Mini Kimbap

Justin has become somewhat of an adolescent. You can't really see from here, but he spends a lot of time on his/my iPod watching Pororo, Pooh, or Little Einstein videos. I foresee this turning into future arguments about how much time he spends on the phone, playing video games, etc., etc. In any case, he is very serious about his video watching and cannot be disturbed for any reason whatsoever (even food).

Justin's preschool asked me to pack a snack for 10 little ones. Everyone was bringing a dish so it didn't have to be too much, but it should be something special that Justin likes. So we picked kimbap. There's a wonderful mini-kimbap (꼬마김밥) set from Pulmuone that has the carrots, burdock, and daikon radish all chopped up in mini size, as well as the nori, so all I had to do was mix the rice, make the eggs, and sautee up a tiny bit of ground beef. Of course, I won't do this every morning, but for a once-in-awhile treat, it wasn't too bad.

I was worried that the kids wouldn't like it, but who knows, maybe the teachers finished it off - it came back empty.

In his lunchbox he got the kimbap and 유부초밥, along with blueberries and a piece of banana.

Meanwhile, lunch time is actually the best time for Justin's dad and myself to eat out in peace. We went to the Cheesecake Factory, armed with a gift card, and determined to try something other than the usual meatloaf and pasta (because those are my favorites, that's all we ever eat there). Today I chose a chicken sandwich (with lettuce, tomato, and avocado), which was surprisingly simple but surprisingly good. It may be because the toasted bread was absolutely, totally buttered up. We also had the red velvet cheesecake - of course, I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate, but again, it was our day to try something new. It was okay, super sweet, and I probably won't have it again, but it wasn't that bad. I mean, it's cheesecake, how bad could it be...

More recent developments

So the rainy season here as officially begun. The first rain came with a huge splash - it was so dark, Justin lost his sense of time and slept until noon. Hence, he spent the day with Mom making cinnamon rolls and grocery shopping, instead of going to school for naptime.



Since the weather is cooler, I'm trying to pack more "warm in the tummy" foods, too.

With the rice rolls and strawberries, I've sent japchae. He especially likes the pink fish cakes, which I'm convinced is probably the least healthy ingredient in it.


Meatloaf and potatoes with green beans, diced nectarines & Bartlett pears. Surprisingly, he ate the green beans and not the potatoes (??!!)


Creamy carrot rice (he now seems able to spoon food into his mouth), rice cakes (약식), squash casseroles, and strawberries. I love making creamy carrot rice - sauteed onions, carrot juice, and chicken stock. Super simple without the milk/cream of risotto, colorful, and flavorful. I added chicken breast for this, but for dinner, we often add cooked shrimp as well, and it works well as both an entree or a side.

Catching up on lunchboxes from the past

Serious procrastination after Grandma was here over the summer and packing lunches instead of me!

This is from August - rice balls, 장조림, anchovies, and seasonal fruits (peaches & pitted cherries)

Also from the summer, curried rice balls, diced plums & chocolate elmo cookies. Justin loves curry, but is not so good at spooning rice yet, so I made them into little balls which I presume he ate with his fingers. Oh well, isn't Indian food originally meant to be eaten with your hands?

Here's a poor attempt after reading a blog on charabens (character bentos). It's a ham and cheese grilled dino with butter and jam cutouts and a horrifying bunny (it looks almost Halloween-ish). Funny enough, he liked the bunny the best. Served with nectarines & strawberries.

Finally, the Chusok aftermath. Bibimbap rice balls (that's actually the usual rice balls with diced bulgogi and spinach), a piece of 인절미 rice cakes that Justin loves, more nectarines and a Cascadian Farm granola bar. We were at the Mountain View Art & Wine festival where they were handing out granola bar samples and we fell in love with this brand that is nut-free (yay!) and healthy, yet tasty enough for Justin to want to eat.

Lunchboxes from July Week 3

So starting from this week, I decided that I wouldn't post "recycled" lunchbox ideas. I mean, I'm running out of "new" ideas, but everyone's seen the ham & cheese dino sandwich pictures three thousand times now, so until something new comes along, that picture is taking a break.

I'm getting a bit worried - not so much that the readers will get bored but that Justin will, but as long as he eats it (I suppose he has no choice - it's either eat it or starve) he'll be getting it until I get new ideas (please help!).

