Last Day of Preschool 2012 Bento

Thursday, 6/14/12 - My not-so-little-anymore-girl's last day of drop-off preschool for the year. 

Big Girl's Lunch

apricot, green beans, Saturn peach, smoked Gouda cheese, sandwich roll-up

At our trip to Trader Joe's the day before, she had chosen to try some apricots and green beans. I chose a set of Saturn peaches, mostly because they were flatter and would fit in an EasyLunchbox! When asked which fruit she wanted in her lunch, she chose both, and not cut into chunks with a pick either. Whole. (The disposable butterfly pick is from a pretty cupcake pick and liner set.)

So I tried to make up for it with the smoked gouda (another Trader Joe's purchase,) by making butterflies and hearts with cutters from one of my favorite sets of really tiny garden cutters. The scraps are all tucked underneath. (Paper liner has a butterfly design on it and came from Target around Easter time. I bought mine two years ago, but they had them again this year.)

So for her sandwich, after slicing the crusts off two slices of bread, and cutting them each in half lengthwise, I  pressed them flat and lined two strips up at the short ends with about an inch of overlap and smooshed them together really well. Then I used a rolling pin to roll the bread really flat before putting the Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter* on and rolling them up into two pinwheels. I added a dragonfly pick to jazz things up.


*I went to Wal-Mart hoping they had a bath seat for Baby E, since she HATES getting bathed in her baby tub, but LOVES sitting in the big tub with her Big Sis. No luck, but I found some items I'd heard of but never seen elsewhere - including Peanut Butter and Co's peanut butters mixed with chocolate! I bought two flavors to try, along with some WowButter (nut- and peanut-free soy butter - safe for nut-free classrooms!) I also found Biscoff, at a price much cheaper than I've been paying to get it from Amazon. Mental note for when I run out!

Mama's Lunch

spinach and lettuce salad, almonds and dried berries, raspberry vinaigrette.
grape medley, chocolate peanut butter mini pita pocket medley

For my lunch, since my lettuce and spinach were pretty packed, I decided to risk keeping my runny dressing in a mini muffin cup since the lettuce pressed it flush to the lid. Because I had to rinse the dirt off my lettuce, it was pretty wet, so I put the almonds and dried berries (they were a free sample with a Nuts'com order I'd made recently. They have fake red coloring, so I'm trying to use them up to get them out of the house.) My almonds had started to get soggy the previous lunch, so since I was packing this one the night before as well, I wanted them to stay dry in a silicone muffin cup.

Grapes for me, since she's not eating them, and I tried both Peanut Butter and Co's Dark Chocolate Dreams and White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butters on a mini pita pocket (also from Trader Joe's) cut into quarters to fit into the EasyLunchbox compartment. 

I liked the white chocolate better, which I hadn't tried the day before when I gave some to her, but she preferred the dark chocolate. So when we run out, I'll restock MY flavor, since she wants me to add regular PB with the brown-chocolate ones anyway, so I can just use another brand of chocolate nut butter or make my own. (Nutella has vanillin, which is an artificial flavoring that some dye-sensitive kids react to, but since she'd been eating it during our dye-purge and I saw improvement, she's probably okay with it. But I'm still looking for alternatives. Trader Joe's has a Chocolate Almond Butter too, but neither that nor the dark chocolate PB are as rich-tasting as Nutella.)

Posing outside the school for last-day photos!

If I recall correctly, she only ate the cheese and some of the sandwich before school, then ate her apricot, some more sandwich, and a green bean or two after.