Whole Foods Halloween!

While yesterday was a nightmare for me with 2 hour treks each way (while still battling strep and a sinus infection) to a doctor's appointment, plus power outages and subsequent delays once we made it there, we were able to take some time out and make our way to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods to stock up before heading back. So, today, we are ALL enjoying our lunches almost exclusively with Whole Foods produce and deli. Yum! Sorry for those ready to move on to the next thing, but you will be getting one more Halloween post tomorrow after trick or treating, pumpkin carving, dry ice-capades, and all that is Halloween for us. Everyone stay safe and have fun today and tonight, whatever your adventures may be!

Kiddo's lunch - Turkey Swedish meatball, ramen w/ dinosaur kale, red bell pepper, red grapes, cheddar mozzarella cheese, sour cream, chocolate spider, and candy corn.

Mama's lunch - tofu spring roll w/ peanuts sauce, red grapes, dinosaur kale salad w/ sesame oil and sesame tofu, roasted sage squash and zucchini.

Daddy's lunch - California quinoa salad, soy sauce, sesame tofu, tofu spring roll, roasted Brussels sprout, red grapes, cranberry orange granola, and 365 vanilla yogurt w/ sprinkles.

In these lunches...

Witch Way Lunch

One more day until Halloween. I know many are probably tired of the parade of Halloween lunches, but I just love them. You may actually see just one or two more even after trick or treating is over. I just can't help it! Today's lunch was a fun little witch theme.

Colby jack, mustard and smoked Tofurky sandwich, dried worms (chow mien noodles), rat poo (raisins), candy corn, celery, carrots, pretzel/cheese broom, and a vanilla yogurt witches brew w/ red grape 'eye' slices.

We also made some fabulous pumpkin spice dip today. Well, actually it is adapted from a vegan pumpkin pie filling from The Family Kitchen, but since I am inept at making crusts, I just made the filling. Typically, we make a cream cheese based pumpkin dip, which is delicious, but this is so so good too! You can make as little or as much this version is great for breakfast or a snack. We served it with apple slices and graham crackers. Yum!

Pumpkin Spice Apple Dip

Ingredients - 1/2 cup pumpkin puree, 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup packed brown sugar, 1 tbsp real maple syrup, 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp lemon juice

Put all the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 45-60 seconds. Stir to thoroughly combine. Serve with apples or other fruits and graham crackers.

In this lunch...

Spiders & Easy Pumpkin Spice Play-Doh

Just a couple more days until Halloween, and while we are still battling illness over here, things are starting to look up. We missed our Birth to Five group's Halloween Harvest this year, but we WILL be trick or treating! Now I just need to get out of my funk completely and bake some delicious goodies for Wednesday! If only I could taste something.. sigh.. Here's hoping. In the meantime, we did a fun spider theme lunch, and a lazy easy version of pumpkin spice Play-Doh.

Roast beef & cream cheese on a bagel thin, Colby Jack cheese, red grapes, carrots, cherry tomatoes, ranch, and chocolate spiderweb & spider.

The chocolates we added to this lunch were based on a fantastic post by Cute Food for Kids. We were already making chocolates for Halloween, so we used the extra melted stuff to pipe out a bunch of fun bugs.. you'll see a few more in later lunches, I'm sure. Rather than chips, we used Merckens wafers, which are delicious. Then, we use the plastic squeeze bottles to fill or pipe. It was so easy, and they turned out pretty cute. Speaking of easy, we totally took a short cut making our pumpkin spice play-doh, but it turned out great!

I know there is a fantastic recipe for making homemade pumpkin playdough using flour, salt, cream of tartar, oil, pumpkin pie spice, food coloring, and water, plus some cooking and kneading. But.. I had some orange Play-Doh already, so we just kneaded in a hearty portion of pumpkin pie spice, and we had a super fast and simple version of this deliciously scented dough.

In this lunch...

Halloween Line Up

Over Halloween, which is my favorite holiday and time of year, I did a few different bento lunches for my daughter. I figured I'd just include them all in one long post, so I apologize in advance. Again, this is before I had any fun cutters or picks, so hopefully they will become more ambitious and exciting come next Halloween. But, I found some great ideas that I took a crack at anyways. Enjoy!

Ramen noodles, red bell peppers, melted American cheese on toast, mandarin oranges, Granny Smith apple fangs, Trader Joe's veggie straws, and a mini 3 Musketeers.
 

Spanish rice, deviled egg, orange bell peppers, cucumbers, black olives, bone shaped graham crackers, gummy worms, and a skull sugar candy.

Tomato pasta stars, ghost toast with melted provolone cheese, Club cracker tombstones, green beans, salami, orange Jello moon, and a couple of candy corns.

Pumpkin shaped grilled cheese with bean accents and sauerkraut, cucumber, orange bell pepper, potato chips, and a skull sugar candy.

To wrap up the Halloween lunches, on this one I just used a cute witch's plate that my daughter loves. There is cheese ravioli in tomato sauce, a mix of corn, peas, and carrots, American cheese accents, Trader Joe's veggie straws, banana ghosts w/ sprinkles, green grapes, and a skull sugar candy.

In these lunches...