Something On A Stick Day Lunches For My Girls

March 28th every year is Something On A Stick Day, to celebrate things on sticks! (Somewhat obvious, no?) As far as I can tell, it's intended for foods on sticks, like popsicles, kabobs, corn dogs, etc. But I don't see why it couldn't include pinwheels, garden decorations, balloons on sticks, etc. So celebrate it however you like! There are no things-on-a-stick police gonna come and make you do it their way!

Check out some more fun stick-y lunches at Bent On Better Lunches' Food-On-A-Stick Linky!

Little Z's Lunch-On-A-Stick

Strawberries, GF ham and cheese sandwich bites w/mustard, sugar snap peas, carrots, and Chioggia beets

I fell asleep with Baby the night before, so didn't have a chance to make lunch in advance. So I got up a bit early and put this together while the girls ate breakfast.
Since I needed something that wouldn't bust up and crack the cheese and carrots, since I was in too much of a hurry to use a straw to punch through first to put them on a thicker skewer, I used tinsel "fireworks" skewers for everything.

For the sandwich I used my FunBites Cube It on a slice each of bread, uncured ham, and cheese. I squirted some mustard onto my cutting board (I use thin washable plasticy ones, so I can pop them in the dishwasher and grab a new one each time,) and spread it on the parts of the bread squares that would touch meat or cheese as I went. I hate mustard, so didn't want to have to lick any off my fingers!

The veggie skewer is some organic sugar snap peas cut into halvsies, alternating with organic carrot and Chioggia beet coins cut with a sakura flower veggie cutter. The strawberries should be easy to figure out what I did... Heehee.
I used my kitchen shears to trim the pointy ends off, since her teacher requested no pointy toothpicks at school. Plus they fit in the box better that way! Ha!

I just got several Glit and Brillia 2-tier bento boxes in green, blue, and pink. So I mixed up the sets to each be three colors. Love it! You could also use just two colors, with one in the middle and the other for the top and bottom, and then the opposite for the second box. What fun!

Baby's Lunch On A "Stick"

GF ham and cheese bites and scraps, 1/2 banana, garlic rice and quinoa w/cheese, frozen peas

I packed a lunch for Baby in an EasyLunchbox, since it's less messy and fewer dishes than serving her on bowls and plates, plus I can grab and go if she didn't finish in time.

For her "sticks," I skewered some extra bits of FunBites Cube It! uncured ham and cheese and gluten-free bread squares from Z's lunch. I had wanted to try a longer skewer, but couldn't find any that I felt were safe enough that weren't way too thick for this. I didn't want anything thin or a brittle enough plastic that she could snap it apart in her mouth, or anything too pointy on the end. So I turned to my bag of Easter picks for inspiration.
I ended up choosing a Happy Easter cupcake pick and a vintage-style Spring animals bunny cupcake pick (got mine online somewhere.) The ham and cheese scraps just got tossed in to the side there.

The rice and quinoa is a mixture I happened upon by accident that turned out to be a big hit. Since I need to be more proactive about healthy whole grains on a gluten-free diet, since they often won't get enough from breads, noodles, and crackers alone, I started making big batches of rice and quinoa mix to save in the fridge and freezer and serve throughout the week. But it gets boring after a while. Z doesn't like cooked veggies, or pretty much anything I cook, so there aren't a lot of options to mix-in to change it up.
I offered her some melted cheese on top the night before, and added in a little garlic powder and a grind of salt. She loved it! And Baby got jealous, so I had to make HER a bowl too, even though she had already eaten a bowl of my veggie-rice-quinoa curry for dinner. A Mama-sized bowl, since it had originally been for me.
And then Z asked for SECONDS! When she asked for thirds, we redirected her to a bowl of frozen organic peas instead. My girls love frozen peas! Freaks.

Now you might assume that I left my 15-month-old unattended with the cupcake picks. Or maybe I let her have them in the car while I drove somewhere.

Or, you could assume that we all sat and had lunch together. Supervised.

Whichever one makes you feel more comfortable with my parenting choices... Hahaha!

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