which offer a great variety of options, and also two additional smaller cutters that can be used for fruits or vegetables. These will make a most welcome addition to my collection.

The lunch shown below is just one example of the many ways these cutters can quickly make an otherwise unremarkable sandwich into a fun meal for your children.

In this lunch is a sandwich cut into a heart and pair of dolphins using one of the cutters from UpChefs, strawberry and orange slices with a dolphin pick, Babybel cheese with a dolphin cut into the wax covering, and a granola bar. I used the small heart shape veggie cutter for the center cheese heart and added candy eyes for the dolphins.
This lunch was packed in his Planetbox rover.

Here is a picture of their set of cutters from which you can make sandwiches or cookies shaped like hearts, butterflies, dolphins, dinosaurs, elephants, puzzle pieces, a star, transportation vehicles, and a dog with his house. It even includes the small cutters which can make little hearts and flowers.

( photo courtesy of UpChefs )

Here is another lunch for which I used the transportation cutter from the UpChefs set to cut the sandwich into shapes, added cheese rectangles for windows for the boat, and made imprints with the bigger end of a chopstick to make portholes for that extra touch, added a string cheese along side and used the other sections of our Easylunchboxes container for carrots, apple wedges with a traffic light pick in a square silicone cup.

As some of you might have discovered, it is more rewarding to discover and implement a helpful solution than to worry over a problem, and if getting your child interested in eating his or her lunch is one of yours, then this cutter collection from UpChefs might be a great help.

A discount of 10% is available by using the code JMP5EDRG  at checkout.

Let me add that while those with a "picky" eater might benefit most, just about everybody enjoys a bit of fun with their lunch!

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4 Winter Themed Lunches

We had a rather warm Christmas last year and I always envy those who have a snowy Christmas, like the holiday movies on Hallmark channel. Of course, my hubby reminds me that the snow is a little less of a joy when you are stuck in it or need to shovel it off of your driveway and sidewalk. These winter themed lunches were enjoyed by Nikolai last year, before his winter break.

Bento lunch 1: Snowman sandwich which was easy to make, just required a circle cookie cutter for snowman's face, choc chips for eyes and mouth and a carrot nose. Alongside are snow shaped mozzarella cheese slices. He also had snowflake Ritz crackers, orange slices and seedless red grapes.

Snowflakes are certainly winter theme, right? As we are here in Florida, I couldn't just step outside for the experience, I did find an interesting, actually an amazing bit of info stating that Guinness World Records lists a flake fifteen inches wide!

Bento lunch 2: A couple of King's Hawaiian buns with snowflake picks, some snowflake crackers, and a couple of star shaped cookies from Trader Joe's. Sides are some sugar snap peas and cinnamon applesauce.

Bento lunch 3: A couple of snowflake sandwiches made with my big snowflake cutter/stamper set, snowflake crackers, cheese sticks with a snow and mittens pick. In the other sections are snowflake bars and some apple slices.

Bento lunch 4: A sandwich with BRR lettering cut from mild cheddar cheese, some snowflake crackers and a Babybel cheese with a snowflake cut-out. The other sections contain sugar snap peas, organic baby carrots and kiwi slices.

Here are all four of them together! These lunches were packed in our Easylunchboxes.

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Christmas Ornament Bento

I hope you all had a nice weekend. We had a very fun weekend with hubby's birthday celebration. It was so nice to have his birthday fall on a Saturday this year, and whenever we have a birthday occur on a Saturday, we continued the celebration till Sunday! As with any other celebration, lots of food was involved and shared with family and close friends.

Anytime, or all the time, between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a good time to be decorating a tree. We do it as something of an ongoing project, adding a few more when the inspiration occurs.

Here is a quick and simple ornaments themed lunch which was created with a circle cookie cutter.

