Step Away From the PBJ #6: "But, That's a HOT Dish!" and Frugal Multiples

First off - I apologize for the glitch where a half done version of this post was released early.  Sorry about that!  It's fixed now.  On to the main post...

Two quickies for you today.

1. What if you have a hot food and a cold food? You don't want the cold to make the hot food lukewarm and unsafe to eat.  Well, there's a few easy solutions.
   
   
   
   • What I most often do is ensure that the food I send for my son is about the same temperature when he takes it as when he eats it - aka chilled.  (Leftovers are reheated for safety and let cool.  Sometimes I have to hurry it along and stick the food in the freezer for a minute or two.) Yes, everything is then eaten cold and if needed packed with an ice pack.  I wish he had access to a microwave, but the school lunch area isn't setup for that.  This is generally what I've seen for bentos and he hasn't complained.  In fact he loved the lunch below cold and was happy the flavorings from the meat mixed with the plain rice.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • You can use separate containers or if you have a bento that has multiple tiers with lids  you can keep the tiers separate.  Also if you microwave your food, you'd only need to microwave the portion that needed it.
   
   
   • You can insulate the things you need hot or cold too.  There's thermoses and insulated bento boxes and bags and general insulated lunch bags to help.  I think it would be fairly easy to make an insulated bag too.  (Making mental note to self - invest in a warm/insulated box so I can send warm foods!)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • Just Bento has a great post on Keeping Your Bento Lunch Safe.
   
   
   
   


2. Frugal Tip: Use a food in a lunch multiple times.  Do you use an entire bell pepper in a lunch?  I don't.  Safe it for tomorrow.  One ingredient the same in a lunch with the other ingredients changing helps use up foods and reduce waste.  Yet you're providing enough variety to keep the lunch interesting.  (Just keep food safety in mind!)

[caption id="attachment_309" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="1/26/10: Sicky Rice, Buttered Beef and Asparagus (the family doesn't like asparagus but if it's cooked with salt they like it), Banana, Red Pepper"][/caption]

The frugal tips I've been working on came about because of a dear reader's request.  I also may want to do a recipe link round up day from a request on the Facebook page.  Any other requests?

Step Away From the PBJ #5: The Protein Dilemma

Proteins have been the difficult aspect of packing lunches for me.  My growing boy needs them - how do I make sure he gets enough with out resorting to PBJ or sandwich meat every day?  (Now, I do buy sandwich meat.  Just remember I'm trying for moderation in it's use and I prefer to find the kind with no added nitrates if I can.)

[caption id="attachment_298" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="1/25/10: Spinach Salad*, Baby Banana, Pastrami, Mozzarella, Homemade Hawaiian Bread* (* are "leftovers")"][/caption]

When I made my food list I separated it into fruits, veggies, carbs, and proteins. So here's a starting list to help out.  If you're on a budget, there should be several ideas here to help out though some are more expensive.

• Eggs: egg salad, hard-boiled, scrambled


• Beef: mini burgers, left over stirfry, meatballs, roast, leftover steak, meatloaf


• Chicken: stirfry, drumstick, chicken noodle soup, sliced leftover chicken breast


• Pork: leftover pork chops or roast, bacon, sausages, ham


• Fish: Tuna, (quick to cook) Salmon, halibut, tilapia, etc., sushi


• Cheese: natural cheeses sliced, cubed or in sticks, mini around cheeses like Babybel, cottage cheese, cream cheese and Neuchâtel


• Yogurt or milk


• Beans: Black, pinto, maybe, lentils, etc.


• Soy: soymilk, edamame (steamable soybeans  - just take off the pods before eating if you cook them in the pod), tofu (quick and easy to stirfry)


• Seeds and Nuts: almonds, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, cashews, pecans (You only need 1/4 cup for a serving of these.)

Just remember most of these must be kept cool in order to be eaten safely.  Use an ice pack or a Bento box with a freezable lid.

