Back To School Lunch Post

Back to school season is upon us. Whether you go back to school in a couple of weeks or start back in September like us, back to school season is here. You can see it all around. All the local stores are stocking the shelves with everything you will need to get the kids ready. Now everyone thinks about school supplies but lunch supplies can sometimes be forgotten. I have been packing lunch for about thirteen years now, so I have a couple of tips and some of my favorite lunch supplies for you today. Any of the supplies shown will make lunch packing so easy and fun. At the end of the post I will give you some links to where you can purchase some of the products I use.

First on the list are EasyLunchboxes! These lunchboxes are great. They come in three different color packs and in sets of four. They are durable and affordable. These were the first real bento boxes I used. I still have some from two years ago. They are perfect if you are new to making lunches. They are great for young children, teens, and adults. These are shown with Mini Dippers from EasyLunchboxes and a couple of cloth napkins made by yours truly.

In this picture the EasyLunchboxes are shown with Reduce Water Bottles, plastic cookie cutters from a big set of Wilton cutters, round silicone cupcake cups, the mini dippers, and my handmade napkins. Reduce Water Bottles are great. They come in 16oz and 10oz bottles. They are sold in sets of five. The Wilton cookie cutters come in handy for cutting sandwiches into fun shapes. Silicone cupcake cups come in many shapes and sizes. I recommend starting out with the round and square cups. You can separate food with these and they make your lunches look great and appetizing.

Planetbox is a stainless steel lunchbox. They come in three different sizes. The Rover and Launch are shown here. These lunchboxes are so durable and with last forever! They are perfect for kids of all ages. Planetbox is the way to go if you prefer to stay away from plastics. We love our Planetboxes!

Next on the list is the Yumbox. These lunchboxes are great for kids of any age although the six compartment ones are geared toward younger children. I use both of these boxes for my kids ages 10-17. I also have packed lunch for myself in them. So I recommend them for all ages.The best thing about the Yumbox is that it is completely leak-proof! You heard right. LEAK-PROOF! It also doesn't hurt that they are super cute!

In the world of bento there are lots and lots of novelty lunchboxes. Here I have a Lego bento box. These are fun little lunchboxes and the kids love them. We have a lot of this type of bento box. The Lego bento box is shown with different shapes of silicone cupcake cups. I told you they come in all shapes and sizes.

A Thermos can really come in handy for packing cold or hot foods for lunch. I plan on using these quite a bit this year. They are a new addition to my lunch essentials. I asked the experts (fellow bloggers) how to use a Thermos and this is what they had to say:
Fill your Thermos with boiling water and let it sit with top on for at least five minutes.
Empty water.
Fill Thermos with heated food and pop the top back on.
To pack your heated Thermos they recommend putting the Thermos in the lunch bag on one side. Use a napkin or another barrier to put between the Thermos and the other foods you pack. Then pop the icepack into the opposite side of the lunch bag. These are tried and true methods

Probably the most important thing to have for lunch is a great lunch bag. These lunch bags belong to my two youngest children. They used them last school year and will be using them again this year. Embark makes a great lunch bag. These bags are still in awesome shape. You can even machine wash them!

 

Lunch time tip: How do you keep your apples from browning? This is a question I get asked all the time. I use pineapple juice to keep my apples from turning brown. I just stir the sliced apples up with a little drizzle of pineapple juice until they are coated. I buy the six pack cans of pineapple juice. That way I only have to open a little can once a week and don't have to waste the rest. I keep the apple slices in the fridge for several days. They stay looking fresh at least that long.

I hope you have found this post useful in helping you to get ready for back to school lunches.

 

Thanks for stopping by. You can find some of the products used in this post by clicking on the pictures, They are linked to the product.

 

*All opinions on this post are my own. I was not compensated for this post. This post may contain affiliate links.*

 

Sandwiches & Salad!

Man last week was brutal. The hubs had an accident at work (he is fine). Then the middle girl came home from school with a twisted wrist and swollen fingers. That was Thursday. So I rushed her to urgent care only to be told that it wasn't broken but if it still hurt Sunday night that she would need to see a specialist because, guess what? It may still be broken. Well it is Sunday evening and it still hurts, it's still swollen and she still can't move the wrist and three fingers. So back to the doctor tomorrow for her and probably on to the orthopedic doctor as well. That's not it! Now the two younger kiddos have fevers, headaches and tummy aches. And the oldest is all itchy! Oh man what a week! No wonder I didn't get a chance to post lunches. Heck I didn't even get a chance to make lunches Thursday and Friday! But that's okay. All will be back to normal soon. Here are a couple of lunches from Wednesday.

This is lunch for my niece. She has a lovely salad, Laughing Cow cheese, pepperonis, apples, a half of a clementine and honey mustard pretzel crisp.

This is lunch for the youngest girl. She has a ham sandwich, apples, a half of a clementine, carrots, peppers, cheese, cashews and peppers.