In this bento lunch (packed in a Lunchbots quad): A couple of circle shaped sandwiches with Colby Jack cheese accents and a pick. Seedless grapes with an ornament cupcake ring, organic baby carrots, Babybel cheese decorated with some tiny circles topped with an ornament hook pick and sharing its quadrant with pretzels.

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4 Pumpkin Muffins For Lunch with Pancake Muffin Recipe

We are well into Fall season now, and this is my favorite time of year! We have been enjoying the flavors of pumpkin, apples and other fall favorites! I've also gotten into experimenting with some new fall recipes and have pressed my family into food tester service, lol.
These lunches are quite similar, but they were made with different sides and were enjoyed on different days. The English Muffins are Thomas' limited edition pumpkin spice. All of us like these very much.

We found some pumpkin pancake and waffle mix during a recent visit to Trader Joe's and my wonderful hubby made some pancakes with it for breakfast the other day. I used the same mix and made some of our favorite pancake muffins! These were simple and are very tasty without any toppings.

I usually add frozen organic blueberries, strawberries and chocolate chips. You can also use bacon, ham and sausage pieces if you prefer adding meat. I love the idea of baking several batches at a time and freezing the extras for those super busy mornings when we need to grab and go. These particular ones were baked the day before and I'd left some out for the next morning, the rest went into the freezer. They are very simple to make, and you get the ease of a muffin with the deliciousness of a pancake.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Pumpkin Pancake mix 
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• Pam non-stick cooking spray or muffin cups.

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. In medium bowl, stir together pancake mix until moistened. Do not over-mix.
3. Spoon batter into greased or paper lined muffin pan, filling ¾ full. 
4. There is enough batter to fill one dozen muffin wells.
5. Bake at 350º for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
6. Enjoy!!

In this bento lunch: A pumpkin pancake muffin, string cheese, granola bar, crackers, nitrate free ham roll-ups in my favorite silicone cup, organic baby carrots and an organic apple.

The photos below show some Thomas' limited edition pumpkin spice English muffins.

In this bento lunch: English muffin with pumpkin cream cheese spread topped with an angry bird cupcake ring, granola bar, Babybel cheese, seedless red and green grapes, Annie's organic crackers and pumpkin cookies from Trader Joe's

In this bento lunch: English muffin topped with a pumpkin shaped gummy candy, yogurt covered pumpkin shaped cookies from Trader Joe's, Babybel cheese, organic kiwi slices and baby carrots.

This is the easiest bento lunch of all: English muffin with a cute alien pick, granola bar, string cheese applesauce, a smiley face spoon and Annie's organic crackers. This is typical of the type of lunch that I pack whenever I'm low on groceries.

These fours lunches are almost similar, but with different sides. Most importantly, Nikolai loved his lunches. Yay to mom! All of these lunches were packed in our Easylunchboxes.

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Mickey Mouse Lunches - Happy Birthday MICKEY!

November 18th is Mickey Mouse's 88th Birthday! This gives me a chance to quickly pull out some Mickey themed lunches which I've not posted. We love Mickey Mouse, and have the privilege of visiting Walt Disney World at least a couple of times a year. We live in Florida, and for us it's not too far from Disney World and many other great theme parks. Here are the lunches which Nikolai enjoyed many months ago. Both are packed in our favorite stainless steel and durable Planetbox.

In this bento lunch: Main compartment contains a few Mickey stamped sandwiches which I created with my cutter/stamper. Sides were organic granola bar, mini choc chips, organic baby carrots with dip in the small Mickey container and organic apple slices with a cute Mickey pick.

In this bento lunch: An English muffin with MICKEY cheddar cheese lettering created with my alphabet cutter and a cute Mickey pick. Sides are organic baby carrots, Babybel cheese, cereal bar, yogurt covered star and seedless green grapes.

Happy Birthday M-I-C-K-E-Y!

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4 Cute Animal Themed Lunches

One idea I truly love is that of getting, and keeping ready at hand, one set of cutters from which I'm able to create several different and fun lunches. They are especially convenient for those times when I feel like packing something cute, but just seem to have momentarily run out of ideas. These critter cutters from the lunch punch set are absolutely adorable and as always, you can go with or without the accents and your lunches will still turn out cute. All of the cutters I used to create these lunches came in the one set, which for those who have multiple lunches to make every day, might provide an easy way to keep them organized. It surely is crazy fun being a parent!

These lunches were enjoyed by Nikolai a few months ago and it's about time that I post them.

Bento lunch 1: Butterfly themed in which I used the butterfly cutter from our lunch punch set, added a few cheddar cheese accents on the sandwich and used honey as glue. The adorable eyes pick completed the look. Sides are cheese crackers, Babybel cheese which I used a small butterfly cutter for the cut-out, sugar snap peas, choc covered sunflower seeds and seedless red grapes. This lunch is pack in a Planetbox rover.

Bento lunch 2: Dog in doghouse cute lunch. I used the bread end for the dog and cheddar cheese for his collar, a dot of food safe marker for the eye. Alongside are pineapple chunks, strawberries, fruit snack, organic celery sticks and ranch dip in the small container. This lunch is packed in a leak proof Yumbox panino.

Bento lunch 3: A couple of dolphin shaped sandwiches with candy eyes, organic granola bar, Babybel cheese with a small dolphin cut-out, watermelon chunks with a cute pick, organic baby carrots with dip in the small container, far right is Clif Kid berry fruit stick. This lunch is packed in a Bentology living bento box.

Bento lunch 4: Elephant with baby elephant sandwich with Colby cheese ears Mozzarella cheese tusks and candy eye. The baby's eyes are food save marker. Sides are strawberries with an elephant pick, seedless grapes, choc covered sunflower seeds, cheese sandwich crackers, ranch dip in the small elephant container and cucumber slices. Packed in Planetbox.

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Quesadilla Lunches with An Easy Kid Friendly Recipe

It's back to the real world after Halloween and a truly fun filled weekend with family and friends! Putting away the treats, it is time for something not so sweet but still very tasty indeed. We love having quesadillas for breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner or anytime of the day. They are quick to make and always great. Sometimes we have them as an appetizer, other times as a main dish, or a side. We have also made them for parties and late night after movie snacks.

The most important part of any quesadilla is the filling, of course, and that is easy to customize to individual tastes. Do you have a special or favorite filling for your quesadillas? Ham and cheese are Nikolai's favorite. He doesn't mind eating them cold or warm for his school lunch, and they are so easy to pack.

I'll share with you our easy recipe and directions. Feel free to substitute the meat or cheese to your liking. You can also use whole wheat tortilla or any other kind that you prefer.

Ingredients:

• 4 Small Flour Tortilla
• 2 slices of nitrate free cooked Ham
• 2 Slices of Colby cheese

Directions:

1. Heat a skillet on medium heat and spray with cooking spray.
2. Place a tortilla in the skillet, add ham and cheese and then top with another tortilla. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
3. Flip and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Repeat with the remaining tortilla.
4. Remove from heat, let cool for a couple of minutes, cut the quesadilla into four wedges and serve. ( I let it cool a couple extra minutes before packing them into his lunchbox).
5. Enjoy! ( or, take to school or work, THEN enjoy!)

Here are a couple of quesadilla lunches. They are mostly similar lunches, enjoyed on different days. Packed in his Planetbox.

In this bento lunch (packed in a Planetbox rover):

• Quesadilla wedges with Nikolai's favorite ham and cheese filling.
• Organic baby carrots.
• Organic corn puffs.
• Apple wedges.
• Yogurt covered star.

In this bento lunch (packed in a Planetbox launch):

• Quesadilla quarters with a cute bear pick.
• Red and green seedless grapes.
• Babybel Gouda cheese, mini cheese cracker sandwiches, Rice Krispies bar with a bear baran.

Here is a collage to pin.

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