Step Away From the PBJ #4: Kids, Lunches and Communication

How did you do on your revolving menus?  Did you find it freeing to know you have a menu plan to lean on and you have the flexibility to deviate from that plan?  Let me know your thoughts!

Kids, Lunches and Communication

One of the issues I face with lunches for my son is how to make sure they are actually eaten.  When I first started packing lunches for him, there'd be only a few bites consumed and that was it.  He'd come home ravenous.  What good was packing a nutritious lunch when he wouldn't eat it?  We have a limited budget and I can't afford to throw the food out everyday!  (I know they have a short time to let the kids eat at school and I feel it's not enough.  It's really teaching them how to wolf down their food - very unhealthy and hard to tell when you're truly full.  But I diverge and I haven't invested the time in working with our school yet.  So I'm off this soap box now.)

Every child is different.  But I'll tell you what's working for my son.  I'm sure I'll have to be even more creative with my youngest next year when she heads to kindergarten.  She's the little ninja princess of the family.

My son and I made a deal.  He'd eat a minimum of two items from his lunch, then he could go to lunch recess.  Anything left over had to be eaten as his snack at home.  Honesty is the most important virtue in our house.  I knew I could trust him not to toss food into the garbage.

An improvement, but still not ideal.  The meats and things that needed to be kept cold would come home inedible.  (Even the best freezer lid bento boxes I have only say they'll keep food good for about 4 hours.)  So we talked about food poisoning and the fact that some things need to be eaten first. (We'd had food poisoning really bad from a group picnic the summer or so before so this really hit home.)  It took some time, but eventually this additional rule proved golden and we have our lunches eaten.

I try to do things that will encourage him to think well of his lunches:

• pack lunches in containers he likes


• pack chopsticks (this gets him positive attention at school from the kids he sits with)


• every once in a while tuck in an Andes mint or teaspoon of chocolate chips


• pack things he likes as much as I can


• at most one thing that is disliked can go in a lunch

[caption id="attachment_292" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="riceball with celery and carrots, chicken, peas and a few mandarin orange setions"][/caption]

Time, patience and communication (often gently saying the same things over and asking questions that lead to the answer) are what helped us.

In our family, we haven't faced much pickiness, because we didn't allow it.  I'm of the theory that our family will allow what we'll put up with.  Everyone gets helpings of every food.  Disparaging comments about food are not allowed.  (Though one does have to be able to say you don't like something if it's done nicely.)  We have the "no thank you helping" at our house for smaller portions of foods not liked at well.  But they are eaten too (very slowly sometimes - but they are eaten).  We have our fair share of arguements about food too.  Only on rare occasion will I let someone skip a food.

Each family works a little differently and I know there are many sage moms out there.  What advice do you have for helping make sure lunches are eaten?

Link: Brilliant Bento Idea for Outings

The Happy Little Bento blog had a terrific idea for recyclable bento lunch containers for school outings in her post Field Trip Bento #2.  Thought y'all might find it useful. ;)

New Shopping Cart! Thanks for your patience!

We've switched over to a new shopping cart and store setup that will be easier for you use and easier for us to maintain!  Check it out!  (Just click shop at the top of the page.)

Step Away From the PBJ #3: Making a Revolving Lunch Menu

This week we'll use the food lists from post #1 and create a revolving lunch menu.  Once you're done with it, you'll have a plan for healthy lunches each week and no more work to do for planning!

Revolving Menu Creation

Maki over a Just Bento has fabulous planning sheets for creating a plan for a week's worth of bentos at a time - the Weekly Bento Planner and the Weekly Menu Planner.   With Proteins, Carbs, Veggies and Fruit & Extras as categories.  Feel free to use these planners or make your own.  (There's also links to Google docs version and Excel versions of the Weekly Bento Planner that I converted from Maki's original PDF on the Weekly Bento Planner page.  Some of us (me) like the ability to edit this planner  on the computer instead of re-writing it by hand.)

