week 36: more nori mom!

jon was madly in love with nori this week. he could not get enough. he would cut nori sheets with his small scissors and then eat them by small squares!

we tend to emphasise “homemade” and locally grown in our lunchboxes because we think that buying organic and locally grown has an impact on our health as well as taking the time to make good home made food. it tastes much better than canned or prepackaged foods

monday

box 1: calzone with minced soy in tomato sauce, red peppers and onions with cheese box 2: cherry tomatoes box 3: carrot soup (potatoes, carrots, onions and raw garlic, olive oil and fresh parsley blended in after cooking), box 4: cucumber sticks outcome: would you believe he did not eat the soup. he usually licks the bowl clean!

tuesday

box 1: home made apple sauce with a pinch of cinnamon (no sugar added) box 2: sweetcorn and green olives box 3: walnut bread from our local bakery with cucumber and chicken slices box 4: an odd combination but it had to fit in the box somehow: dried apricots and cherry tomatoes

wednesday

box 1: maki-zushi (cucumber and sliced omelette filling) with soy sauce in mini-box box 2: dried apricots box 3: onigri box 4:cucumbers from the garden of papajon’s aunt outcome: his favourite lunch this week by far! he had been begging for sushi since morning and feasted on nori sheets while mamajon was making the makizushi rolls.

thursday

box 1: natural yoghurt with homemade apple sauce and raisins box 2: fresh red peppers box 3: pita bread box 4: homemade humous outcome: lunchbox came back clean. when i picked him up, he went to pick up his empty lunchbox in the fridge at kindergarten and told me proudly that he had finished his lunch.

friday

box 1: oven baked fusili pasta with spinach, garlic, soy sausages, sundried tomatoes and cheese box 2: sliced red peppers box 3: soy sausages and cherry tomatoes box 4: tangerine basket (jon likes to peel his own fruit – be it banana, oranges or tangerines/clementines) but i found that peeling just a section helps to peel the rest.

week 2: more on left-overs

on sunday we sat down and drafted the menu for the week, so as to try and use some of the left-overs from the dinners in the lunchbox. in denmark it is most common to eat smørbrød (open sandwiches) for lunch – but we try to provide at least one box within the lunchbox that can be warmed up for jon’s lunch. at daycare (vuggestue), they give free fruit and milk to the children half way through the morning and after their afternoon nap, so we are never worried that he does not eat enough fruit.

Monday

box 1: Nuttolene (made out of peanuts, water and salt) cut in strips box 2: boiled Samsø potatoes with boiled carrots and peas and white dressing (yoghurt, 2 garlic cloves, fresh basil, salt and a dash of olive oil), box 3: greek yoghurt (100% natural, no sugar added) and some æblemos (cooked apple purée) box 4: mixed nuts (no added salt) Outcome: just a few peas left at the bottom of box 2….

Tuesday

box 1: red peppers and cucumbers in strips – ready to be dipped in the mini-red box which has humus box 2: peanuts box 3: rice with curry (made with coconut milk) and peas box 4: greek yoghurt and strawberries (it is not the season… so we ended up using frozen – not my first choice…) outcome: jon did not eat much because he was quite sick with a 24 hour bug… he spent the rest of the day at home eating apples and drinking water.

Wednesday

box 1: greek yoghurt, æblemos (apple sauce) and rosiner (raisins) box 2:  nutana sojapølser (vegetarian sausages) + slices of cucumber box 3: veg mash (potatoes, parsnips, carrots cooked and mashed with 3.5% fat milk and butter box 4: pieces of rugbrød (rye bread) with cheese outcome: considering the previous day he had vomited 4 times, we decided to make some comfort food for his lunchbox today. mash and something to settle his stomach like yoghurt and apple sauce. he ate well, just left the mash box half full.

Thursday

box 1: sliced fresh mozzarella with red and green pesto (a poor attempt at the portuguese flag….) box 2: rosiner (raisins – jon can never get enough raisins! he can most certainly overdose on raisins if he could) box 3: penne pasta with grated carrots and sweet corn with dressing (lemon, olive oil, salt, a spoon of crème fraîche) box 4: smoothie (10% fat greek yoghurt, frozen strawberries – no sugar added) outcome: the lunchbox came back empty aside from one slice of mozzarella…

Friday

box 1: sweet salad (grated apples and grated carrots topped with raisins and a lime and olive oil dressing box 2: rugbrød cubes (rye bread) with chicken pålæg box 3: sushi (sushi rice with cucumber and smoked salmon wrapped in nori ) mini-box (not in picture): soy sauce box 4: økologisk ablesiner (oranges) outcome: 1 sushi roll left and half of the sweet salad. one of the supervisors commented on the lunchbox today. she was not sure jon would know how to go about eating the sushi – but apparently he opened the mini-box with the soy sauce and started dipping the sushi rolls in the soy sauce and was completely unphased by the whole process!