Tag Archives: fruits

Rubbermaid LunchBlox

As moms I think we’re all looking for the easiest and healthiest way to create lunches for our kiddos. One such way that has become my new obsession is Bento boxes.

Have you heard of them?

According to Wikipedia, “Bento is a  single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento holds rice, fish or meat, with pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container.”

Now, obviously, if you look at that picture or read the description, you’re going to think I’m crazy and that there is no way Emmett would eat that. I completely agree, however, there is a huge “movement” going on where parents are making kid-friendly bento boxes. It allows the parents to be super creative and offer their children a huge variety of foods, which sets kids up to be good eaters as they get older.

For the past few weeks I’ve been on the hunt for a bento that would work for Emmett and that I could buy locally so I wouldn’t have to wait for it to ship. Well as luck would have it, last weekend Seamus needed to go to Target to get a container to keep his salad dressing in, so we were looking around the container aisle. Lo and behold, there was a display for the Rubbermaid LunchBlox. I knew within a second of looking at them, that they’d be perfect.

bento-7The set we purchased came with one large box, that has two separate compartments and then 2 small 3 oz containers and 2 longer containers as well as a “blue ice” ice pack. The best part? They all click in together, like so…

bento-9I love this because so often you make soup or maybe a stir-fry with a delicious sauce and if the container it is in tips over, it spills everywhere. Since everything clicks one to another, you just stack them and if carried flat, nothing will spill. One word of warning, they are not airtight, liquids can seep out but despite that, I am absolutely in love with these!

Here’s one of the lunches I made for Emmett this past week:

Grill chicken, golden raisins, mini-graham crackers and a fruit salad with strawberries and blueberries

Grill chicken, golden raisins, mini-graham crackers and a fruit salad with strawberries, blueberries and nectarines

The pink and blue cupcake holders are silicon Wilton Reusable Baking cups, that I purchased off of Amazon. They work great for keeping smaller items away from the bigger things, but they also keep the wet from the dry or the savory away from the sweet. They work really well and if you’re going to get into making bento lunches, I would absolutely recommend getting some of these.

I want to also provide you with another great resource for purchasing bento boxes as well as some fantastic lunch ideas. Laptop Lunches is a site dedicated to the art of bento lunches. On their site you will find a plethora of different types of boxes and believe me, Emmett will be getting one of those soon, but more importantly, they have an entire page dedicated to photos of different bento lunches. Pretty much endless possibilities, because the sky is the limit!

Have you heard of bento boxes? What is the first bento lunch you’re going to make?

**This is not a sponsored post, it was fulled purely by my love of bento**

30 Day Vegan Challenge – Week 1

I recently watched the documentary Forks Over Knives and it appealed to my desire to eat healthier. The movie promotes a whole foods, plant-based diet and it touts that it can (and will) assist you in getting off any blood pressure or cholesterol type meds you are on. Since I currently take 2 different blood pressure medications, it got the wheels turning, maybe this could work for me.

forks over knives

I immediately contacted my friend Kelly from Kohlrabi and Quince. She’s been a vegan for quite some time and has always been a supportive friend in the way of weight loss and I knew she’d do the same for me in regards to going vegan. I was not wrong! I sent her a message on Facebook in regards to watching Forks Over Knives and how I was considering the vegan lifestyle and almost immediately she responded with a huge long list of blogs, other books and articles, that she recommended (I will share the same list with all of you, sometime over the next 30 days).

One of the many recommendations she made, was for Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s 30 Day Vegan Challenge. I immediately jumped on the site and joined, I knew that I could handle anything for 30 days. But, before I fully committed to the Vegan lifestyle, I wanted to read more about it. I’m not one of those individuals that can jump right in and then adjust, I need to adjust, THEN jump. Which is what I did as of this Monday, 6/10/13. I highly recommend Colleen’s site (and I’m even getting into her podcasts, which you can subscribe to on iTunes), she goes day by day and ever so gently creates an environment where you can learn and grow as a vegan.

the-30-day-vegan-challenge-90664l1

So for 30 days, I’ve elected to live a vegan lifestyle. I’m sure there are some questions, and I’m hoping to answer some (if not all) of those, to help another “newbie” vegan.

One of the most common questions, I’ve gotten just since mentioning going vegan is, How will you get enough protein?

Well, I’ll share something with you something that I have just newly learned, most fruits and vegetables have protein in them. So along with things like spinach or watermelon, you have beans, legumes, avocado, etc., that are just packed FULL of protein. It is much easier than you think to get enough protein on a plant based diet, and for those of you who are really worried, I am tracking my food intake on My Fitness Pal so that I can ensure I am getting enough.

