Have A Very Seussical Day!

To celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss, I threw together a quickie muffin tin meal lunch for Little Z. I knew I wanted to use my fishy cups, so I needed a round cup muffin tin. The only round 6-cup muffin pan I have is crusty and old, so I spruced it up with colorful silicone muffin cups.

Clockwise from top left: GF Mac-n-Cheese,  dye-free yogurt, strawberries, blue corn tortilla chips, guacamole, snap peas

Flootery Snoots: The girls and I are trying a 6-week gluten-free diet, to see if it helps some... erm... GI issues. So this was our first experience with gluten-free pasta. I had heard good reviews for the Trader Joe's rice noodles mac-n-cheese, and stocked up. It was pretty good. The noodles were a bit stickier, so I had more noodle clumps. But the taste and texture were great. And the cheese sauce had the same nasty tang I hate from the dye-filled Kraft stuff, so the girls loved it! Haha!
Since this was a Seuss-y themed lunch, Z insisted that it couldn't just be called macaroni and cheese, since it isn't in the stories anywhere. So I made up a name for them, and told her they were all the fancy tube-y bendery things in the illustrations.

The Cat in the Hat goldfish pick came from a friend. No clue where she found it!

Rainbow Goo: Trix yogurt was on sale, plus had a store coupon, plus a manufacturer peelie coupon on the package, so I couldn't pass them up. Little Z has been asking for "the rainbow yogurt with the rabbit on it," and since it's artificial-free, I'm not opposed to it outright. I'm not in love with all the processed sugars, but I will support the companies TRYING to make stuff safer, when I can.

I chose a little animal spoon with an elephant on it to represent Horton.

Red Fish, Blue Fish: I love these cups, and got them specifically for a Seuss-themed lunch! A friend found them at Christmas Tree Stores and mailed them to me. Woop!
Organic strawberries for the red, and I made them sticking up, to kind of look, I dunno... Seussery, with all the humps and lumps.

For the blue fish, I used some gluten-free Whale Tail Blue Corn Tor"chia" Chips. I had initially got a little sample bag in one of my foodie boxes, but found a larger bag of them plus the yellow ones at Home Goods (like TJ Maxx, Marshall's, Ross, etc.) When I was first planning this lunch out in my head, I was just planning on making mac-n-cheese and missing out on doing a Seuss lunch this year, but I had to push the whale chips aside to make room on the stove, and something went *click.* Blue fish... red fish blue fish... This just might work!
When I asked Z if she'd like some of the blue whale chips in her lunch, she asked for guacamole to go with. Done!

Star-Bellied Peas: I was in a hurry, since I hadn't even started making lunch until after lunchtime, so I couldn't quickly think of anything cute to do with veggies. I cut the organic sugar snap peas open, since they look cooler that way. Like a whole family of Whoville heads peeking out. And then a star-shaped silicone cup, as a nod to the Star-Bellied Sneetches.  

The Grinch: I thawed a frozen Wholly Guacamole 100-Calorie pack (I keep them in the freezer to last longer) and snipped a corner to squeeze it into the silicone cup. I used an animal-face nori punch to make the mouth and nose out of some nori, and then hand-snipped some quicky little scraps to be pupils. I used two yellow candy-coated sunflower seeds from Trader Joe's (no artificial ingredients) and used my bento tweezers (stainless steel so I can put them in the dishwasher when they gett ooky!) to get some guacamole on the "pupils" and place them on the candies.

Not the best Grinch ever. But pretty good for under 2-minutes!

...although she thought it was the Cat in the Hat, and the whole tin should have been themed that way. "Mama, you forgot Thing 1 and Thing 2!" Doh!

Find more Seussical inspiration at Bento Bloggers and Friends and AllThingsForSale!

 

Tools of the Trade