Healthy Lunch Challenge: Lunch 5

BIG points for the girl today in the Crunch a Color game!  She opted for another salad today, but this time we decided to make it an end of the week, clean out the fridge salad!  :-)  It was a great way to use up all of the odds and ends we had left and Clara was thrilled to be racking up so many points!

The girl's lunch...

Clean the fridge salad (baby lettuces, spinach, steamed asparagus, mushrooms, jicama, purple cabbage, cheese, grape tomatoes, ham and balsamic vinaigrette - not pictured), whole wheat crackers, and fruit (strawberries and blueberries).

Healthy Lunch Challenge: Lunch 4

Not a huge score in the Crunch a Color game... but a big one for Alex!  He asked for another salad this time... AND asked for it in the larger compartment.  Progress... we're making progress!  Oh... and I also realized later, that he could have had 15 more points.  The salad mix I used was a blend of spinach and baby lettuces... but I wasn't thinking of them as two separate things at the time and only gave him one card.

The boy's lunch...

Leftover BBQ chicken, whole wheat crackers, salad (baby lettuces, spinach, cheese and cherry vinaigrette - not pictured), cherries and a banana.

Healthy Lunch Challenge: Lunch 3

The kids have really been enjoying Crunch a Color's Healthy Lunch Challenge and keep looking for ways to add up more points!  Clara decided to try a new food to double her score yesterday.  She tried jicama to add some crunch to her taco salad (again leftovers from dinner the night before).

Here's her lunch...

Taco salad (baby spinach and spring mix, leftover taco meat, corn, jicama, cheese, grape tomatoes and ranch - not pictured), whole wheat crackers, and fruit (strawberries and blueberries).

Healthy Lunch Challenge: Lunch 2

It may have been a dark, dreary day outside yesterday... but it was bright and happy in my kitchen!!  My 13 year old son asked to play the Crunch a Color game!  AND... the biggest bright spot of all, was that he asked for a salad to add more points!  The boy has NEVER asked for salad before!  Last night he told me that he really enjoyed having one and would like one more often.  I really couldn't believe it!

This is yet another leftovers lunch... it's really the only way I stay sane with the crazy last few weeks of school.  Although this meal almost made me crazy... first, I forgot to actually turn the breakmaker on to make my dough before I left with Clara for her dance class (Alex started it for me when he got home) and, second, after spreading the dough in the pan, I realized that I had forgotten to buy pizza sauce!  Thankfully I found some of my homemade pizza sauce that I had forgotten about in the freezer... whew!

So, here is the boy's leftover lunch (with a salad!!!)....

Leftover homemade pizza (whole wheat crust, homemade pizza sauce, ground beef and Italian sausage mix, mushrooms, black olives and mozzarella), a spring mix and baby spinach salad with a little cheese and cherry vinaigrette dressing (in the minidipper), blueberries and strawberries and, finally, the ever present staple of his lunches... a banana.

Oh... and don't worry about my Crunch a Color cards on the wet deck!  They have a great coating on them, so the water wiped right off and they're still just like new!  :-)

Healthy Lunch Challenge: Lunch 1

I'm so excited to be part of Crunch a Color's Healthy Lunch Challenge!  Clara's lunches are usually pretty colorful, so it was no surprise that she enjoyed adding up her points.  The big surprise was my 13 year old son!  He's usually not much of a veggie person, but, being the video game player that he is, he couldn't let his sister get "high score" and decided to play too!  I'm so excited by his choices and his branching out away from his norm!  More on that tomorrow though, when I post his lunch.

In case you can't tell by recent posts, I am totally addicted to fixing dinners that have leftovers that work well in lunchboxes.  Monday night I tried another new recipe from skinnytaste.com, Easiest Crock Pot Salsa Verde Chicken.  I used the chicken to made the tostadas pictured in the recipe.  They were FANTASTIC (and super easy too)!!!  My plan was to have Clara take the leftovers cold as lettuce wraps, but she vetoed that and asked for chicken nachos like her brother had packed.

So, here is her lunch...

Salsa Verde Chicken topped with a little Mexican blend cheese, purple cabbage slaw and Soy & Flaxseed tortilla chips.  Carrots and cucumbers in ranch.  And finally, some strawberries.

I let her have the "x2 try a new food" card for the purple cabbage slaw.  She has had it before as little bits in other things, but this was her first time to eat a slaw made of only purple cabbage.  She really liked it and the extra crunch it gave to her nachos!

a colorful friday lunch...

We're finally getting bright sunny days here, so why not have a bright sunny looking lunch!

My main grocery run this week was to Trader Joe's, so quite a few TJ products make an appearance in this lunch...

A Trader Joe's Banana Protein Power Muffin, TJ's pretzel thins and carrots with TJ's Mediterranean Greek Yogurt Dip (very addicted to this stuff!),  a mini caprese salad (Bel Gioioso Fresh Mozzarella Pearls, diced tomato, chopped fresh basil, salt, pepper and TJ's balsamic vinaigrette dressing) and fruit (mango, pineapple and pomegranate seeds).

fast and easy five layer dip...

This is a favorite lunch of both kids!  And it is so easy too!  I know it looks like it might take a while to put together, but what makes this lunch so fast and easy, is that I put the dip part together while cleaning up the leftovers from dinner!  We had build your own bean burritos for dinner the other night.  After everyone was fed, I started cleaning up the little bits that were left over.  Instead of putting them into various storage containers, I layered them in the larger of the two smaller compartments in our EasyLunchboxes.  I had to package everything for the fridge anyway... so why not save a step for the morning and put it straight into our lunch boxes!

Here's Clara's lunch (and Alex had the same thing)...

Five layer dip (beans on the bottom, guacamole, sour cream, fresh tomato salsa and cheddar cheese), Trader Joe's Soy and Flax Seed chips, strawberries, and Trader Joe's Yogurt Stars (I went to TJ's hungry this week and I have a major weakness for these things!!).

I just realized that I have a similar lunch just a few posts down!  Two totally different dinners ended up with similar leftover lunches... just a reminder to get creative when thinking about planning leftover lunches.  You don't have to make the exact same dinner as I did to come out with a similar lunch.  This one came from a bean burrito dinner night, the other one from fajitas... leftovers from taco night would make an excellent layer dip lunch too!  Make what your family likes and then layer it up for lunch!  :-)