Even if you only end up planning 1 week's worth of lunches, this will be a much better plan with more variety than a PBJ every day!    You can also designate a day of the week for a things.  A few possibilities:

• Meats on Monday


• Nuts on Tuesday


• Cheese or yogurt on Wednesday


• Tofu on Thursday


• Sandwiches on Friday (True confessions here - we have PBJ Friday.  I'm not absolutely against PBJ.  I just can't let myself feed them to my kids everyday.  Way too much sugar for everyday!  This was my concession to my kiddos - once a week - no more.)


• I put at most two "cooking" items on the list per week.


• Don't be afraid to use things that help you with speed.  I use frozen fruits and veggies when I need to.

Frugal tips:

• Leftovers can be fun!  (The bento below was from leftovers at our house.)  If you have a large amount of leftovers from a meal, save them in portion sizes in the freezer.  They'll be ready for you when you need a quick lunch!  (Corn muffins are like gold in our house and I freeze one or two from every batch so there's one to tuck in lunches when my menu calls for them.)

[caption id="attachment_285" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Bento 1/19/10: pomagranate seeds, banana and blueberry cornbread muffin, scrambled eggs"][/caption]

• Rice, noodles, eggs, seasonal produce, and sale items can help bring the price of your meals down.  Maybe you'll have menus for season times too?

Using the menus

Post your menu near where you make your grocery list or where you make your lunches.  (I have the "wall of info" in my kitchen by my fridge where I have school calendars, supper plans, emergency numbers, etc.  where I use a hanging paper organizer that I wrote a tutorial for on my personal blog)  If you have more than one week's worth of menus, just put them in a stack with the current week's plan on top and hang them up together.  When the next week arrives, put the "used" menu on the bottom of the stack and your new current menu will be visible.

Now you can reference your lunch menu for your grocery list and have it ready for the hectic morning rush.  You have a guide that you can use or choose to deviate from.  But there's always a plan ready!

Step Away From the PBJ #2: Lets Talk Portion Sizes

I'll give you a bit of breathing room to finish your food lists from the last post before we hit the next step.   Pat yourself on the back when you get it done - it's a great starting block to better lunches!  Today we'll chat about portion sizes.  This post comes out of research about my own struggles with weight and how I can teach my children healthy habits.

Portion Distortion?

Available portion sizes have changed drastically - at least here in America, while what we really need to eat hasn't.  I was reading a "Portion Sizes: Then vs Now" over at Divine Caroline this morning and it really made me think.  The article only hinted at some of the reasons we're sold larger portions, so I'll expand.  Restaurants make more money when they sell more food.  So they offer bigger portions and put them in the prominent areas on the menu (the areas with the pictures).  The same goes for the grocery store - why would they sell carrots individually when they'll be glad to present you with a really big bag of them for a "better deal".

I brainstormed and though of reasons that we're eating more than we used to.

• There's more available.


• We think we have to fill our plate. (And plate sizes have grown!)


• We think bigger is better.


• We don't know how to stop.


• We get a better deal if we buy more.


• Foods are sold in larger quantities.


• We eat in a hurry.

What are portion sizes that we really "need"?

[caption id="attachment_236" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Serving Sizes Are In Your Hand - from the Hawaii Pediatric Weight Management Toolkit"][/caption]

Most portion charts are made for adults.  In the spirit of the KISS (Keep it Short and Simple) principle, I hunted one down that was scalable and adaptable to children.  "Serving Sizes Are In Your Hand" from the Hawaii Pediatric Weight Managment Toolkit is an excellent portion guide that fits the needs of all sizes of people.  (The original webpage is gone, so I put a copy of the graphic here.  Copyright belongs to the creators.)

Getting a better idea of what we really need portion wise is great, but I like to have more than one idea to use.  Here are a few more tips for portion management

• Bento boxes.  I was chatting the other day with a friend about my bento boxes and she had a hard time believing me that the 500-600 ml lunch boxes are really all I need for lunches.  Our portion size is so distorted that we think we "need" much more than we really need to function normally and well.  The Lunch in a Box Blog has a great help page on Choosing the Right Size Bento Box.  As she explains in her post...

