Well, my oldest was sick today, and I only had to make one lunch. Which is a shame, because today's lunch was super cute! Frogs surrounded by lily pads and cheese flowers!
Cost per lunch: 87¢
Kid Rating: 
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 5 min | 16 min | 21 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 508 | 19 | 77 | 14 |
Today’s Menu:
Cost per lunch: 63¢
Kid Rating: 
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 5 min | 16 min | 21 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 508 | 19 | 77 | 14 |
I was up at 5:50 this morning with a poor teething baby, so what else should I do besides bake a pan of brownies and make some homemade calzones? For those of you that think this sounds daunting, please know, that making calzones is quite easy and fast. You can go to my recipes page and see the recipe I have for homemade calzones. It takes about 7 min to prep and knead the dough, and then for these mini calzones you’ll want to put them in the oven at 425º for about 20 minutes, turning them the last 5 to brown both sides. Paired with marinara sauce, it’s a great lunch and kids finger food. My kids came home today with empty lunchboxes and claimed “we loved lunch today Mom!”. Which means, I’m doing my job ;)
Today’s Menu
Cost per lunch: 64¢
Kid Rating: 
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 7 min | 15 min | 21 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 513 | 14 | 73 | 17 |
Today’s Menu
Today’s Menu:
To make the rice balls, I just cook some sticky rice (sushi rice) in the rice cooker and when it’s done, I fill my mold, press it down and instant rice ball. The turkey burgers were just make from ground turkey and I simply made them small enough to fit in the box. I then cut with an apple cookie cutter, four pieces of bread (from 2 slices of whole wheat), and two slices of cheddar cheese to go with the turkey minis.
Cost per lunch: 69¢
Kid Rating: 
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 8min | 10 min | 10 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 421 | 14 | 53 | 23 |
Cost per serving: 33¢
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 10 min | 40 min | 50 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 4 | 137 | 5 | 20 | 5 |
What you’ll need:
What you’ll do:
The bread was not mine sadly. I am able to find at our local bakery, really good deals sometimes, and that loaf was 60¢, which I couldn’t pass up.
The only complaint I had today is that Matthew prefers cantaloupe to honeydew and they didn’t like the Alfredo so cold. Maybe next time, I shouldn’t add the freezer pack in with pasta, when it has no meat.
Today’s Menu:
Cost per lunch: 56¢
Kid Rating: 
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 5 min | 0 min | 5 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 287 | 11 | 40 | 7 |
Todays Menu:
Cost per lunch: 95¢
Kid Rating:
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 10 min | 0 min | 10 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 394 | 22 | 35 | 19 |
You know those calzones I made yesterday? Well, I took the dough, and put it in the fridge to make something else. I decided this morning to make 4 giant soft pretzels to serve with peanut butter for lunch today! and they were good pretzels too. Want to spice it up? Add some sea salt or cinnamon before baking!
Today’s Menu:
Cost per lunch: 63¢
Kid Rating:
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 5 min | 16 min | 21 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 508 | 19 | 77 | 14 |
So lets get to making it then.
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 5 min | 35 min | 40 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 4 | 192 | 12 | 16 | 8 |
They’re lined PUL on the outside (the cotton is what you feel the PUL is in the middle between the cotton and lining) and they’re 100% cotton lined on the inside. They’re washable, dryable, and reusable of course. They have a velcro closure as well to keep your snacks safe. You can find premade ones in my Etsy Store, or you can email me directly to ask about certain prints. I try to stick to children's (boy/girl) prints, but can do solids if requested.
Today’s menu:
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 10 min | 0 min | 10 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 416 | 11 | 65 | 20 |
Todays Menu:
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 5 min | 25 min | 30 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 1 | 398 | 14 | 63 | 14 |
NOTE: As semi-vegetarians, we do not follow a 50% carbohydrates, 20% fat, 30% protein diet in this house. We follow a 60% complex/whole grain carbs, 15% fat, and 25% protein. This lunch fits these guidelines.
I also included an extra quarter for extra milk today because it was supposed to be 96º. (And it was!).
I made the cheese pizza fingers by baking a small cheese pizza (using my Whole Wheat Pizza recipe) and then simply let it cool for 30 min and instead of slices, I just cut it across into “fingers”. The rest is pretty self explanatory. The brownies were made using whole wheat flour, egg whites and olive oil. I cut them from an 8x8 pan into 16 small pieces.
Just a reminder, 150 Days of Bento starts tomorrow! I had it in my mind that school started today, and was sorely disapointed to find out it doesn’t start till tomorrow!
Matthew has planned the first five meals with me, picking and choosing what he wants! We’re both so excited!
Then after that was done, I bought some “blanket binding” in the crafts section and sewed it on. And it was done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
And now, my 8 month old will have a blanket he can call his own until he’s at least 8, and I didn’t throw the blankets away, I repurposed them!
Well, thank you to Random.org for providing me with the numbers 7, and 2. Chris will get Good Food to Go, and Melissa gets Laptop Lunch User’s Guide! I hope you both enjoy and follow along with 150 Days of Bento this year!
Chris- I’ll need you to email me please with your name and address.
Well, as the title indicates, school is indeed starting soon. For our children, it begins Wednesday. I am very excited this year! I have a second grader, and a kindergartener starting this year, and we are instilling the Bento box system for both. My son is using his from last year, as it hardly shows any wear, and my daughter was able to pick out her own new box. We did try to find a used system, but eBay didn’t have much when we ordered.
We’ve got the uniforms ordered, and bought, and backpacks are packed with school supplies and odds and ends. Video cam has been charged, as has the camera. Kids are ready, especially the youngest one going. She’s very excited to make new friends.
So then, everything is ready, but lunches. As you know, I”m doing 150 day of Bento on here, and every evening, you’ll have a new update of what we made for lunch, the kids will give it their own rating, and I’ll let you know how I think they ate that day.
Here’s some tips to make this time go easier.
One thing to consider is having your children make the lunches with you, or at least make decisions on foods while you pack. Children who feel like they have an input in what they eat are more likely to eat what you give them.
Keep in mind how the food pyramid has changed. It’s no longer a pyramid, but a plate. Ideally, you should follow this as closely as possible remembering that protein does not have to be meat. There are many sources of good wholesome protein. that doesn’t involve meat.
When you find a lunch your child likes, or find a food, write it down, and remember it. Then encourage them to try new foods, on their own terms. This will help them understand that trying new foods is a good thing.
Have your child bring home their leftovers so you can see what they are and aren’t eating. Also, we compost, so a few things they bring home can be composted. Things like a whole apple? They go back into the apple bin on the counter. This can save you time and money, along with giving you and idea what they’re eating. Also, if they’re hungry for a snack when they come home, why not just offer the leftover food to them then? They only ate the sandwich, but left the pita chips? Give them the pita chips and hummus for a snack. The more you offer a food, the more often they’ll try it.
IMHO, you should try to not pack anything milk or water in your child’s lunchbox for them to drink. All too often children are drinking too much soda, juice, and other drinks and not enough milk or water. You can even freeze your child’s water and use it as a lunch ice pack and it’ll be thawed by the time they eat. Parents think juice is a healthy option, and if it’s the only juice they’ll have that day, that’s fine, but ideally, they should have whole foods.
Try to pick a lunch system that is as close to waste free as you can get. The one we use, Laptop Lunches, is completely waste free. They not only have the pack they come with, but there are all sorts of accessories you can get as well to compliment the variety of foods you’ll be packing. The average “brown bag child” tosses more than 65lbs of trash each year in lunches alone. That’s a lot!
So lets get to how to do this!
These are new jars, lids and rings, so one jar of salsa cost me $1.25. Next year, I’ll have to buy new lids only and a jar of salsa will cost about 30¢ each. Can’t beat that price for 16oz of homemade salsa.
What you need:
Equipment
You can find the jar funnel, lid lifter, jar grabber and a spacer (which we don’t need here) in a kit at Walmart or your local discount store for about $10 or under.
The first thing you need to do is prepare a pot of boiling water. Just like we did with the peaches, you’ll dip in your tomatoes, let them sit in the boil bath for 45 seconds, and then put them in a bowl of ice water. After a couple of minutes, the skins will slide right off. Likewise, you can always used canned whole peeled tomatoes, but they don’t taste as good in my humble opinion, and it’s certainly not as cheap.
After your skins are off, we need to slice the tomatoes in half (between the stem and bottom across the core) and shake the seeds and water out. Some people are anal about this, I don’t mind a few seeds. As you’re doing this, dropped your seedless tomato halves into a colander in the kitchen sink. Stick a bowl under them to collect the juice. This is prime, fresh tomato juice which can be used for a number of things.
Next gather your items for seasoning. I used this time, 1 cup of lime juice, 1 cup of lemon juice (I like the different flavors together, you can use 2 of either kind), 4 cloves of pressed garlic, 3 bell peppers, 7 jalapenos seeded and chopped, 5 medium onions (we like our onions) and a handful of fresh cilantro. I chopped both the peeled tomatoes, and then also diced some fresh tomatoes as I like both in our salsa. I had about 8lbs of peeled and 2lbs of fresh.
Now you dump it all in a pot on the stove, and mix it up. Put it on medium heat and heat it up, when it comes to a boil (or as I call it “splash stage” because it’s not really a liquid), turn it down and let it simmer for 30 min.
It’s time now, to get our water bath together. Fill your pot and put it on the stove, on high heat. Put in your jars and lids and rings. This will sanitize them to prevent spoilage.
After your salsa is done simmering, take your jars out using the jar lifter and then using the funnel fill them up to the bottom of the funnel (this is also about 1/4 inch from the top). Then using the lid lifter, grab a lid out for each jar. Then using the lid lifter, grab a ring out and place it on each jar. Now, hand tighten each ring on the jar.
Place your jars back in ten boiling bath with the jar lifter and put the lid on your water bath canner. You'll want to boil them for 15 minutes if you’re under 1000ft altitude and 20 min if your at 1000 ft to 6000ft like I am.
When they’re done, simply use the jar lifter and place the jars on a towel of some kind so they don’t heat up your counter and make spots, and let them cool overnight. The seals will seal sometime in the next hour or so. Before you go to bed, if any haven’t sealed put them in the fridge and use it within the next month. Also be sure not to bump or jostle the jars whilst their hot for fear of cracking or breaking them.
Profit from your garden veggies!
| Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 5 min | 15 min | 20 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 4 | 287 | 4 | 46 | 14 |
Cost for 8 waffles: $1.46 (or around 18¢ per waffle)
What you’ll do:
1. Buy in bulk. Now, in case you live in a town like mine and don’t have a Costco or a Sam’s or the like, then buying in bulk can be difficult. Also, membership fees to bulk stores like that are ridiculous! It makes no sense to me, to pay a member fee to save money. It seems counterintuitive. So. Amazon.com has bulk items. 25lbs of sugar/flour, cereals, rice, snacks, baby food, all of these items, you can get cheap on the site, and even get cheaper if you have it delivered every so often. As it stands, I have 25lbs of flour delivered every month. It costs me less than if I were to buy in the store, and it comes to my house, free shipping. How can you beat this? You can’t. Buying in bulk just got taken to a whole new level.
2. Eat meatless 3-4 nights a week. Meat is the main course of the average American’s dinner 7 nights a week. There are many many meatless dishes that are delicious, simple and healthy.If you have four in your family, and buy 1lb of lean meat every night, you’ll spend on average $3-$4 per night just on meat. Cut that out four nights a week and you’ve shaved $12-$16 off your grocery bill each week. Doesn’t sound like much? Well it translates to about $50-$60 a month, and who wouldn’t like to save $50 a month?
3. Grow a garden. Now before you smite me into oblivion, let me expound. Some of you, probably live in very small lots in the city, and you think “I don’t have room for a garden!”. Sure you do. It’s called container gardening, and it’s simple, easy and efficient. You just need to buy containers (or recycle large plastic bins you can find!) and fill them with dirt, and compost (everyone should compost, it’s easy!) and buy some seeds. Now will this take work? Yes, of course. However, once you start getting things like tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, peppers and peas, you’ll be glad you did. We have a larger garden and save about $100 bucks a month on average from not buying produce. If you only saved $50, well that’s another $50 bucks you can save.
4. Only buy in season produce. Some things, like lettuce, tomatoes, and mushroom and cukes stay “in season” all year, because of green houses. However other things like melons, corn, plums, pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, eggplant, parsnips, broccoli etc, those are “in season” or not. If you see a “good price”, try to eat more of that veggie/fruit for a while, till you see the price go up. When peaches are 25¢ a lb, it’s because they’re in season right now and the stores have more than they can sell. When they’re $2.00 a lb it’s because they’re not in season.
5. Stop buying boxed items. You’re paying for packaging, advertising and nine times of ten, it’s not even a nutritionally sound item. Instead slice up some carrots and peppers for a snack or have some apples and PB. This is doubly good as it also saves on recycling and packaging.
6. Keep your pantry stocked with cheaper items like whole wheat pastas, rice and beans, canned tomatoes and sauces, and then if you’re feeling blah one night, you can simply whip up something out of those items instead of going for take out.
7. Check the bakery of your local place, either early in the morning or at night. They’ll have discounted breads and rolls that need to go. Who says you can’t have a turkey sandwich on a rye roll? Or a ciabatta? I regularly am able to get huge French and Italian loves for under a dollar, which is cheaper than what I can make them at home.
8. Plan your meals. I can’t say this enough. We have a 2 week rotating schedule and every few months, I change a few of the things aren’t hubby’s or my kids fav foods and add in new items. Planning your meals makes it not only easier to stick to them, and eat out less, but also, you don’t go in and think “what should we have for dinner tonight?” Only to buy things on a whim. If you know that every 2 weeks you’ll have rice four times, that’s ~8times a month, and you can buy rice in bulk instead of buying a small bag for each dinner.
9. Make your own cleaners. I realize this sounds daunting, but it’s really not. Laundry detergent is something used by us all, every single one of us, and shoot its darned expensive! Tide, which is what I liked to use, cause it got the kids clothing clean, runs $19 at Walmart for 150oz. This equals out to about 13¢ an ounce. Most loads, that are medium will use an ounce and you’ll use more for larger loads. Now, I’ve got a recipe on here for laundry detergent and I can tell you, and I have friends that can tell you, IT WORKS. I was actually really surprised, which is one reason I put off doing it so long. I figured it would never clean clothing as well as chemical laden products like Tide would. However at 2¢ a load, I was willing to give it a whirl. It even gets dirty diapers clean. And if you use bleach? A solution of water, hydrogen peroxide and lemon juice works just as well without the crappy smell or bleaching out stuff you don’t want to, cause that always seems to happen right? Right. If you have to, make a deal with a neighbor that you’ll make XYZ cleaners if she/he makes ABC cleaners, and make enough for both of you. This way, you make larger batches of one thing, and just trade.
10. Stop buying bottled water and sodas. These items are expensive, use tons of plastic and some of them not good for your waistline. Instead, invest $30 bucks in an easy to install under your sink filter for your cold water, and use it. We have one, and change the $14 filter every six months. We get “unlimited” filtered water for $28 bucks a year. How much do you spend on soda and bottled water a month? Start drinking more water. Your body will thank you as will your wallet.
11. Watch the unit price. Stores have been sneaky I’ve noticed lately in that the larger items, that you would think would be cheaper per ounce, aren’t, and sometimes are almost 50% more per ounce. If you have to, take a calculator with you, as some stores don’t post the unit price on the shelf. I promise you’ll only have to do it a few times before it becomes ingrained which items you buy and then you’ll only need to recalculate when the prices change.
12. Stop wasting food. Did your next door neighbor give you 5lbs of zucchini and now you don’t know what to do with it? Shred it. And put it in everything. From sauces, to meatloaves, to pastas. Put it in everything. I even shred it onto our homemade pizzas. And it’s not even noticeable in taste, but it sure is when it comes to my belly getting fully on less money, and the nutritional content of my foods.
13. Visit your Farmer’s Market late in the day. Why? Well, the vendors are going to be wanting to pack up and go soon, and the less they truck back, the better for them, and for you. You can score some serious deals if you wait. Of course, you’ll be limited to what’s available at that time, but that’s where food creativity comes in :)
14. Join a local food co-op. ‘They have seriously reduced prices, and everyone gets a share. It’s a wonderful way to stay local, mostly organic and cheap.
15. Shop somewhere that price matches and then simply bring in the ads from local competitors. I just place all the “priced matched foods” in the front of the cart, so they get on the belt first, and that way we just do them all at once, and it’s done, in a few minutes. It usually saves me at least $10-$30 bucks a week.
One thing, my kids can’t live without is pizza. They’re only 7, 5, and 3 (and the baby doesn’t eat pizza), but every time we have pizza, there are cheers all around. However, I refuse to buy the crap pizza that places like Little Caesars, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns are selling these days. They’re greasy, heavy, and made with all kinds of crap. So, I searched high and low, and made several pie recipes before I found just the right one. So let us get to it shall we? | Prep Time | Cook Time | Ready In |
| 1 hr (including rise time) | 15 minutes total | 1hr 15 min |
| Servings | Calories | Fat | Carbs | Protein |
| 16 | 125 | 1 | 24 | 5 |
The Challenge: I will be using five books this year in which I pull healthy lunches together from for the kids. They won’t be exactly the Bento style as we have Laptop Lunch Boxes, and not true Bento Boxes. The Laptop Lunch Boxes are great, and you can find my review of them over here! Don’t forget to follow my blog here, so that you can come back every single school day and see what I’ve made new for the kids and how well they liked it! Yes, that’s right! There’s also going to be a 5 star rating system on how well my children ate that days lunch. Both my children that are in school this year, a 5yo kindergartener and a 7yo second grader, will be giving their own ratings on each lunch.
So, we have five books, they are:
Each day I will be pulling a lunch from one of these books. Three of them, Good Food to Go, Vegan Lunch Box and the Laptop Lunch User’s Guide, are all based on the Laptop Lunchbox 2.0 Bento System. You can find the lunchboxes on sale here, or you can always check eBay for used products, as re-using is something we at Crunchy Goodness support 100%! They are hard to find on eBay and they go quick, so don’t be too disappointed if you can’t find one.
The Yum Yum Bento Box book is more about making food look fun for kids using some Japanese Bento style ideas like sushi paper, rice molds and even hard boiled egg molds. The idea is, if they have a car shaped hard boiled egg in their box, they are probably more likely to eat it!
The Top 100 Recipes for Happy Kids, is more about feeding your child each meal to encourage proper growth, both physically and mentally. Make sure your child gets the macro and micro nutrition they need daily, and making healthy food fun for kids! I will be trying all sorts of recipes from this book, but you’ll only find the lunch recipes I use on the 150 days of Bento page. Any other recipes I use from this book will of course, go under the Recipes page under the proper category.
Against the normal grain of how we live as a family, I have purchased all of these books, and they sit on my kitchen shelf. My library didn’t have all of them, and I don’t think they’d lend me a book for the school year without declaring it lost anyway! And I figure, when we’re done with them, I can donate them to the library and then they will have all the books for others to then use. As always though, check your local library first to see if they have the books so you can borrow instead of buy!
