Lunches for Aji's First and Second Days of School

Tuesday

The first day of playgroup/school for my baby, who is now a big 3.5 year-old!  She asked for green noodles for lunch.  I asked if she wanted spinach linguini, what I normally make the girls, or green tea soba noodles.  She chose the green tea sobas!

Lunches:

Green tea soba noodles (cook according to package, then rinse under cold water)

Stir-fried "duck"-style seitan (not really sure what made it veggie "duck," seemed like pretty standard seitan) and chopped yellow pepper

Raw cucumber wedges and yellow pepper slices

Sauteed cremini and shiitake mushrooms 

Organic cherries

Prep:

I chopped and sauteed the mushrooms the night before in organic extra virgin olive oil and organic canola oil.  I also cut the cucumber wedges and pepper spears.

In the morning, I cooked the noodles, chopped the seitan and pepper, and stir-fried the seitan and peppers.  I kept everything separated (sometimes the girls are picky about mixing food or like to mix their own) when I packed with little silicone containers.  I put the cherries on top of the noodles.

I tried making a little smiley face out of a cucumber and tofutti cheese slice for Aji, but by the time we got to school, her backpack had taken several tumbles down stairs and around the car, so it was no longer a smiley face.  Have to work on the cuteness factor!  Need to read up on those tutorials.  ;-P

I mixed everything together (except the cherries) for my lunch.  Thought it was pretty good, but whatever spices were used in the faux duck seitan were a little weird.  Jacqui liked the seitan better than the mushrooms, which just didn't make any sense to me at all.  (She's had no school since her first day, so has been eating lunch with me every day.)  Aji ate most of the noodles at school and two of the cherries, and then we finished the rest off at home.  Noodles were a definite success.  Not sure about the seitan though.  

Wednesday

For lunches today (Wednesday), Aji asked for tofu scramble.  I love tofu scramble lunches because I know they will eat everything!  Any veggie can go in and it will be eaten, even if it is *gasp* a mushroom!!!

Lunches:

Tofu scramble

Organic grapes

Yellow pepper slices

Pitette (small pita)

Prep: 

Had I not fallen asleep when I put the girls to bed last night, I would have actually prepped all the veggies, especially the broccoli that needed to be used today.  But alas, I needed SLEEP, so everything was done this morning, except for shredding the zucchini, which I did over the weekend.  

The nice thing about tofu scramble is that you can really make it with whatever veggies you have and it will taste delicious.  You just have to take care with the order in which you add things to cook so that the harder veggies, like onion and sweet potatoes, have longer to cook than the shredded zucchini.

Ingredients for tofu scramble:

Extra virgin olive oil, canola oil, or safflower oil

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 medium sweet potato, cubed

1/2 cup chopped red, orange, and yellow peppers

1/2 cup shredded zucchini

1 cup chopped mushrooms

1 block firm tofu

Tumeric

Sea salt

Nutritional yeast

1-2 plum tomatoes, chopped

What to do: 

Heat the oil over medium heat, add onions and saute while cutting the sweet potato.  Add the sweet potato and continue to saute as you cut the peppers and chop the mushrooms.  Add the chopped pepper and mushrooms and saute.  Add the shredded zucchini, saute.  Drain the tofu (but do not press) and crumble into the pan, saute.  Add the tumeric, to get to the color you want.  Add sea salt and nutritional yeast to taste, continue to saute.  Check that sweet potatoes and mushrooms are cooked and turn off heat.  Add the chopped tomatoes.  

The tofu scramble took about 30 minutes to cook today, with all the different veggies.  Cooking time varies based on the amount of prep you've done and the types and sizes of veggies that you are using. 

To pack: 

I put the tofu scramble into the large (bottom) part of the girls' bentos today.  Wished I hadn't for Aji because it came home with tumeric-colored liquid all in her lunch bag.  [Note to self: Aji's lunches have too much motion involved to be unsealed or too cute.]

Top section had a pitette cut in half (in which to stuff the tofu scramble for easier eating), two slices of yellow pepper, and organic grapes. 

Inarizushi and Cucumber Sushi

Today was meant to be the welcome party for Aji's playground, but the weather interfered and the party was rained out.  But not until after I had made inarizushi for the party.  I did not manage to take any photos of the inarizushi, but I am sharing how to make it.  For dinner, I used the same rice and made cucumber sushi, which was a big hit with the girls.

Step One: Rice Mixture

I make a brown rice mixture.  I always use brown rice, hijiki seaweed, and a vegetable.  Sometimes I add millet, quinoa, sesame seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, you get the idea.  Adjust the amount of water to the amount of rice, millet, quinoa that you are using.

2 (rice) cups brown rice

1-2 T dry hijiki

1 cup shredded zucchini (or other vegetable)

4.5 (rice) cups water

I set this in my rice maker with a delay start so that it is ready in the morning.

Step Two: Making Inarizushi

You need to purchase inarizushi-no-moto (like here from Amazon) or make your own from auberage.  I haven't been able to find unseasoned auburage, so I buy the seasoned cans of the inarizushi-no-moto from the local Korean natural grocery store.  

When I'm making a large batch of inarizushi, I use the liquid from the can to mix with my rice mixture.  When I'm just making a few for my kids' lunches, I use a reasoned rice vinegar (sushi vinegar).  Not much is needed, enough to mix with the rice to add a little flavor, and let the rice cool a little bit so that you don't burn your hands stuffing the inari.

