Spooktacular

Halloween is approaching (ooooo-oooooh), and what could be more fun than a Halloween-themed lunch? (I suppose Christmas, Easter, St Patrick's Day...) Ah, let's face it. I just like a good theme.

Today, Feebz had a ghost ham sandwich on white bread - storebought, lazy! - and eyes drawn on with edible ink, along with Craisins, cheese cubes, a chocolate eyeball, Monster Fingers (cocktail sausages), chopper persimmon and a hard-boiled Ghost (with sushi nori eyes). For snack she had a pineapple finger and some cheese balls.

I told Feebz that this week she'd be getting some new things in her lunch to try, and I wanted her to try them. Remarkably, this did not result in a breakdown. She was a bit fussy about trying the persimmon, her new item for today, but of course, to her own surprise but not mine, she loved it. It's a lovely sweet fruit which I only just discovered too.

Not sure what tomorrow's new item will be, but chances are, it'll be Halloween themed again. Whoooooo!

Site Overhall

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Keto Bento Challenge 5: Number 5 Under 5?

The kids have been off school, I've been sleeping in late, but yesterday I did manage another...

And guys, I think I may have met my 5g carb target! Let's just see though (mental maths is not my forte).

Above, you see I packed for the hubby -
*Irn Bru (0g)
*Sugarfree strawberry jelly (.5g)
*1 square of very dark (85%) chocolate (2g)
*a few cucumber slices (1g)
*1 boiled egg (.5g)
*smoked pork sausage (0g)
*pepperoni slices (0g) with full fat cream cheese (approx .7g)
*4 rashers of smoked bacon (0g)

TOTAL: 4.7g!!

I DID IT!

The only complaint the hubby had was that he didn't like the cream cheese. I really hoped I'd be able to get some cheese/fat/calcium in him via cream cheese but even that was too 'cheesy' for him. If you like cream cheese though, I recommend these!

Yummy Scrummy Snack

Behold, the Lunch Box Trifle.

This particular version is sugar-free jelly, EasiYo Forest Fruits homemade yogurt and blueberries, but I'm sure there could be any number of variations of a Lunch Box Trifle that would delight you, your kids or whomever you make lunch for.

And for a bit of a history lesson, here's the scoop on Trifle.

Happy weekend!

Keto Bento Challenge 4

It's time again for the

This time I've gotten a bit more creative, not to mention a bit more cutesy (sorry, big manly man taking his lunch to work...)

On the top tier, we have an almond bun sliced in half, a hard-boiled egg, some blueberries and a tub of Mean Pig Hot BBQ sauce. On the bottom, we have a bed of lettuce with two pig-shaped hamburgers (to go on the almond bun with the hot sauce) and...

wait for it...

Keto California rolls!

You heard me right, California rolls, keto-style.

These rolls consist of the usual cucumber and avocado (which, and I'm not lying, I had NO IDEA were the traditional fillings until JUST NOW when I linked to the Wikipedia article. It was a total coincidence that I just happened to put cucumber and avocado in it, which apparently are the norm. I just wanted something green and keto-friendly!) and a bit of tuna, wrapped in nori, but the secret keto ingredient?

Steamed, mashed cauliflower instead of rice.

It was a total gamble, and totally a creation from my own head, and I am seriously proud of it. It was my first attempt ever at any kind of California roll, and I discovered that a) I used too thick a layer of cauliflower, seeing as it doesn't mould together as well as rice would, and b) I need a sharper knife. My knives were rubbish at cutting cleanly through the nori (even though it was slightly wet, as the instructions said.) Still, for a first try, it looked not too bad, and I was dead chuffed with it. However, the proof was still in the pudding cauliflower, so I had to wait for the hubby to come home to see if they actually TASTED good. His verdict was that they were good, but very bland, and he'd have liked something spicy to go with it. So keto sushi lovers, is wasabi keto-friendly?

Finally for dessert, I prepared sugar-free strawberry jelly, and ta da! Another keto bento.

Now for the important part - the tally. Let's see how many (approximate) carbs there were. Note: Each item will be very approximate since so much was made by hand.

-Almond bun (2g net carbs)
-Handful of blueberries (4g)
-Boiled egg (.5g)
-Hot sauce (2g)
-2 tiny burgers (2.5g)
-Lettuce (1.4g)
-4 California rolls (2g)

TOTAL: 14.4g

Hmm... that doesn't look as good on paper, but I suppose if you used low-carb BBQ sauce (which I didn't) and perhaps tried a different berry (or maybe my guess on blueberries was too high) and also if I'd actually paid attention to how many carbs were in the burgers (I'm hoping it was actually less!), then you could get a much lower carb bento out of this. I guess it also depends on how many carbs a day you are eating; the hubby is allowing himself 20g a day, so this lunch probably was too many for him... but he didn't complain!

Next week, the kids are off school, so while I'll blog about our in-house lunches, I'll also try to get some more keto bentos sent in with the hubby to work.

Watch this space - I WILL get under 5g one day!

Single File

Lolly doesn't stay at nursery for lunch time. She gets out at 11.30 and comes home and has lunch with me and Baby Jaguar in the house. However, she gets jealous when she sees Feebz taking a 'snack lunch' with her to school, so many days she begs me for a lunch too. She'll fish out her lunch bag and start filling it herself with random things if I don't do it myself. So today, I made her a little mini bento (which she then left at nursery and therefore totally wasted).

But first, Feebz.

If you have an office job, this lunch might be just the one for you... everything in neat little rows, nicely filed. That's how it looks to me anyway.

We have sliced and filed cucumber, tomatoes (the only thing not sliced here), and plum on the one side, and smoked sausage, cheese and grapes (oh, I guess those aren't sliced either). Inside the lid we find a bit of scatter with some chocolate sweeties.

Then we have the 'Don't eat me!' banana. Lolly, always wanting the same, but different, wanted a face banana too, only she wanted hers to say 'Please eat me!'

For Lolly's little bento, I just did slices of smoked sausage, cheese and grapes, with a plum and a slice of cheese-topped bread in the lid. It saddens me that those delicious sausages are just wasting away in her backpack in an empty nursery right now. Not looking forward to opening that box tomorrow either for cleaning.

Yum. Those grapes look amazing.

Bento Art

Lovely drawing of a bento box by Feebz! The arrows indicate which drawn food items go into the box (and the banana has an arrow pointing out of the box and into a lunch bag!)