Friday Lunch Lineup

Today is just about the lunches, really. It's been a busy day, but a nice one. The weather was mild. I got lots of errands run, and had tons of 'help' with those errands thanks to the kiddo! It didn't hurt that Starbucks has buy 1 get 1 right now on holiday drinks, either.

For kiddo (in a Sassy box) - Turkey pepperoni, smoked turkey, mozzarella/cheddar cheesestick, ranch veggie dip, Goldfish crackers, carrots, cucumber, broccoli, grapes, and a strawberry. This lunch may have been followed by a Starbucks cake pop!

For mama - Chicken salad, melba toasts, The Laughing Cow Swiss cheese, dry roasted peanuts, cranberries, and a butterscotch haystack.

Super Simple Chicken Salad
Ingredients - 1-12.5oz can chicken, 1/2 c mayo (the real stuff), 1/2 c red grapes, halved, 1 green onion, diced, 1/4 c diced Granny Smith apple, 1 stalk celery, diced fine, salt and pepper to taste, and optionally, you can add finely chopped pecans to taste (I prefer to leave them out).
Quite literally, all you do is mix all of these things together. Serve with crackers, in lettuce wraps or on a green salad, on bread or croissants, or just on it's own. It is so yummy and super versatile!

Another nice thing about this chicken salad is how easy it is to make your own. Use more or less fruit, add nuts, use bell pepper instead of celery, and of course, use fresh chopped or shredded, cooked chicken.

For daddy in an EasyLunchBoxes - Chicken salad w/ Muenster cheese on potato bread, cocoa roast almonds, homemade pumpkin seeds in the container, Super Salad w/ kale, tomatoes, carrots, blueberries, edamame, and sunflower seeds, mango, dragonfruit, and Swiss cheese accents.

In these lunches...

Pinterest Cleanup Day 4

Today we tacked 3 more 'must try' pins, leaving 40 more. We might be cheating just a wee bit, moving some pins to kids stuff. While they are things that I do intend to try, some are things for much later on, and I'm okay with that!

For breakfast, we tried out 2 more of those scrumptious refrigerator oatmeal recipes from The Yummy Life. This time we did cocoa banana and maple blueberry. The cocoa one wasn't really for me, but the maple blueberry was good. I'm still stuck on that mango almond one, though. Yummy!

For a snack this afternoon, we found inspiration from the Greek salad bites at Nutritious Eats. They are basically skewers of tomato, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, and cucumber, which are drizzle with oil, lemon juice, and pepper. Our versions were made specifically for toddler with some favorite tweaks of our own. We used balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice, and only had crumbles of feta, so served those on the side of the skewers. Yum!

Skewers of cherry tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and cucumber with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, feta cheese with pepper, and Ritz crackers.

Dinner, now that was a Pinterest treat tonight too, but for the life of me, I can't find the original after I wrote it down! If it's yours, be sure and message me.

Crockpot Lemon Butter Chicken
Ingredients - 1 stick of butter, 6 Tbsp lemon juice (ideally fresh), 1 package of dry Italian dressing mix, and 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
Place all the ingredients in your crockpot. Set on high for 2-3 hours or low for 5-6 hours. Shred the chicken with a half an hour or so to go, and let the juices absorb. If liquid is low, you can always add a bit of water.

I'm thinking this chicken would be great with rice, buttered noodles, or potatoes, but I just didn't preplan well enough. We had corn tortillas in the fridge, so we warmed those up with a little butter and served with romaine salad. Fantastic! The next day, we ate it cold as wraps and as a chicken Caesar salad. We don't eat much chicken at all, and when we do, the cooking method has to be fool proof and one that I don't have to handle the meat too much. In the crockpot, the meat is moist, tasty, and simple. I'm sold!

In this lunch...