In the spirit of helpfulness...

I read Weighty Matters.  Not every day, but often. 

Today Dr. Freedhoff posted a plea.  A doctoral student is conducting a survey on spousal sabotage of weight loss programs.  She has a brief, anonymous survey to collect data for her dissertation, but needs just a few more participants.

I have a soft place in my heart for doctoral students.

The details  of the study can be found here, along with a link to the survey itself. 

Please take a look.  Maybe you can help.

Just a little lunch

Yesterday only Pumpkin required a packed lunch.  Since she wasn't able to finish Monday's lunch, she asked for less this time.

I thought the ham and tortilla wrap with broccoli and grapes looked a little sad, but Pumpkin said it was perfect.  It looks like smaller lunches will be in order for a bit.  Until the next growth spurt, anyway.

Yes, healthy snacks still get sent along too.

added to What's For Lunch Wednesday

Weather Forecast: More Rain

It's been a couple of cold, rainy days.  We had a nice weekend, which made going to the pumpkin patch a delightful experience.  But today?  Rain.  Yesterday?  Rain.  Tomorrow?  Also rain.

Rainy, grey fall days make me want to bake.

And what better than pumpkin scones!

Today the girls have Sesame Ginger Baked Chicken (leftover from last night), with brown rice.  Can you see it?  It's under there.  Cucumber slices help hold the rice in place,  red pepper slices add colour.  Steamed broccoli provides extra veg and fits in well between the cucumber and the red grapes.  The special treat Mini Pumpkin Scone with cinnamon glaze sits in a purple flower shaped cup.

It's cute, and the girls ate all of it over the course of the day.  But the biggest hit wasn't the scone.
The biggest hit (for Pumpkin, anyway) was this guy:

I wrapped the spoon and fork in a napkin and secured it with this festive little guy.


Added to What's For Lunch Wednesday

Black Cat Pasta

Fall is here.  October.  A nifty month, full of rain and falling leaves and fog.  Towards the end there will be costumes and pumpkins.

I found this pasta on the weekend.  Black Cat pasta.  Little kitty faces and kitty paws, coloured with spinach.  I thought it would be fantastic for a Halloween themed lunch, especially since I had a few cute Halloween picks.  I suspected the vibrant colour would not hold through the cooking process.  I was right.  They are still pretty cute though, aren't they?

The pasta is not black.  It's a pale green.  Le sigh.  I've been spoiled by squid ink pasta.  And by other spinach pastas.  They've usually held their colour quite nicely.

The garlic and parmigiano-reggiano kitty pasta is sitting in a purple cabbage leaf and decorated with a little tomato.  (Both from our garden!  Yes, even still! ) 
Steamed carrots sit in a silicone cup.  The cucumber was unfortunately peeled before I could stop my kitchen helper, but  keeps the pasta separate from the grapes just the same.

I couldn't resist

This is Friday's lunch.  We were running behind schedule, so there was some dashing about in the kitchen.  I did have a much fancier looking lunch in mind, but when everyone overslept, that just wasn't going to happen.

The girls took the same lunch contents, but they were arranged differently.  Peanut's was more plain, as she is too old now for cutsey lunches.  Below is Pumpkin's lunch.  She's fine with the cutesy.

It started with just ham on tortillas, with grapes and blueberries in the silicone cups.  Then I thought, hey, the broccoli kinda looks like hair!  

So I added grapes for eyes and a blueberry nose.  I could not find the toothpicks anywhere, so they are held in place with short bits of whole-wheat spaghetti.  The face was taking shape, and screamed out for a mouth.   Pumpkin also got a yellow pepper ring cut in half for a smile. 

Today I did something new.

Technically, I did two new things.  I went to a music shop with Evening Goose and Evening Goose's Sister, and I made a bento lunch for myself!

Gasp!

I know! 

The music shop was fantastic!  I bought ukulele music!  And a metronome!

The lunch was pretty darned good, too.

I packed it in my new LunchBot Uno.

(Which makes 3 new things.)

I had a ham and cheese tortilla, which was heated and cooled before packing.  Cucumber slices and baby carrots helped wedge the wrap in place, and separate it from the grapes and white fleshed plum.  That may not really have been necessary, since the grapes and plum slices were in red silicone cups.  Some snap peas were stuffed in to hold it all in place, and provide some more green. 

Garden Week Something

It's well past Week 15, that's for sure.