"In Japan, bento box size is described not by its dimensions (inches or centimeters), but instead by its volume or capacity (in milliliters — ml). Why? Because a rule of thumb in Japan is that when you pack a bento box normally (A: 3 parts grain dishes, 1 part protein dishes, 2 parts vegetable dishes; B: without candy, junk food or fatty food; and C: without empty space), calories correspond directly to capacity. So a 600ml box should hold a 600-calorie meal."

• I mentioned above that it's "in" to have huge plates.  (Seriously, new plates won't always fit into a dishwasher anymore!)  A good friend who always managed to keep her weight under control mentioned using a salad plate.  It works and I can fit all I need onto the little plate.  So now it's either a bento box or a salad plate for me.

• Have you ever noticed in restaurants sometimes you get a dessert on a monstrous plate and there's a ton of space around it.  They're using the negative (unfilled) space to highlight the food.  If you have the huge plates that are in vogue of late, I'd like to challenge you to use the negative space.  Don't be afraid to have larger amounts of unfilled area.  Let your family know it highlights the food and they aren't being cheated by not having plates filled to the brim.  Using presentation as an excuse to put less on your plate can help bring portions consumed back down to a normal size.

[caption id="attachment_227" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="1/14/10: Angel Hair Pasta (I was out of soba noodles), Hard Boiled Egg, Black Sesame Seeds, Edamame, Apple Slice Bunnies"][/caption]

I hope you can easily use these guides and that it's liberating for you to know you don't have to struggle to eat "all the food you need". We'll get back to lunch idea help in the next post.

Have you noticed the upsell to bigger portion sizes?  Was it as eye opening for you as it was for me?

Step Away From the PBJ #1: Make Your List and Demystifying Bentos

If we want to step away from the PBJ a day (or just the sandwich a day) lunch and make healthier lunches, it helps to have a plan.  What I did for my family was to start by making a big list of packable foods that we can and will eat.  Having this list makes planning lunches much easier.

So my tip to you is make your food list!  A great place to start for ideas is the Quick Reference List from Latptop Lunches.  I try to stick mostly to seriously simple to prep foods for my list.  I occasionally do cooking for my kid's lunches - but mornings are no longer my high energy times.  KISS - Keep It Simple Silly.

[caption id="attachment_218" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="1/5/2010: Meatballs, Mini Gouda Cheese, Orange, Wheat Crackers, Sweet Peppers"][/caption]

Bento demystification time.  Obento is the word for a Japanese boxed lunch - with the honorific "o" in front of the word.  It's also becoming quite the trend in lunches here in America, because of the focus on good tasting healthy foods with built in portion control.

Just because the origins are Japanese, doesn't mean you have to cook Japanese food.  Now trying new things can be fun and I like trying new Japanese recipes.  I'll even point you to some in future blog posts.  But my point here is, that we can pack simple good for you lunches with the foods easily available to you.

Let me know how you're doing with your food lists.  Did you add anything to the lists to try just because?

New Bento Post Series Starting!

In the next few days, I'll be starting a series of short and sweet bento style lunch packing tips for the "PBJ a Day" lunch crowd.

This series comes out of the start of my own bento journey: I had to figure out how to send lunches that weren't Peanut Butter and Jelly (PBJ) everyday and keep my son interested in his lunch.  We slowly made changes and discovered the bento scene.

Come join me in these posts and I'd love to hear your quickie tips too!

Are you sure you don’t have time to plan or pack a lunch? Speed tips are here to the rescue!

(Republishing an article I wrote for Just Bento this last fall -"Speed bento tips from a busy American mom".  I figure with New Year's resolutions - more people packing lunches could use the tips!)



Bentos are “the in thing” in lunches right now and for good reason! They provide a great way to pack a nutritious meal while providing reasonable portions.