Are Seamus and Emmett going to follow a plant based diet?

No. Since this is an experiment for me, I am not pulling anyone else into it, unless they want to. As for Seamus, he likes meat and wishes to continue to eat it, I’m completely fine with that. The wonderful thing is that Seamus is willing to try a meat-free meal here and there, so we will definitely be expanding our palate together.

Will you make two dinners?

Kind of. We’ve only grocery shopped for one week so far and how it worked was we came up with our meal ideas and then I bought similar items to make them vegan. So for instance, on a night where burgers are on the menu, Seamus and Emmett will have a beef burger and I will have a handmade veggie burger from Go Veggies. If you live in Buffalo, they sell their fair at the Elmwood-Bidwell Farmer’s Market and they are phenomenal, they also have a cafe off of Elmwood Ave. Do yourself a favor and check them out! So, technically it is two meals but they are so similar and can be cooked the same, so no added stress.

What happens after 30 days?

Honestly? I don’t know. At this point, I’d run, skip and hop to my favorite brie case at Wegmans but in 30 days I may feel differently. For now, this question will remain open. Stay tuned!

Why are you doing this?

Like I mentioned above, I’m on two different blood pressure medications and I want to get off both. I know I could simply drop some of the fatty foods I was eating but I want to challenge myself and what better way to do it, than by trying to be vegan.

Am I having cravings?

Oh goodness, YES! It’s only been two and a half days but I’ve probably craved every possible meal with dairy (not really meat) under the sun. This morning I wanted donuts, right now I’d love a cheese and pepperoni pizza but I am committing to myself for 30 days to be meat, dairy and egg free. 30 days is nothing, I can do it!

What’s a typical day look like for you, as vegan?

This is something I’ll share in a future post because I want to give you a couple days, not just one.

I’m very very excited for what the next month will bring and I will share my journey along the way with all of my readers.

What other questions might you have?

Friday Fitness

Happy Friday!

It’s a little late to be sharing that sentiment but better late than never, right!?

Alright, so I made a promise to check in weekly on how my “healthier” lifestyle was going. If you missed my first Friday Fitness post where I explain my goals, here it is.

My goals for this past week:

Goals for 9/28/12 – 10/4/2012:

Amount Lost:

.4

Yeah! First week in and I lost .4, not too shabby!

Amount Remaining to Lose:

119.2

Still plenty to lose but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Here are my goals from last week and my update.

Food Goals:

  • Snacks are my downfall. I need to work on cutting out all the snacks that have no nutritional value
  • Eat more fruit and veg. By doing the above, this one should come naturally

I definitely cut out snacks but I didn’t do a really great job of adding in more fruits and veg. I made sure to have some more fruit with breakfast but the rest of the day was kind of devoid of any produce.

  • EAT. AT. HOME. I have such a habit of grabbing food out while I’m running errands. I will allow myself to go out for 1 dinner and 1 lunch a week.

I did much better with this! Yahoo!! I think I only grabbed lunch out once and that was yesterday when we were pretty much out of lunchy like foods.

  • Find some new recipes that Seamus and I can make for dinners

I didn’t find anything new for this week’s menu but I did Pin a bunch of different things that we’ll use in the future.

Fitness Goals:

  • Get my butt to a gym and open a membership with them. I have two gyms in mind, one of them has a pool which is the one I’m leaning towards because I love swimming but I want to ensure the rest of the gym is in good condition before actually joining.

I joined a gym!! Yahooooo! You know what motivated me to do it? This blog and holding myself accountable to my readers. I went out on Sunday and joined, it felt good to get that out of the way.

  • Walk! There is NEVER an excuse not to put Emmett in the stroller and hit the pavement, even if it’s for a short jaunt.

I so miserably failed on this one. We didn’t go out at all, not even once. Ugh! I can’t even use weather as an excuse, except for today. Boo to me!

  • Make my fitness goals a top priority!

Obviously as you can see from my above statement, I didn’t follow through on this one either.

What a miserable report!

Here’s a gorgeous picture to lift your (and mostly my) spirits…

Goals for 10/5/12 – 10/11/12

Amount Lost:

I’m not going to put a set number on the amount I want to lose this week. I’ll take ANYTHING!

Amount Remaining to Lose:

119.2

Food Goals:

  • Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at home, except for 1 dinner and 1 lunch.
  • Get in those vegetables!
  • Snack on fruits/vegetables, not crackers and chips

Fitness Goals:

  • Get to the gym at least 3 times
  • Walk with Emmet at least twice
  • Work on creating some sort of workout schedule. Even if it has holes and is just a loose idea of what I want, I need something.

I’ll be sure to check in next week and share my results!

Anyone have any exciting plans this weekend?

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