The planter on the deck is well and truly finished now.  No more lettuce, no more peas.  One scraggly looking bean plant is holding out, but not for much longer.

Meanwhile, the raised bed is still producing cherry tomatoes.  And purple carrots.  I've even harvested some peppers in the last few days.  The cabbages have set their heads, and will be harvested and enjoyed.

Do you remember me telling you that the broccoli did nothing?
Look at this:

It's not a beautiful head, and it seems to have, erm, gotten old-ish while I wasn't paying attention.  But!  The broccoli did grow!

The cabbages look lovely:

It seems the cauliflower is not the variety we thought it was:

It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Ahoy mateys!

D'ye know what day this be?  

Why, 'tis September the 19th!  If ye be wishin' to grow yer knowledge a bit, ye best click on this.

To celebrate the day, the girls took something with a bit o'flair:

Ham and lettuce in tortillas, sliced into rounds, and decked out with a pirate flag.  Some yellow pepper slices are contained in a silicone cup to prevent sogginess and to suggest a treasure chest.  Green seedless grapes and orange cherry tomatoes (from the garden!) are separated from the sandwich by pirate themed cupcake liners, folded to show the map and treasure.

 And what better to accompany than a pirate hat napkin!

(photographed on the table for better contrast)

School's Back!

It is the second week, in fact.  Yay!  So, why no posts last week?  Because it was the first week of school. Yes, the children took lunches. I just didn't post any pictures.  Until now....

This was Friday's lunch. Some lovely green seedless grapes and red pepper slices, and curried chicken (left over from supper) decorated with thin red pepper slices approximating birds.  The brown rice (also from supper) is separated from the chicken by romaine lettuce, and decorated with a fresh-from-the-garden purple carrot.  

Delicious Dumplings

One week left!  School resumes next week!  Where did the time go?

The weather was lovely today, so we intended to have an outdoor lunch.  Then the bees showed up.  Wasps, mostly.  We do not like them.  We ate inside.

It was delicious.  All three lunches were identical; only one is shown.

Today we had seafood dumplings (kinda steamed, kinda pan fried) in our favourite, romaine lettuce.  The cherry tomatoes and purple carrots are fresh from the garden.  I steamed the broccoli today.  It seems to have made the colour more vibrant.  The orange bell pepper is not from the garden, but is local, and so are the free-stone peach slices.

Purple Carrots!

The days are getting cooler, the golden rod is getting more yellow.  This means school is approaching.

We still have about two weeks of summer vacation, though!
The girls are in a science and engineering camp this week.  They are learning new things, building and making stuff, and having a great time so far.

The girls' lunches today are meatballs in a lettuce nest with mini pitas, cucumber slices and green seedless grapes.  The grape tomatoes from Stella, and purple carrots from the raised bed were harvested by the girls this morning.

Here the purple carrots are sliced, showing their orange cores.

Pumpkin preferred her carrot whole:

She also requested fewer tomatoes, and more grapes.

Beach Umbrellas

I have no idea what to call this.  Pumpkin suggested Beach Umbrella Lunch.  Can you see it?  The sand?  The water?  People?

The girls really liked the little paper parasols last week, so they are back!
Hummus is stuffed into mini red bell peppers.  Grapes and blueberries are in silicone cups to prevent the mini pitas getting soggy.  The baby carrots were sliced to make biting easier, since some front teeth are still missing.

Garden Week 13

I found the sunflowers!

Way back at the beginning of the summer, I planted sunflowers in the window box.  One of them even came up, a little.  Remember?  Since there was no sign of the others, I assumed the seeds were duds.

I was wrong.

My garden has been altered.  By (I think) a chipmunk.  Or possibly a squirrel.  We've seen several chipmunks eating the cherry tomatoes in the garden, and I've had some plants spring up where I didn't plant them before.  This time, the sunflowers are beside the driveway.  They look rather nice there.  Perhaps the mystery garden re-arranger had a good idea.

In other garden news, the peas are done, beans nearly finished, lettuces all gone to seed, basil flowering, mint trying to escape.  The cabbages are starting to form, the cauliflower is forming a teeny-tiny head, and the broccoli shows no sign of anything other than leaves.

The oregano continues to thrive.

Rainy Day Smile

Today's lunch post was packed by Peanut.  After weeks of heat, we are getting rain!
So what better to brighten up a drab day than a cheerful umbrella?