This week as I was completely out of ideas, Whole Foods was a godsend! I never stop by but for some reason I looked into their hot foods and found a penne pasta in vodka sauce that looked pretty good. Justin completely devoured it, and all I had to do was cut up the penne in half. We sent it with chicken nuggets, strawberries, and grapes.

This week we also tried sending fish, which he normally loves at home but I just felt "fishy" about sending it in a lunchbox. It worked fine, he finished everything. Pieces of broiled spanish mackeral, burdock (우엉), nori rolls with yellow peaches (code 4044, they're the best!).

Our final "new" attempt this week was chicken porridge (which does not look very appetizing in the picture, I am just realizing...). He ate about half of it - but probably because I forgot to season it in the morning. I have a bland container in the fridge that I add salt & pepper to as I cook it, but this morning I just simply forgot. He also got shrimp & squash tempura and bulgogi, with white seedless grapes for dessert.

Lunchboxes from July Week 2

Still catching up! Note, I'm back to work, so no, I'm not sitting at home blogging while everyone at work thinks I'm sick.


First off, nori rolls, mixed vegetable omelettes and one shrimp (that was the last one I had in the fridge) with cut up plums and a mini-muffin for dessert. I've noticed the Red Raven plums are delicious, and Justin can finish off two in a sitting so I have bought a ton and have been serving them day and night.

Finally - I started to use the 180mL containers I received. They are the perfect size! We have leftover macaroni & cheese, boiled sausages & ketchup, and diced up yellow peaches. The containers are perfect because I can ask for just the mac & cheese to be heated up and not have to worry about the other things in the same container. But of course, he didn't eat any of the mac and cheese at lunch, although he really enjoyed it at dinner. It's homemade, four cheese mac and cheese with mascarpone, aged cheddar, parmesan, and i can't even remember the name of the fourth one...

Wow, this really looks like a mess in the photograph... We had fried rice but I know he has a hard time scooping it up with a spoon so I tried to make balls. Fried rice is not as sticky as regular rice and the pieces of ham and veges were getting in the way as well, but I succeeded in making a few clumps. I also cut up some leftover casseroles (squid, 빈대떡), and added some strawberries for dessert. He finished the casseroles but I got almost the entire container of fried rice back. Oh well.

So for breakfast this week, we had french toast because I suddenly got a craving. Justin finished off 4 pieces for breakfast, so I thought I'd pack it for lunch. He has french toast, boiled sausages with ketchup, and a whole Red Raven plum.

Lunchboxes from July Week 1

I am catching up.

I can't actually be updating blogs when I'm calling in sick to work and lying around the house in bed from morning-noon-'n night sickness, so please understand.

Ham & cheese sandwiches (giving dino a break) with crab cakes and ketchup. The silly orange silicone cup is great, because it's thin enough to bend to any shape to fit. He also gets diced up strawberries and half a banana for dessert.

Next day he got Poby & and a bunny rabbit (rice characters), ham & green onion omelettes, bulgogi (a tad) and sauteed squash. For dessert he got tomatoes and grapes. I was a bit worried that the tomatoes wouldn't do well paired with sweeter grapes - however, I only got back half of Poby's head.


Day 3, we had a grilled cheese dino sandwich, boiled sausages, blueberries, and a chocolate chip muffin. He ate everything but the sandwhich (of course...).

Day 4 - this week only had four days because of the Independence Day weekend starting on Friday. He got rice balls, bulgogi, egg & nori omelettes, and four pieces of kimchi casserole (this is what his teachers are calling the "전"s). And as I finally bought the ice pack needed to send him off with yogurt in a frog shape, I sent him off with his favorite orange colored yogurt - in peach.

When will he overcome his obsession with orange...

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?

Recent lunchbox samplings

I've been a bit lazy so I'll play catch up today and show you a couple days' worth combined. Nothing super exciting other than the fact that I've had fabulous results (i.e., completely empty lunchboxes in the evening!) with these:

Eggs, sausages (boiled, of course), rice rolls, and leek cakes (부추전). For dessert, blackberries and green grapes, with a handful of teddy bear trail mix.

Black forest ham & cheddar cheese sandwiches with trail mix, and bluberries and strawberries for dessert. Justin especially loves having strawberries and whipped cream for dessert after dinner - it's a pity I can't send along whipped cream (I could but it would turn into a milky soup by lunch time!).