After mixing the liquid with the rice, then to make the inarizushi, you take one piece of the inarizushi-no-moto out of the can, and gently open it, taking care not to tear it, making it into a little pocket.  Then, you take some of the rice mixture and stuff it into the pocket.  You can either stuff it to the top or stuff it a little less and fold over the edges of the pocket.  I always leave edges to fold over.  If you stuff the rice to the top, you can add sprinkles of gomassio or something else to the open rice.

When I make inarizushi for the girls' lunches, I use two stuffed pockets for each lunch.  Today I made 10 pieces for the party, which we ate for lunch with friends.

Step Three: Making Cucumber Sushi

One large cucumber makes four large pieces for the girls' dinner

I take the cucumber and partially peel it, but you can leave the skin on or peel it completely.  The girls and I like the stripes from the partial peel.  Then, I cut the cucumber into four sections that are 1.5-2 inches long.  Using a spoon or a knife, cut out the center (seeds) of each cucumber piece.  Take some of the rice mixture and stuff the cucumber.  Sprinkle black sesame seeds gomassio on top and serve.  Yum!

 

I served this with pecans and avocado for the girls' dinner tonight.  They had a lot of fun eating these, although I may make the cucumber pieces a bit shorter next time.  :)

New school year, new school lunches

Jacqui started kindergarten today.  It's an all-day affair here in New York, five days a week. So that means that I have lunches to make six days a week for two kids now.  Last year was four days a week, three days of playgroup and one day of Chinese school. This year five days of school and one day of Chinese school.  I'm going to try to post a few days a week the lunches I make them.  Wish me luck!


Lunches so far this week

Wednesday 
trip to the aquarium
Spinach linguini with soy vinaigrette
Green olives
Veggie spring rolls
Honest Kids juices for both girls

Thursday 
Jacqui's first day of kindergarten
Cold soba noodles (with ponzu sauce for Jacqui)
Cucumber half moons
Cherries
Green olives
Tofu cats (tofu coated in my mix and fried in safflower oil -- see below)
Reusable container of vanilla soy yogurt for Jacqui
Honest kids apple juice drink for Jacqui 

Coating mix
Spelt flour
Organic cornstarch
Whole wheat pastry flour
Sea salt
Nutritional yeast
Black sesame seeds
White sesame seeds

Method for Tofu Cats (or other shapes)

I slice a block of extra firm tofu into four equal slices and then use cookie cutters to make shapes for the girls.  We have a huge assortment of shapes (thanks, Mom!.  The girls' favorites are the cat and papillon (butterfly).  Hearts and stars are big hits too.  After cutting out the shapes, I coat the tofu in my coating mix (front and back) and then fry the tofu on both sides in organic safflower or canola oil.  I generally also make standard rectangles out of the tofu and fry those up for the girls' lunches, but today I decided to give them each two tofu cats and I kept the rectangles for my own lunch.

Smoothies and Farmers Market Lunch

Saturday is my day with the girls. Dave was out at kung fu all day long.

Breakfast
For breakfast, we made strawberry banana smoothies. Jacqui has been asking for smoothies for breakfast every day lately. I think it's the heat. We had been making banana smoothies with whatever type of juice we had around for a few days because we didn't have any other frozen fruit. But Friday, we made a special trip to the store to pick up some frozen strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, so yesterday we were prepared for yummy smoothie goodness.

Ingredients
5 pieces (1/2 banana each) frozen banana
1 cup oatmilk
1 cup orange-pineapple juice
two heaping scoops soy protein
3/4 avocado
1 1/2 cup frozen strawberries

What to do
Place the milk and juice in the blender first, then the remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth and serve in glasses (plastic for the little girls). Enjoy!

Lunch
After breakfast, we took our regular Saturday trip to the market. (When I ask Jacqui where we should bike to, the market is always her first-choice destination, every day of the week. Too bad our market is only on Saturdays.) The organic woman-run farm we love (Evolutionary Organics) had the cutest selection of fresh, small zucchini and summer squash. I made the mistake of letting the girls pick some, and ended up spending $10 on squash. We also picked up a napa cabbage head and some vitamin greens. At another farmer's stand, we got lots of fresh berries (raspberries and blackberries) -- on special for 4 boxes for $10. Adrianna and Jacqui stuffed their faces with the berries before we even bought any. For the rest of our trip around the market, Adrianna's face was stained black and red (as were her hands) from all the berry goodness.
After purchasing the delicious berries, we went to play in the park for a bit. And eat more berries. And play. After playing for a while, we walked back through the market, picking up two humongous heads of white cauliflower (they barely fit in the fridge last night), a peach for lunch, two greenhouse tomatoes, and a large bunch of fresh basil. Homeward!


Farmers Market Lunch
Ingredients
4-5 small summer squash, sliced into rounds
1 large fresh tomato, chopped
1 T extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
1 small red spicy pepper (from our window garden!)
1 cup cooked garbanzos

What to do
heat the oil and then saute the sliced squash. Add the red pepper, tomato, salt, and black pepper. Then add the garbanzos. Saute and cook until the squash is soft. Serve!

It's so easy and Jacqui and Adrianna loved it! So much fun picking your own lunch at the market and helping mom make it up.