February 2012 Bento and Fun Meal "Leftovers"

These are the meals that never made it to their own posts.

Tuesday, 2/14/12, Valentines Dinner - Got a heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's. I like their take-n-bake pizzas because they're not skimpy with the toppings, they're made fresh, and are almost as cheap as the refrigerated ones at the grocery store. The store by me has weekday specials, so if you get the special and use a $ off coupon, they're usually cheaper than the grocery! But their heart ones were $7 or $8 and only available on Valentines Day, so I 'splurged' and got one. They come with pepperoni, which Z and I hate, but that's the other nice thing about Papa Murphy's. Because they aren't pre-packaged and smooshed together in processing and shipping, the toppings are super easy to remove.

How it comes

So I took the pepperoni off half of the pizza and added ham and spinach, per Z's request. Normally she wants olives too, or just olives, so this was a nice surprise. The ham was leftover from the Valentines potluck we had gone to that morning, cut into squares using my FunBites Cube It! cutter.

Since we I like puffier crusts with crispy bottoms, I let my pizza sit out and get warm for a while (at least 30 minutes) before cooking it. This causes the dough to rise a little and get fluffier (fill with tiny air bubbles.) Yum! Then I follow the regular cooking instructions, but subtract 5 minutes. For the final 5 minutes, I slide the pizza off the baking tray thing and have it cook just on the rack. This gives it a crunchier bottom.

Cooked

In hindsight I should have had a heavier hand putting on the toppings, but I was worried that they wouldn't stick if they weren't touching cheese. Ah well.

Thursday, 2/16/12 - Made a ladybug pocket sandwich lunch to eat in the car between Little Gym and preschool. 

Z's lunch: turkey and cheese scraps pocket sandwich, string
cheese nibblets, spinach w/carrot flowers, strawberries

Mostly made the sandwich to do a DIY custom pocket sandwich tutorial post, since she's happy with PBHoney and I usually eat the scraps for myself.

My lunch: spinach salad w/broccoli, blueberries, strawberries,
almonds and dressing. Mini cupcake, Special K crackers, 1/2 PBJ

I had been toying with the idea of seeing if a half sandwich would fit in a smaller compartment of the EasyLunchboxes if I cut it into half (or two quarters of a regular-sized sandwich,) so I gave it a try. Yes! I used home-made blackberry-raspberry freezer jam, but it was starting to gel and crystallize. Should have used honey. Tasted okay though.

She didn't care that the sandwich was mangled. She ate off all the sprinkles, took a few bites of bread, and ate the meat and cheese out of the center. She ate all the nibblets and strawberries, and only a little bit of the carrots and spinach.

Monday, 2/27/12 - Daddy packed her a snackery bento to nibble on the way to preschool, but mostly to eat between school and swim class.

Apple, Wheat Thins, Thin Mint cookie, yogurt, spinach

She likes to wear her collapsible clothes hamper as a hat, and since she can fit safely into her car seat, and it doesn't block my rear view, I allow it in the car. She even did fine eating from her EasyLunchboxes with it, until she tried to drink from her water bottle. No love. She had to take it off to drink.

She ate half the apple, some yogurt, and the cookie. Maybe a cracker or two, but I think not.