Lunchboxes from June Week 4

I've been good about taking pictures but it's been tough getting online everyday to upload pics with random guests and all nighters last week. So here's a week's worth, all in one shot!


Rice rolls with teddy bear cut-outs with marinated beef & fish on the side (the black nori rolls also have either the beef or fish inside) with grape tomatoes & apples for dessert. Completely emptied.

I might need to invest in a new sandwich cutter - I am sick of the dino. Nevertheless... the dino grilled cheese with 4 crab cakes (since the chicken nuggets weren't doing well, I am trying something different) & ketchup, with blackberries for dessert. Again - completely emptied!

Rice balls with star cut-outs, rolled up eggs with green onions, meat balls and leek cakes. For dessert he had strawberries & blueberries. 2 pieces of meat ball came back home.

Black forest ham & cheddar cheese sandwiches & trail mix, with strawberries and blueberries (again!). I got one piece of the sandwich back.

Rice balls with teddy bear cut-outs, sauteed salt & pepper shrimp, and egg roll ups with green onions and nori. For dessert he got strawberries and sammy jammys. He completely emptied this one.

I'm running out of creativity, but at least I'm getting emptied plates, maybe because I've been relying heavily on the TomoTomo container and the portion is small?

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.

Rice rolls on Monday

Justin used to be the ideal "unpicky" eater. He ate everything except bell peppers. That much I could accomodate. But since he began preschool, he's become very picky regarding what he'll eat for lunch. (He's still relatively unpicky about eating at home, thank goodness!)

Of all the preschools we looked into, most provided lunch, but we had to go with the one that didn't (which was the one that didn't have a 2-year waitlist). So mom has been struggling for the past two weeks to pack lunch in the mornings that will be eaten and will be evaluated as healthy by the teachers (because I think I could pack goldfish crackers and chocolate milk, and he would eat that).

I don't think the teachers mean this as a form of evaluation, but they give you little sheets of what he had for lunch. But for the mom, it feels somewhat like Big Brother is watching to make sure you're touching on the four food groups and packing veges and not using instant, microwaveable stuff that are bad for children!

So here's what Justin got for lunch today:

We had leftovers from the kimbap that we made yesterday (which Justin devoured totally) so this morning was relatively easy. We seasoned rice with the vinegar powder and sesame oil, and rolled it up with beef, burdock (우엉), and cooked shredded carrots. Just because he loves eggs, we cut up some of the rolled eggs as a side dish. And he gets a healthy cup of oranges and strawberries for dessert.

I had a few leftover and so I laid it out on the table for breakfast - to see how he would respond. Not that I had any other options for his lunchbox if he didn't seem to like it. Thank goodness he finished them all - but he did remove a strand of carrot (I tried to dice up the carrots again after shredding them, but unfortunately one strand survived my knife), calling it a "worm". Okay, so he won't eat bell peppers and he won't eat worms. I think that's a good thing.