Peanut made roast chicken and tortilla "rollie sandwiches", separated from the blueberries and mini red pepper by some parchment paper.  The blueberries are decorated (and skewered ) with a yellow paper parasol.  Peanut left the stem on the pepper because she liked the look and colour.

Garden Week 12

"....and it exploded!"
(One of my favourite lines from the movie Galaxy Quest, spoken by the character Teb.)

Well, Stella kinda has.  She has also produced an abundance of cherry tomatoes.  I think the oregano had something to do with it.

Yes, the oregano I've been whining about all this time.

I know.  Don't look at me like that.
 
The oregano has produced lots of flowers.  These have drawn all kinds of bees.  The bees are doing lots of pollination.  So, we have lots of tomatoes, and lots of beans.

Garden Week 10 &11

Hi there!  Did you miss the garden posts?

We were travelling last week, and part of this week.  Many thanks to EveningGoose and Sneopack for watering our plants while we were away! The planters lived! Yay!
I guess this region got not a lot of rain while we were camping.  We were in a tent, so of course it rained quite a bit where we were.  Peanut was delighted.  She got to show off the skills she'd acquired at camp.   She built a shelter with a tarp, and got to build and start the campfire.

The beans in the window box have even produced some slender green beans.  The buttercrunch lettuce is doing well.  The basils are doing well.  The romaine seems to have exploded over the past few days, and is now going to seed.
The pea plants in the windowbox have just about reached the end of their lives, I think.  Yesterday I scared a chipmunk who was trying to remove a peapod.  He managed to rip a section of vine off, and left it on the deck when he ran away.

Summer Camp Lunch

It's still summer camp season!

Today's lunch has cold BBQ Chicken Thighs (boneless, left over from last night), green and yellow beans (fresh from the garden bed), local cherries, pita and grapes.
The pita was toasted, cooled and torn to bits.  Peanut reported that it did stay not soggy the last time we did this, so here's hoping it works again.  You can see the condensation that started forming on the grapes in the brief time they were out of the fridge.  Frozen juice boxes will hopefully help keep the lunch nice and cool.

Garden - Week 9

It's been hot here.  Hot, hot, hot.  How hot? Gabriel sums it up here:

The lettuces are still being harvested, and the beans in the raised bed have provided fresh veggies at three meals now.  The beans in the box on the deck are stunted.  They've been watered (with a watering can) in the morning every day, and I've tried to shade them from the sun at least a little to slow the waterloss a bit, but there just isn't any getting around it; that planter dries out fast. 

Stella the tomato plant and her friend are doing very well, and have provided tomatoes daily.   The oregano has begun flowering and is drawing lots and lots of big, fluffy, yellow bumble bees.  I'd go out there and try to take a picture, but it's too hot. 

Whew, it's hot out there!

By the looks of the weather map, it's hot pretty much everywhere.  The news last night described a heat dome, and listed the cities under a heat advisory.

This week, Peanut is at a camp where there is forrest, and creeks, and swamp.  In fact, it's the one from last year, the one that started the whole litterless lunch quest!  Since it's (on average) 3 degrees cooler out there, plus there's water activities and lots more shade, I think this was a good week for her to go.  It can be hard to guess when you book these things in March.

Here is today's lunch:

Peanut has a mini yellow bell-pepper, stuffed with hummus.  I saved the 'lid', but things are packed so tightly there is very little chance of tipping or spilling anyway.  The pita was toasted and ripped into smallish pieces after it cooled.  Hopefully this will help prevent sogginess as the day goes on.  Lettuce (from the garden!) acts as a barrier between the pita and the veggies.  Green snap peas, some lovely grapes and local cherries round out today's lunch.

Day Camp Lunch

Today's lunch was packed by Peanut and Pumpkin!

They wanted a lunch that would be easy to eat while at their day camp.  The girls like to eat part of their lunch at the designated lunch period, and save some for after swimming, when they are absolutely starving.

The lunches have mini pitas, ham, and red pepper from the grocery store.  They also have cherry tomatoes, peas and lettuce from our garden.  All picked this morning, by the girls.  OK, Mommy helped. ;-)

Peanut decided to make a sandwich with two red pepper slices, ham and lettuce.  She decorated her lunch with a message written in snap peas.  Pumpkin arranged her lunch components in a manner she found pleasing.

Added to What's For Lunch Wednesday