Keto Bento Challenge 3

I'm getting into my stride!

Sorta!

It's a double whammy this week in the Keto Bento Challenge. I planned to only attempt this once a week, on Fridays when Feebz requests money for the Friday school dinner of fish and chips, but I had some leftovers to work with and a few boiled eggs on hand...

Keto Bento Numero Tres:

Let's see if I can count the carbs on this one. (Maths lesson idea! Feebz, here's how you count in decimals! Counting carbs is less twisted than teaching her to add and subtract using beer caps, which, yes, we do.)

We have our:
-2 strips of streaky bacon (0g net carbs)
-4 little gems lettuce leaves (approx 1.4g)
-8 raspberries (approx 1.6g)
-taco seasoned (approx 1g) beef mince (0g)
-1 boiled egg (.5g)
-almost Carb-Free homemade vanilla pudding (No idea, but used Almond Milk, Splenda and sugar-free vanilla as substitutes for all the carby things so I'll be modest and say this teeny tiny cup is, oh...2g? Maybe even less. I did put one slice of banana in it to sweeten.)

TOTAL = 6.5g approx

Nuts! Still didn't get it under 5g! Perhaps if I could put a definite value on that pudding... Even still, I don't think I'd have made it under the goal.

Onwards! The challenge continues next week....

(Seriously, if I just added these things up while putting them together I'd probably meet the goal, but that requires adding decimal places at 7 in the morning and, dude, that's just not happening. And besides, where's the fun in that?)

How Many Circles Do You See?

If 'circles' is a theme, then the Spice Girls are a 'band'. But we'll just go with it.

I mean, I didn't stay up late last night thinking, "Theme, theme... Squares? No, no, too boring. Triangles? No, no, don't be so obtuse. How about rectangles? Maybe in a parallel universe. I know, circles! That is, if I can get around to it." (A little geometry humour for you there.)

No, I just happened to have a lot of things to go in tubs, and a lot of my tubs are round, so I just, you know, 'rounded' it out with a lot of circles.

In the small pink tub is some homemade banana pudding ('custard' if you will). It was yum. If you're lucky, I'll post the recipe later on. In the large pink tub, I made a fruit salad of blueberries, raspberries and mango, with cute little food picks (also round, oh yeah). Below that is ketchup in a tub and chicken dippers in another. A round apple, a water bottle (round if you look at it from the top...) and a cheese string (also round in its own wee way) completed this lunch - and depleted my round food items ideas. Sure, there are a gazillion round things I could've included, but you know, for one, lunch only needs to be so big and two, it was something like 7am. Give me a break.

I at least thought to take the picture on a spotty background. Dizzying, isn't it?

Keto Bento Challenge 2

It's time for another...

Honestly, ya'll, I could seriously never do this diet! I just love cake too much. But being the dutiful wife I am, I am persevering with figuring out what the Hubby can eat and trying to send him to work with yummy lunches. For his sake, I've made another attempt at preparing a keto-friendly bento for my keto-dieting husband.

If only he ate cheese like a normal person is all I'm saying!

This keto bento consists of:
-2 grill steaks (4g net carbs each) *required microwaving
-2 raw broccoli florets (approx .5g)
-approx 1/4 cup cucumber slices (approx 1g)
-Mini Pepperami (.2g)
-1 boiled egg (.5g)
-3 slices of streaky bacon (0g)
-A sugar-free strawberry jelly (.5g)

Total net carbs = 10.7g

More than I would've liked, that's for sure, but I didn't realise the peppered topping on the grill steaks would add so many carbs. Oops.

So, the challenge continues. My goal is to try to get these bentos under 5g of carbs. Better luck next time, eh? But at least he enjoyed it!

Teeny Tubs

Maybe it's been years since you've walked starry-eyed (or bleary-eyed) down the baby aisles, but here's a tip: Baby food containers make great lunch and bento containers.

I picked up these in Morrisons the other day - 2 for £4. Not bad and just the right size for pudding, custards or jellies. Or sauces or berries or popcorn or nuts or.......

The Lunch Box Shop

I didn't do a shopping list this week before going shopping (dangerous, and expensive), but hopefully I have managed to get enough to last me until next shopping day.

This week for lunches (please excuse the water rings on the table) I am using the following:

Cheese Strings - £1.37 (half price)
Jus-Rol Pizza Base - £1.32 (half price)
Bread mixes x2 - .66p each
Passata (for pizzas) - .29p
Pepperoni - .99p
Raspberries - £2.50 (cheaper ones were available, but these looked juicier)
Blueberries - £2
Low-fat Houmous (to go with the crisps and crackers already in)- £1
Pizza Base (in case the Jus-Rol stuff isn't good) - .69p
Cheese Slices - £1.47
Mango Chunks - 2 for £3
Ham Slices - £1.49
Sugar Free Jelly - .69p
NOT PICTURED 3-Pack Juice Boxes x2 - .45p each

TOTAL: £19.03

I guess when school dinners are £1.75 per day I could just send her with money all week and save myself a tenner, but I prefer knowing what is going into her lunch each day, and I also prefer the good old fashioned warm family feeling of a packed lunch! I'd like to think my children's memories of lunches their mummy packed for them will pleasantly last into their teenage years when they stop needing me (and/or start hating me)... and resurface when they have their own children.

Eat Your Lunch and Play With It Too

My dad wanted to be called Papaw when he became a grandfather. That's what we called him to Feebz when she was little, but because he lives in America, all she knew of him was photographs. And drawings. She loved for us to draw all the members of our family, and she began distinguishing everyone by their stick figure characteristics - especially Papaw's moustache, or as she called it, his 'moosha'. Eventually, she stopped referring to him as Papaw altogether and was then and forevermore renamed 'Moosha'.

So, Moosha, in tribute to you and your mustache, I introduce the Moosha Lunch.

This was my first chance to use my new Fred Crustache sandwich cutter. This thing is hilarious! (They also are available as cookie cutters, so I've recently seen.)

Whoever said not to play with your food probably had a good reason for it (or maybe they were just boring old grumpsters), but as long as you eat it, why not? This lunch was made for playing with - and then eating - with jam mustache sandwhiches on seed and nut bread, with little sides like raspberries, blueberries, mango chunks and a couple of Hershey's Kisses just for fun. I also included a juice box and some EasiYo strawberry yogurt. (Have you noticed how much I love EasiYo?)

In the lid, I added a string cheese and some cucumber slices. Plenty of playing opportunities with this lunch!

Blue Bread

Last week I alluded to my homemade blue bread.

I got the idea for making coloured bread out of my bread machine recipe book, from a recipe for beetroot bread (don't knock it 'til you try it!). The bread naturally comes out pink because of the beetroot. There was another recipe for lemon poppyseed bread, which gave me the idea of adding yellow food colouring to it to make it look more lemony. Since then I've been experimenting with plain white bread loaves dyed various colours.

After bidding on and winning a monster sandwich cutter on ebay, I put a bread mix and some blue food colouring into the bread maker in preparation for making blue monster sandwiches.

The day I made these was a rather rushed day, so the contents of the lunch are nothing special: blueberries, an orange, a jelly (jello), a cheese, a bag of crisps and a juice. And the sandwich of course (ham). The monster cutter came with a press for pressing a monster face into the bread, but the freshness (I'm assuming) of the bread did not lend itself to retaining the face marks. I tried painting blue food colouring onto the press and then pressing but got big blue smudges instead. Finally, I painted on the face with a clean paintbrush and food colouring. It didn't come out perfectly, but I'm now on a mission to work out the best way of painting this face onto bread. Watch this space!

(Any of your genius ideas are very much welcome!)