It might help that we have a new lunchbox/ container. It's a tomotomo ($1.50 from Ichiban Kan) and it's really the perfect size! The top container is 310 mL (entree) and the bottom is 210 mL (dessert) and comes with a space for the fork and spoon, all-in-one (utensils not included). It's so cheap but the funny thing is the little rubber belt that holds it all together is almost as expensive ($1.00) as the container!

Anyway, he seems to enjoy the portions and the bear on his container. If it works for him, it works for me.

More lunchbox tools have arrived

I was running out of ideas and my box of goodies from Ichiban Kan arrived just in the nick of time.

Justin loves the rice balls but it makes me feel guilty to send him with the same thing over and over again. So this time, I bought a paper punch to punch out little teddy bear shapes of nori. This was a little trickier than I expected - the nori has holes in it, and because the teddy bear shape is really small, if you position the nori the wrong way, the bear comes out without an arm or an ear. Anyway, it works and it's cute, so I'm happy.


I also bought a square frying pan for making eggs. I spent a lot of time at Williams-Sonoma looking for a square pan for this purpose, but could only find the LeCreuset panini grills (I can't imagine what my eggs would look like if I tried it on one of those), and even that for over $100. This pan I found at Ichiban Kan was super cheap - just $7-8. It's small but it makes perfect eggs that doesn't have ugly uneven ends. But I've yet to buy green onions - so I just used nori, again, for color. Justin will be nori-ed out.

As a just in case, I sauteed a little bit of shrimp. The 10-15 count shrimp were larger than I thought and I only wound up packing 2 of them.

For dessert he has grapes and pineapples. We have a great big fruit bowl and I picked the pineapples out of it so they're a little pink from sitting next to strawberries. Another great idea gone bad... I thought I could scoop the fruit out from the fruit bowl but Justin will spit out every thing he doesn't like so now I have to pick through the sticky juice. You might notice, I'm not using both cases of the new Hakoya lunchbox because I agree, it's a bit too large for a preschooler!

No ingredients in the fridge!

I was up at 5am (after taking a call at 4am) but without any ingredients in the refrigerator! So I had to make do with what I had.

Today's menu:

• Grilled ham and cheese sandwhiches - I'm guessing if he sees the dino too often, it won't be fun anymore. I might go shopping for the train shaped one soon, but it's no longer online so I'm wondering if they're all sold out?!! (I tried plain ham & cheese before without luck, but as it seems he likes grilled cheese and he loved my leftover ham & cheese croissant from lunch, I am hoping he likes this. And I'm using cheddar cheese instead of American these days, which I think he likes a bit better.)
• Grilled corn on the cob - leftover from last weekend's bbq, but still seems to be okay. Cold from being in the fridge, but at least it's not gone bad, and this is a sure-eat.
• Mom's cop out! A little tin of trail mix treats with teddy bear grahams, pretzels & raisins.
• Strawberries & peaches
  

Tomorrow's lunchbox should be of higher quality :) I plan on going grocery shopping today.

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.

Poby

After a "day off" from lunchboxing, it wasn't easy to get back into the mode (especially since it's just one day - preschool has the day off tomorrow). Thank goodness I had an idea that I wanted to try out - the Poby (polar bear) shaped rice. I couldn't make any Eddy's or Pororo's so I just went with the rabbit to balance it out.

Today, Justin has rice, eggs (unfortunately, I tried this and it looks a lot better than it tastes!), fried sweet potatoes (고구마전) and anchovies (which sounds gross in English but is actually just 멸치볶음). For dessert he'll be having peaches. After two root canals, we're trying to stay away from sweets and more with fruits. Let's see how long that effort lasts...

Plastic helpers

This week is turning out to be more hectic than planned!

After having sleepover guests on Monday, we now have a dentist visit planned for Wednesday, and there's no school on Friday (teachers' workshop), so we won't have much opportunity to pack lunches at all (whew!).

Yesterday's menu of fried rice and meatballs, grapes and cherries were well received and today after sleeping in, we fell back on the sandwich and nuggets option. So today, instead of a nicely packed lunch, I will share the "tools of the trade".