As an American mom, I was frustrated at what our school was providing as a “healthy” lunch. I love our elementary school, but I don’t have an ounce of affection for the lunch program. I’ll spare you the details - but lunches are 9 times out of 10 full of highly processed food. Milk is also pushed - but not just plain milk. There’s strawberry, chocolate, and cookies-and-cream sweetened versions. Yipes! I hope you find it as humorously ironic as I did that the school district sent home reminders that a pop, chips and a cookie don’t constitute a good lunch.

I want better for my children who need to learn and pay attention in school. Last year my son’s teacher mentioned to me that my son was having troubles paying attention in class. After I started packing nutritious lunches, my son’s attention problems virtually disappeared. Quality food may not be the answer for all attention problems, but it’s helped us tremendously! Squeezing time in to make a lunch is essential for my family.

I wondered how my son would handle taking lunches that are different from the ones his friends have. But he’s enjoying it and even asks to take chopsticks. His quote, “It’s awesome!” There’s positive attention over his lunches (and the chopsticks) from his classmates, and not much of the negative “Eww is that broccoli?” He’s becoming very conscious of what is good for him and what is not. Could a mom be more proud?

A Reusable List: A Month’s Worth of Lunches

Now that school is in session, life is speeding up for many parents. I’m now having to transport my two kids to preschool and elementary. This takes an extra two hours out of my day. Parents like me must be extremely efficient in order to get anything done!

One of the smartest things I did this fall was to make a reusable list of a month’s worth of lunch plans for my son. I always have the option to change the list. But there’s also a plan for good lunches ready to go everyday!

Each week I print one week from my premade list and compare it to my week’s evening meal plan. If there are leftovers suitable for bento lunches or I know I’ll have time to cook something special, I’ll add those to the lunch plan.

I use the Excel spreadsheet version of Maki’s Weekly Bento Planner. The main sheet is copied 4 times with different plans on each page. For inspiration I used recipes here on Just Bento and a version of Quick-Reference Lunch Ideas at Laptop Lunches that I modified for my family’s tastes.



My bentos are pretty Americanized, simply because I buy what I can find here in a small town in the Midwest. Over the last few years the variety has been improving and I can find things like sticky rice in the local grocery stores. I stock up on cool stuff like miso paste when we visit relatives in Seattle or I buy it online.

We like to try new things though and have been slowly easing into trying more Japanese foods. Both of my children like sushi and my parents are convinced we’re crazy for liking anything with raw fish!

My favorite Just Bento recipe for tucking into lunches is Potato Oyaki.

Now lunch planning and making the grocery list for lunches takes me 5 minutes a week. It’s that simple and the original plan took me about 45 minutes.

More Tips for Busy and Budget Minded Parents

Need to keep a 2 tier bento cold and your box isn’t one of those fancy ones that can be frozen? Put your must stay cold items in the top compartment (if there is more than one layer to your box). If there is more than one lid, leave the very top lid off the box and use a bento band to strap a reusable icepack to the top. (True confessions: I just broke down and bought one of the Gel-Cool boxes with the spiffy freezable lid the other day. Because it’s deeper, I found it easier to pack than my other boxes.)

Ice packs making your lunch bags or backpacks wet? I put the frozen icepacks in unfrozen plastic bags. It helps keep the moisture that condenses on the icepack off other things. It’s not perfect, but it does pretty well.

Buy in “Bulk” or save leftovers and freeze portions so they are ready to defrost when you need them. Very small Rubbermaid and Lock-N-Lock containers are perfect for this.

Happy Year of the Tiger!

Happy New Year!  May the Year of the Tiger be good to you!

Just for fun I looked up this year in the Chinese zodiac:

"The Tiger is the third sign in the Chinese Zodiac cycle, and it is a sign of bravery. This courageous and fiery fighter is admired by the ancient Chinese as the sign that keeps away the three main tragedies of a household. These are fire, thieves and ghosts." -- Year of the Tiger.net