Cafe Munchkin

My little girl is on her second week in Kindergarten.  Unlike in pre-school, however, we now have the option for a cafeteria lunch.  In her 2 years in pre-school, she was required to bring a healthy packed lunch from home.  And by healthy, the school meant no chips, cookies, lunchables and chocolate of any kind including milk.  I’d say I had fairly good practice in preparing my daughter’s school lunches, so much so that her teachers always tease me about making packed lunches for them, too.

Hubby and I included our 5-year old school girl in the decision making process involving her lunch.  We presented to her with the two options, a packed lunch from home or a cafeteria lunch.  She chose the former.  Still, I made sure there’s money in her school meal card for emergencies, i.e., in case I ignore the alarm one morning and fail to make her lunch.

I thought it would be nice to get back to doing bento-style lunches.  Being a newbie, my bentos aren’t as cute as those of the experts.  Here are the ones I managed to take photos of:

Shu-mai/Sio mai Bento

During the first few days of school, my daughter only wanted sushi, until she got tired of them and wanted dimsum for a change.   There’s always fruit in her lunch, sometimes in another food container.  And I always make it a point to “try” to include veggies in the hope that one day, she will actually eat them.

Spam Musubi Bento

We just love spam musubi!

Shrimp Balls Bento

These shrimp balls are home-made.  The only way my daughter would eat rice is if they were in sushi form.  So I snuck in some rice in the shape of a flower, wrapped it in nori and sprinkled some furikake on top.

The day my daughter had this shrimp balls bento for lunch, I thought I’d make bento lunches for hubby and me, too!

One for Hubby….

One for me…

In case you’re looking for the rice, they’re underneath the shrimp balls. I like these containers very much.  And mind you, they are BPA and phthalates free!

Garden Farfalle Bento

Who said bento lunches always have to be in a box-type container?   My daughter loves farfalle, more popularly known as bow-tie pasta.  This food jar promised to keep food warm for upto 7 hours.  So I opted to use this instead of our usual food containers.

Packed lunches aren’t just for school kids.  I know quite a number of people who bring their own lunch to the office (none of whom are rv insurance agents!).   You might ask, why do I even bother making these lunches when a $2 cafeteria lunch seem more practical?  Because I want to and because I have fun in the process.  I also get an idea how much my daughter actually eats in school.  And most importantly, my daughter wants me to!

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This entry was posted by munchkinmommy on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Packed Lunch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.