You can find some of the products used to make this lunch by clicking on the pictures below. This post contains affiliate links.

Minnie Mouse Lunches!

Last week while doing a little grocery shopping I came across a Mickey & Minnie sandwich cutter. I did a happy dance. I have been looking for these two cutters for months. I also came across Mickey, Minnie and Winnie the Pooh food picks while Christmas shopping on Amazon. I have wanted those for over a year and they are pretty hard to find in the states. So today I made three Minnie Mouse sandwiches in three different lunchboxes. I wanted to show you how a lunch with the same ingredients looks in different boxes.

This lunch is in a Planetbox Rover. She has a Minnie Mouse turkey sandwich, apples, cucumbers, sweet peppers, carrots, grapes and trail mix. She also has a Babybell cheese.                                           

This lunch is in a LunchBots trio. This box is a bigger version of the original. There is a Minnie Mouse turkey sandwich, apples, grapes, carrots, cucumbers and trail mix.

This lunch is packed in an EasyLunchboxes box. This lunch has the same foods as the one above.

This lunch is packed in a Planetbox Shuttle. The boy took apples, grapes, pepperoni and crackers.

Here are the links for the above lunchboxes, silicone cups and food picks.

Lots of Lunches!

Today I packed five really simple lunches for my four kiddos and my niece. I used a variety of different lunch boxes. I used two of our Goodbyn bentos, an EasyLunchbox, a Hello Kitty bento box and one of our Planetboxes.

Here I made a simple salad. She also has cucumbers, carrots, a mandarin orange, a GoGo Squeez applesauce and bunny cookies.

Here is another salad. She has grapes, a mandarin orange, cucumbers, carrots, bunny cookies and ranch dressing.

The oldest got Nutella Hello Kitty sandwiches, sunflower seeds, carrots, sugar snap peas, a mandarin orange and bunny cookies.

 

The boy took peanut butter crackers, grapes an orange and bunny cookies.

 

To purchase the boxes I use to pack these lunches just click on the pictures below. They are a direct link to the products.                                                                                                                               

 

Back To School!

Every time I say the words Back To School I hear Adam Sandler singing in my head. It might be because when I say those words my hubby sings it out loud in his best Adam Sandler voice. Ha! Ha!
My kids go back to school in September so I have a little time left before my house is once again quiet and clean. Now I know what my grandmother meant when she said that silence was golden. It sure is. It is dang near priceless.
Today I want to share some of the things I use to pack lunch. The most important is a great lunchbox container(I have a few faves!) Also a durable lunch bag, silicone cupcake cups, a few cookie cutters and sandwich cutters. Sometimes I throw in a Lunchbox Love Note. Especially on the days I think the kids could use a laugh or a little encouragement. This year I also purchased two Thermos Funtainer food containers for the two older girls so they could have hot foods for lunch. My two younger children have access to a microwave so they don't need them yet. Let's get started.
Here are a few of my favorite lunch containers.

  These are my top picks. I use these the most when I pack lunch. The names of the boxes are from left to right. EasyLunchboxes, Authentic Japanese bento boxes, PlanetBox, LunchBots and the Goodbyn. At the bottom of this post I will give you links to each lunchbox. I have many lunchboxes for the kids and they love them all but these a definitely my go to lunchboxes.

 These are our new Thermos Funtainer food containers. These babies will keep foods piping hot for my girls on a cool day. I decided to go with plain pink but they come in many colors and lots of kid friendly designs.

 Now I have oodles of silicone cups from all kinds of places so these are just a few that we use regularly. They are a good size. About the size of a standard cupcake. They make packing a bento super easy and way cute.

  I also have hundreds of cookie cutters. (I make cookies too!) These are a few that I have had for years. The top cutters are LunchPunch sandwich cutters. These are super cute for any princess. They have several different designs to choose from. You can buy sandwich cutters from just about anywhere.

 

Here is a lunch I made this summer in a EasyLunchbox. I used my sweet new Cuddle Palz sandwich cutter.                                                                                                                                                      

 

Lunchtime doesn't have to take forever. You can pack a healthy and cute meal in minutes. I usually pack four in around twenty. That's with no prep work. My kids love these lunches and YES they do eat better since we bento. YES they do try new foods that they wouldn't try before! NO it doesn't take loads of time to make a lunch like this one. If you can use a cookie cutter and a knife you can make a cute bento lunch. Not that a cookie cutter is necessary for a bento lunch. Putting foods together to make them look appetizing is the only real skill you need.  As for that famous saying sweeping the internet" Ain't nobody got time for that.", that's rubbish because guess what? I am very busy and I can find 20 minutes in my day to pack a cute and healthy lunch. That is one thing I do have time for. I hope you found a few back to school ideas from this post. As always, Come back and stay tuned for what happens next!                  

 

Links to products: