New containers!

My fall back option had become the dino grilled cheese and nuggets, until he returned with zero nuggets eaten and one obviously chewed up and spit out in the very container. Okay, so we need to put that menu on hold for a bit, I guess.

I am returning to my trusty nori balls.

So now that it's becoming difficult to surprise Justin with a new menu (I need some thinking time), I pulled out a new lunchbox. It's a Hakoya (which I've found to be much nicer than the ones I saw at Daiso, but also pricier), with pictures of little squirrels on them. And thank goodness the English text on it makes some sense - I've seen some silly things in my life. It just reads "Let's take a walk for lunch", which is still strange but not very strange, and at least grammatically correct!

(I for some reason cannot for the life of me get this picture to print horizontally in blogger no matter what I do to the original file. Help!)

So, back to the nori balls.

Today, Justin is having nori balls with anchovies (diced up and rolled, so it's not really visible) and various cakes - leek cakes (부추전), potato cakes (감자전), and meatballs (완자전). There's tomato for color and to fill the space! The top layer has white grapes and blackberries, both of which he loves, and a mini-blueberry muffin. For some reason, I know he will finish off the top layer before starting on the bottom, and he will eat just the rice.

I was late getting up this morning, so I didn't have time to hide everything away before he came out to the kitchen. But he seemed to like the squirrels and really wanted to dive into the food so he got some leftover (from washing, that didn't make it into the box) blackberries for breakfast.

Faces for Thursday

So, while yesterday's lunchbox was wildly successful, I left off feeling a bit guilty that I was copping out on leftovers so I decided to roll up my sleeves again today. After pulling an all-nighter, it was not so easy to stay focused at 7am but here's what we did:



Simple, animal faced rice molds with carrot mouths and nori eyes and noses, accompanied with meatballs (완자전) and little pieces of eggs to fill the gaps. Of course, the broccoli is there for color, but this, I know he won't eat. For fruit, we have grapes and pitted cherries. Cherries are/were in season here, but I think they're almost gone now. We'll move on to peaches and melons soon.

The string cheese is a treat (plus a just-in-case he has trouble with the rice). Let's hope he finishes the rice before filling up with cheese.

It's amazing how limited you are in terms of options, considering 2-year-olds are not fully capable of eating on their own but have to, can't have anything spicy or with nuts, and it has to keep in an edible condition for a few hours. If you have fresh ideas, please do let me know!