This is our family’s favorite burrito bowl.
It’s a recipe that Camryn and I came up with earlier this year and she loved it so much that any leftovers automatically went with her to school for lunch the next day.
It’s become her absolute favorite meal so we make it together fairly often. In fact, if your kiddos are old enough to reach the counter and handle a knife, this would be a great way for them to work on their knife skills (with supervision, of course).
Camryn made this lunch which basically consists of odds and ends from our fridge.
In her super cute new cheeseburger bento box she has alphabet pasta, corn, and half of a very large chicken breast that I diced for her. She insisted on a cilantro garnish. She always insists on a cilantro garnish.
In the smaller tier, she has tomatoes that were tossed with a little salt and pepper.
And in the smaller box, she has mandarin segments.
It doesn’t look like a lot of food but the larger tier of that burger bento actually holds quite a bit. I was pleasantly surprised.
And because I believe that a girl needs different bags for different things, she brought her lunch to school today in this lunch bag.
It’s on the smaller side but it holds most of her lunch containers. Even Easy Lunchboxes!
The only downside to this bag is that it is pretty slim so depending on the lunch container/ bento box you use, you may not be able to fit a thermos or water bottle.
In that case, I just put Cam’s thermos in her backpack. No biggie.
This meal has been in heavy rotation at my house for a loooong time because it’s super simple to make, it’s crazy versatile, and everyone loves it.
Meat, fresh vegetables, and yes, sometimes even fruit are seasoned and roasted to perfection on one sheet pan. Dinner doesn’t get much easier than that.
Kids everywhere are going back to school.
Between school supply lists, new clothes, textbooks, haircuts, and all of the little extras that go into sending our little darlings back to school, budgets can take a serious hit this time of year.
Let’s go ahead and discuss what you’re all already thinking, shall we?
Yes, those are new picks and you can find them here.
Seriously, though – that slice of pie looks huge in this picture. I know.
I assure you, it’s really a much smaller piece than it seems. I blame the whole thing on perspective or my lackluster early morning photography skills.
Yes, pretty sure it’s one of those things.
My shortcomings aside, the kiddo has a thermos full of chicken apple sausage, roasted potatoes, and sweet bell peppers. In her adorable pink house bento, she has mandarin slices, and a monstrous piece of chocolate pie. 😉
We packed it all up, along with her water bottle in our new purple insulated lunch bag from Easy Lunchboxes.
Since today is its maiden voyage, I thought I’d share some hastily snapped pictures with you.
Everything fits with plenty of room to spare.
Once her cooler bag arrived, I took Camryn to the craft store and let her pick out stickers and a few iron-on appliques to decorate her bag.
She used fabric glue to attach the appliques which was much easier than actually ironing them on.
They’re not all perfectly straight but she had a great time decorating her bag and it gave us half an hour or so of artsy craftsy girl time.
I think we can all agree that 2014 was the year of kale.
Kale was everywhere and all we heard was how great it was for us and that we should be eating ALLTHEKALEALLTHETIME.
That worked for me because I like kale so I put kale in everything in 2014. Mashed potatoes, smoothies, soup, wraps, salads, rice, juice, – you get it.
2015 on the other hand isn’t quite over yet, but I’m going to go ahead and call it: 2015 is the year of quinoa.
For lunch today, Camryn has cheese pizza rolls, a little salad leftover from yesterday, a mandarin, and an apple.
I love making pizza rolls for the kids because they come together so quickly and easily. I actually make them while I’m cooking dinner, set them aside to cool while we eat, and package them up while I’m cleaning up after dinner.
Lunch is in our new Yumbox Panino.
It’s the first day of school!
For her first lunch as a fourth grader, Camryn has a hearty salad that contains romaine, spring greens, chicken, pasta, bell pepper, corn, tomatoes, and orange slices on the side.
For dessert, she has a ridiculous brownie with fudge on top and a few pieces of her favorite candy pressed in for good measure.
I normally wouldn’t send candy to school for lunch but first days can be tough so… over-the-top fudgy candy brownie it is.
I hate to admit it but it took me forever to figure out what I was going to do for today’s lunch. I finally settled on some scrapbooking stickers that I bought with a 40% off coupon yesterday at the craft store.
I stuck them onto the inside lid of her bento box so they’ll be a cute surprise when she opens it up.
How cute is that pencil pouch sticker!?
I actually had second thoughts about getting this post up because so many other bloggers have done similar pieces on this very subject. But when a friend of mine emailed to ask me what I regularly purchased from Aldi, I thought maybe you guys might like to know as well.
So let’s talk Aldi!
I think most of us who blog about kids’ lunches tend to go through a little burn out towards the end of each school year.
We start every school year with the best of intentions but by the time April rolls around, we’re pretty much over it.
I am certainly no exception.
This time of year is super busy for my family too and that sure doesn’t help things.
We’ve got projects due, competitions, concerts, end of year meetings, graduation and all of the activities leading up to graduation… it’s crazy!
Crazy or not, the kids still have to eat. So here are a few lunches that I managed to snap a picture of, or perhaps gently coerced my husband to snap a picture of so that we could get our dear little lamb out the door to school on time.
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We Should Be Folding Laundry 