Late nights and left over lunches

Due to some late working hours this week, DH will be taking 2 smaller meals rather than one lunch to work.  Made from the leftovers from Sunday's dinner, this little bento (bought from eBay), will serve as a small evening meal for him. As you can see the top of the bento has cut up strawberries and 1/2 an orange.  The lower container has mashed potatoes, cauliflower, mock chicken and veg pie and red onion gravy.

I decided this morning to pack everyones lunch, including my own, so here they are:

Up first is DH7's lunch.  I will be amazed if he eats all this after having a large breakfast but it's chilled so whatever is left will be his after school snack today.  He has a hot dog roll cheddar sandwich, mini carrots, strawberries, 2 granola flats (I just discovered these and love them!), a tea biscuit and a cucumber/tomato salad (recipe - which is basically the dressing, from the Vegan Lunch Box Around the World).

DS5 helped to construct his lunch today and will graze on any leftovers this afternoon.  He has a peanut butter and jelly hot dog roll, 4 cubes of cheddar on piks, cucumber and tomato salad, carrots with ranch dressing for dipping, a few peanut butter filled pretzels and strawberries.

Last but not least is my lunch.  I have the same cucumber/tomato salad as the boys with strawberries and left overs from Fridays dinner - cheese ravioli with some spiral 3 colour rotini and a homemade tomato sauce.  I also had 1/2 an avocado and a couple of granola flats.

I have to add that I wasn't very awake this morning while making mine and managed to over fill the top one so the lid wouldn't shut...not that it really mattered because where I put the ravioli is actually the outer cover so it was all upside down and couldn't be shut correctly anyway...HA HA...good job it was only going in the fridge and not out to work!

Vegetarian Mock Chicken Pot Pie

I love pie, in particular savory pie.  I love to make pie and quiche and as some of you know aside from chicken fried rice, left over steak pie is one of my favorite breakfast meals.....I know I'm disgusting.

Anyway, I woke up this morning craving pie.  Steak pie is out of the question with DH's vegetable love right now and I bought some sietan this week so mock chicken pie it is.  I loosely followed the recipe from 30 Day Gourmet except I omitted the peas and used green beans instead and added 1/2 a small swede (rutabaga) and a potato to the veggie mix.

I made my own pastry - I absolutely cannot stand shop bought short crust pastry, it's sweet and, well, a sorry excuse for a crust in my opinion....not to mention expensive and a complete waste of money, it takes almost a minute to make pastry in the cuisinart, is a fraction of the cost and tastes so much better.  End of story, getting off my pastry pedestal.

I've never used seitan before, right out of the box and chopped a bit it looks like this:

It's not very offensive and looks like dark meat chicken.  I used almost 1 package saving about 1/2  cup for a stir fry in the week.

Here are the vegetables I am using, I sauteed them for about 10 minutes in 1/3 cup butter then added 1/3 cup flour:

After a minute, I added a couple of cups of vegetable broth and about a cup of milk, bringing it to a thick and bubbly stage before adding the sietan:

So far so good I think!
Here it is ready to go in the oven.  I like my pastry crust with an egg wash and black pepper on the top.

I'm serving it with mashed potatoes, cauliflower, Yorkshire puddings and red onion gravy.
Here's the 'after' version:

It was delicious, the Yorkies rose perfectly look:

Tomorrow's lunch has also been made with the left overs!

Day before shopping day

The day before I go grocery shopping usually ends up with some interesting lunches.  After being sick in bed for a couple of days I finally felt well enough yesterday afternoon to be up and doing something - so I cleaned the fridge out.  This led to eggs being boiled and the snack box being filled with the left overs of fruit and vegetables that had to be used up. 

Filling the snack box always always encourages everyone to eat the food.  I cut it up ready to eat and it looks good.  In our house we call this the 'free' box, named by DS7 because the boys are allowed to help themselves to the contents without asking. (I first saw the snack box idea on this blog - love this blog and her books!!)

Here is my snack box.  I keep it in the fridge. Underneath the boxes where the ice is supposed to go there are colby cheese sticks.  The little boxes hold 2 cups worth of stuff each.

DS7's lunch for today, (DH has lunch provided today and DS5 is not at Kindergarten today):

He has a cheddar wrap, a slice of oatmeal/cherry bread, 2 orange wedges underneath cubes of melon on piks, a rather battered pig shaped boiled egg, cucumber strips, and a turkey hotdog on piks.  Snack today was chocolate graham cracker bunnies.  Note to self I NEED those cute silicone grass dividers.

Monday monday.....

Just 2 lunches to pack today due to a half day for DS5 at kindergarten. 

(Side note....I only ever pack water to drink - I'm one of those mean horrid mothers that doesn't buy juice (they're not big fans anyway - DS7 would choose water over juice) and I honestly can't be bothered to deal with milk, they get enough at home).

Here is DH lunch for today.  He has (packed in a Tupperware bento) strawberry yoghurt, a peach, banana and orange slices, a cheddar cheese sandwich on whole wheat, homemade red potato salad and left over chocolate birthday cake.  All the fruit and veggies are from Mile High Organics this week.

DS7 has peanut butter and grape jelly on whole wheat sandwiches, strawberry yoghurt, pear cubes, peach cubes, cucumber slices and celery sticks with buttermilk ranch dip in the little green container.

For snack he took a small container of dry cereal and a banana.

School lunches....

I make my husbands lunch and lunch for my sons every day.  It's something I think I enjoy doing more than they enjoy eating, but that's OK, it makes me happy and keeps them fuelled.

I haven't decided yet whether or not it's a good idea to post every lunch I make or just the one's I really like - we'll see I guess!  I try to make them healthy but I'm also human, not that anal about it and sometimes I just can't be bothered....SHOCK HORROR.....

Here are the lunches for today:

Lunch for DS5: tuna and mayo wrap, cherry tomatoes, pretzels, cheddar and sesame crackers, 3 prunes (at his request), cucumber on picks and I caved and let him have the handi snack as well.

Lunch for DS7: pretzels, cheddar slices and sesame crackers, cherry tomatoes and a car shaped boiled egg, tuna mayo and lettuce wrap, celery with ranch dressing in container, Greek yogurt drizzled with honey.  He also took 1/2 banana, 2 apricots, a prune and a small container of dry cereal for snack.

Lunch for DH: Colby cheese stick, cucumber slices and celery sticks with ranch dressing, cantaloupe melon cubes, cherry tomatoes (on cute little animal picks...today is bound to be the day he eats with everyone else HA HA), red onion tart (shown in post this morning) and egg salad in tomato and basil wraps.

I had a slice of pizza from Costco....oops!

Red onion and mature cheddar tart

A friend of mine makes a red onion tart, and while I've never had it, in fact I've never even seen it, but it always sounds so good when she tells me about it.  So, today, on a whim (and because red onions were 49 cents / lb this week) I decided that was going to be dinner.

After a quick google search I found this lovely gent advertising Collier's mature cheddar with a red onion tart recipe.  I did have to tweak the recipe a little to use the contents of my fridge rather than run to the store, but it was heavenly.  I had no cream so I used 1% milk, and added in an extra egg for good luck.  I had no rosemary so decided thyme would do....and it did.  (I used jarred roasted garlic and again it was still fabulous).

No idea why this rotated itself when I uploaded.....

and so it begins......

I love food. 

I love talking about food, eating food, making food and I also love shopping for food.  My husband says I should probably weigh 500lbs; thankfully I maintain a healthy lifestyle (ie. can't sit still) and I don't buy crap (well not often) or I probably would!

I love crap food.  I love spam....particularly fried in batter with a ton of salt on it.  I rarely eat it but I love it, it reminds me of being a child, it's my ultimate comfort food.  I also love canned corned beef with tomato ketchup sandwiches.....but I digress.....

This blog is so I can stop boring everyone on facebook and my husband with photos of the food I make.  I love to cook and I love to pack lunches, I also love to bake but I suck at baking cakes and cookies and brownies.  I just do...I try but honestly 9 times out of 10 whatever I bake is crap.

Right now many of the recipes I make are vegetarian with the occasional fish thrown in for good luck.  My husband doesn't eat meat (only fish right now) myself and my 2 sons (age 7 and 5) do eat meat but not every day.