On the top left are the three plastic rice shapers - a rabbit, dog, and bear (sold in a set of 3). The bottom trio are sauce containers, for ketchup, mayonnaise, or mustard, that open up and seal tightly (sold in a set of 3). On the top right are plastic containers of various shapes and colors (sold in a set of 6, two of each shown). These are useful for packing small portions of food without having to worry about it all getting mixed up. I tried looking for colorful silicone cupcake liners - I thought they used to have them at Crate & Barrel but could only find them at Williams-Sonoma for $24.00. Each of these sets were $1~$1.50 at Daiso (which is also conveniently located between work and home), so compared to $24.00, I think I got a good deal!

What I really need is the 180mL Lock&Lock rectangular container, which I think is the right size for a preschooler's lunch. It's difficult working with the 330mL that I have now, because there's a lot of space to fill, and if you don't pack tightly, then all the food will move around and get mixed up. So what happens is, you pack food knowing you will have leftovers (although I've been pleasantly surprised a few times with a completely empty container). But for some reason, I can't find these 180mL containers anywhere in the US, even online.

Wish us luck with the dentist. We'll be posting more when life returns to normal.

Friday Dino and Nuggets

Today we're going to try out sandwiches again - but I have a back up plan as well :)

I made a grilled cheese sandwich and used a dinosaur cut-out (hopefully he'll know what it is) and packed some chicken nuggets with ketchup (in the orange plastic container). Hopefully he'll like both or at least either one. He also got some honeydew balls. This was tougher than I thought it would be, because the melon had become way too ripe and it was difficult to scoop out balls from a mushy melon. Better luck next time.

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!

Leftover Wednesday

I was really aiming for something else today (there's always tomorrow) but last night we had chicken and pasta for dinner, with tons leftover. Not that my son is a means to get rid of things I do not want to keep in the refrigerator. He just seemed to love the food, it was sitting there, so I took the opportunity to sleep in another half hour this morning. The results? Not so pretty. But so much easier on me!

So we had prosciutto stuffed chicken with marinara sauce and fettucine with alfredo sauce. I added a broccoli floret for color and a few raisins in the divide between the chicken and pasta. Why raisins? For one, Justin loves them in general, and secondly, last night we had a salad with dried cranberries which Justin enjoyed with the rest of his meal (the lettuce, he did not like so much). They'll zap this at preschool for him, so I hope the raisins don't explode in the microwave or anything weird like that!

I thought of packing granny smith apples for his dessert (the salad also had granny smiths, which he liked as well, but I think it was more because of the green color than the taste) but then chose oranges which has a success rate of 100%.

After yesterday - he didn't like the D'Anjou pears at all! - I need a better hit ratio.

Nori rolls (again) on Tuesday

Rolls again? As a lame excuse, every time I pack sandwiches Justin comes home with a full lunchbox. Honestly? I'm out of chicken nuggets (which he does eat) and Kraft Singles (which I need to make sandwiches). But of course, most importantly, he just likes rice rolls.

So today he's getting plain rice rolls (the rice balls didn't fly so well yesterday - only a 50% hit ratio) that I know he likes, with ham-carrot-green onion-egg cakes (a.k.a. 전) and diced daikon for sides. For some reason he only ate the oranges yesterday, so although I feel like he would eat strawberries today, I'm going to hold back the urge to recycle and give him organic D'Anjou pears (courtesy of The Fruit Guys) for a change. I hope he likes these. I ate the scraps in the morning and they were good!

I had a little fun with the pears. I bought the cutest cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma (but they don't have them online!), and have been using them to cut up sandwiches (that he will not eat), but it's so much easier with pears! There are 10 different shapes - I only used 5 of them today. We'll see which ones he favors.

They do serve milk and water, but I've noticed that they serve water in the milk cups without completely rinsing them out. I suppose it's all the same when it gets into your system, but for some reason that seems too gross for me (especially because I don't drink milk) so I'm opting to pack his water separately.

This is what it looks like when it all comes together:


While Justin was (hopefully) enjoying his lunch, we took a (well-deserved) break this afternoon and splurged on lunch at University Cafe, with a steak stir-fry and a Sunny Platter. The Sunny Platter is absolutely perfect for someone like me who can never make up their minds between savory and sweet for breakfast/brunch. It combines eggs benedict and potatoes (savory) and french toast with fresh fruit (sweet) on one plate! Of course, the steak stir fry was really good, too (other than the fact that we ordered it medium and got a really well-done steak). Tomorrow, Justin will get a more interesting lunch. Promise.

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.