Emma has been attending a summer camp for the last two weeks. She loved the first week so much that we signed up for another week. It’s at the park right down the street from us, which is very convenient for me and the only thing I have to do is send her with a lunch every day.

Here’s her lunch from the other day: 1/2 PB&J, Veggie Booty, fresh pineapple, carrots and snap peas. So easy and I don’t have to worry about anything going bad in the hot sun… even though it hasn’t been that warm here at all the last few days. It’s been in the low 70s, scattered clouds, weird weather. How is my garden ever going to produce anything???!!!

For breakfast yesterday, I made some oatmeal. Amanda insists on feeding herself, so I gave her a bowl and let her go to town. She managed to get quite a bit in her mouth… and in her hair… and all over the place. So today I got smart and baked it! I’ve made these once before, but was too lazy to blog about it. I love this recipe so much that I feel bad not sharing.

If you’ve never had baked oatmeal, it’s really quite good. It turns out fluffy and dense, sort of like an oatmeal muffin, and you can flavor it with whatever you want. Check out Chocolate Covered Katie for the recipe. I did change up her recipe a bit just to make it work with what I had. Here’s what I did:

• Quadrupled the recipe (and used certified GF oats).
• Used 1 large ripe banana and 1 small sweet potato (both mashed up) in place of the pumpkin/applesauce.
• Omitted the vanilla. Not for any good reason, except that I just didn’t feel like putting any in.
• Used maple syrup as the sweetener. Didn’t measure, just poured some in.
• Used rice milk.
• Added a generous amount of coconut oil.
• Mix-ins: raisins and shredded coconut.
• Spice: added pumpkin pie spice, about a teaspoon.

I only have 1/2 cup ramekins and used 5 to bake the quadrupled recipe. I plan to freeze some of the leftovers to have on hand just in case I get caught with no baby-friendly foods around.

Stumped for what to make for breakfast, I realize that I haven’t made pancakes in a really long time. Amanda would probably love them, Emma will probably not touch them, but I figured I’d go for it anyway.

I had an opened package of Bob’s Red Mill (BRM from now on) Gluten Free Pancake Mix, but not enough to make a full recipe of pancakes. The recipe on the BRM package says:

1 1/2 cups BRM GF pancake mix
1 egg/egg substitute
3/4 cup milk
1 TB oil

After having made pancakes before following this recipe, I only had a cup of mix left. Why do they do that? They should make the package an even 3 cups so that you can make 2 batches, instead of making it 2 1/2. Typically when I make these pancakes, I use banana or applesauce as the egg substitute because the pancake batter itself is really quite bland. Seriously, these are no wheaty, fluffy, butter”milk” pancakes.

So I find myself with 1 cup of pancake mix, 1 1/2 really old bananas, and some leftover apple cobbler. Really, I’m SHOCKED that these actually turned out and they were really good.

Whacky Batter

To make these, mash 1 1/2 super ripe bananas, mix in 1/2 cup of coconut milk (or whatever milk you like), 1 TB of oil, 1 cup of BRM GF pancake mix, and 1/2 cup of leftover apple cobbler. If batter is too thin, add a little sorghum flour to thicken (maybe 1-2 TB). Pour onto hot griddle… blah, blah, blah… you know how to make pancakes, I’m sure.

Pile O' Pancakes

My Plate of Whacky Pancakes

Emma's Plate of Even Whackier Pancakes

And just as I suspected, Emma ate the fruit off hers but left the pancakes untouched, while Amanda ate the entire thing.

Here’s another easy lunch that I made for Emma one school day last week. I took some leftover beans, mashed them up in a tortilla, then pan fried as if I were making a cheesy quesadilla. This no-queso-dilla is a big hit in our family, and I sometimes make it as a really quick dinner when I don’t have a lot of time to throw something together. I added some popcorn on the side, some apple slices and some chocolate beans for a treat. Aren’t those chocolate beans so cute? Like M&M’s but vegan and without weird artificial colors.

It’s been a while since I posted photos of Emma’s lunch. She goes to school Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the afternoon and takes a lunch to school every school day. Today’s lunch was packed in under 5 minutes and I thought it would be perfect to show how quickly a healthy, vegan lunch can come together (p.s. it’s gluten-free too!):

Today, she’ll enjoy some organic cucumber and orange slices, kidney beans, 1/2 a rice cake, and a piece of homemade, gluten-free banana bread. She likes this banana bread more than she’s ever liked any baked good I’ve ever made her, cupcakes excepted. And while I’m on the subject of that delicious, easy banana bread recipe, I made another slight change to the recipe again this time: I subbed coconut flour 1:1 for the oats and followed the same substitutions that I made the last time I made it. Turned out fabulous!

What are some of your kids’ favorite lunchtime foods?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of Emma’s lunches.  Today we woke up a little earlier than normal and I had more time to prepare a fancy lunch for her.

I tried to use a natural food coloring to color my rice water purple, but it turned more of a brown color.  The problem with natural food coloring is that it takes a lot of it to achieve even a minimal color change and I’m afraid that using so much will alter the flavor of the food (the food coloring that I have is made from beet juice, blueberry juice and turmeric).  Oh well; I probably should have just left well enough alone and gone with plain, white flowers.  The rice is sticky Japanese, sushi-style rice and I used a flower mold to get the flower shape.  These molds, as well as the bento boxes, can be found easily (and cheaply) at places like Daiso or Ichiban Kan.  The inside of the flower is just a circle cut from a fruit leather.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about any of Emma’s meals, so I thought I share her bento for preschool from the other day.  I thought she would really enjoy it, but she only ate the cookie, pineapple and crackers.  I found out later that she actually had an ear infection, which may have been impacting her appetite.  She fine now and was not contagious while at school, but I’m glad we were able to get her to the doc and get some meds.

I’ve been meaning to post these various pictures of Emma’s meals.  I haven’t done it until now, so it’s pretty much a big dump of pictures with very little description since I can’t really remember what I did to make them. 

Lunch:

The fruit fish idea was inspired by Superfoods: For Babies and Children by Anabel Karmel. I just expanded it into a theme for a whole meal.  I got this book from the library yesterday and have a few recipe ideas flagged to try this week.  Very few of the recipes in her book are vegetarian, let alone vegan, so we’ll see how it goes.

Snack/Lunch:

The idea for the mini-muffin tins came from the Disposable Aardvarks blog (one of my favorites!).  I find this to be particularly useful when it’s not quite lunch time, but too late for snack time.

Lunch:

Lunch:

Lunch:

Snack/Lunch:

Lunch:

I used to be so diligent about taking photos of Emma’s meals, but these days it only happens occasionally.  I’ve been saving them up until I had en0ugh to post.

Picnic at the Park:

Note: to make the rice red, add some natural food coloring to the cooking water.

Dinner on the Go:

Snack Pack:

Lunch:

“Tracks in the Snow”:

Note: to make the “tracks” use a craft punch.

Lunch: