bentoriffic

Sometimes the quick lunches turn out better than the planned ones.  The planned lunch I made today turned out to be a disaster.  I ate the scraps and grabbed for the cookie cutters!  Pastry cutters to be exact.  These are my new favorite tools for smaller foods.  I found mine at Amazon and at a local baking shop.  They have a plunger so they’re easy to release after pushing down on the foods to get the imprint.  They are easy to use on bread, fruit, vegetables and of course pastries.   I used the LOVE heart for the sandwiches and the cherries to cut watermelon pieces.

My girls wanted just almond butter today.  I ended up having to make tons more watermelon and grapes after these lunches were gone.  And Voila…cute lunch in about 3 minutes start to finish!

And last night’s dinner was so simple and good that I’m including it today too.  We had vegan BLTs for the first time since giving up meat & dairy, and they were surprisingly great!  I used our usual Rudi’s Whole Grain bread toasted.  Spread a dab of Earth Balance Coconut Spread and dab of Earth Balance Mindful Mayo on either side.  I sliced organic tomatoes, romaine,  and cooked some Smoky Maple Tempeh (soybean) “Bacon” strips to complete the sandwiches.  Tempeh is a complete protein, meaning it contains all the essential amino acids,  for those of you who may be wondering how non-meat eaters get our protein.  I also added avocados to all our sandwiches.  They were delicious!

It was a quick, simple dinner, but it was also important to me because it’s another meal that my husband and both kids LOVED and didn’t miss the meat or dairy one bit.  One more step in a healthier direction for us!

Can’t forget the salad!  My husband is the salad ingredient guinea pig around here.  If it tastes badly, he lets me know.  Today I slipped in a bunch of sprouts I found at our local Whole Foods.  They were mixed sprouted adzuki, lentil and mung beans.  The salad is mixed greens, mini cucumbers, sprouts, and sugar snap peas with a side of ginger dressing not shown.  At the top left are pineapple pieces and the top right are Rainier cherries packed in an Easy LunchBox.

Things I used to make today’s lunch:

STAY TUNED FOR A GIVEAWAY MONDAY!