Lunchtimes
Since my kids started playgroup when they were four years old, I’ve made lunches (almost) every day during the school year and for camps over the summer. One of the regular pieces of content here will be our lunches. I started posting them on instagram several years back, so that anyone can see them. My goal in doing that was to make vegan lunches (for kids and adults) accessible and less scary. You don’t have to have a ton of time or a ton of money to make good lunches for the kids and yourself. These days, I’m pretty good about making lunch for myself at the same time that I make the kids’ lunches. I always kick myself at lunchtime if I haven’t!
My philosophy on lunch is that a packed lunch should have everything a growing kid or adult needs for a full and healthy meal and must be visually appealing. If it looks like crap, chances are your kids won’t eat it, and then you’ll have hangry kids and annoyed teachers.
I try to do lunch prep on Sunday night, after a grocery shop on Saturday or Sunday. This week that meant cooking the tempeh with barbecue sauce, steaming the broccoli, making the garlic and greens, getting the rice and millet set to cook overnight, frying the onions, baking the turmeric potatoes, and making the green radish pickles. I also try to plan lunches that can use the different dishes I make Sunday in interesting ways, so that we aren’t eating the same meal day after day. If I am successful on Sunday nights, then I only have one or two things to make in the morning. I can pull everything else out of the fridge, reheat if necessary, and put the bento boxes together.
Here are our lunches from Monday and Tuesday this week. Look out for the rest of this week’s lunches.
Monday’s barbecue tempeh was a request from my younger daughter, who loves all things barbecue. 🙂 She finished everything in this bento, while my older daughter did not, due to being 12.
Tuesday’s inarizushi is an all-time family favorite and easy to eat by hand, making it perfect for my older daughter who often finds herself chatting too much at lunch to eat everything! Oh, to be a 7th grader again… The turmeric potatoes were her request.