LunchBots Dinners and Homemade Cheese Crackers!

This week my tiny princesses had their week long intensive at dance. Both girls danced for three and a half hours straight for four consecutive days. Normally this wouldn’t call for a packed dinner, but this summer it did. Tiny Princess A had dance from 2:00pm to 5:30pm and then had to go directly to her two hour cheer practice. I had to make sure my girl had fuel to accommodate the five and half hours of non stop activity. I also had to make sure said fuel was FAST. I love being able to provide mostly healthy  “fast food” meals for my tiny humans in the form of Bento!

BUT….. Before we get to the Bentos…….

You know those deliciously, crunchy, cheesy snack crackers? I know you do. Our kids love them! Am I right? I know my kids do and I’m pretty guilty myself, of being able to eat at least half a box in one sitting. Well, what if I told you that you could make your own cheese crackers? In your own kitchen. Right at home. It’s true, you can! And what if I told you that this scrumptious, cheesy, knockoff-ey goodness could be made with just four simple ingredients? That’s right! Only four ingredients. We decided to kick it up a notch though and used FIVE!  I know it, we're rebels! ;)

I found the recipe on pinterest sometime back. The pin took me to a great blog called Divas Can Cook. I seriously got lost in there before I finally decided to get to work on creating my own cheese crackers!  We followed the Divas Can Cook recipe almost exactly with only a few minor changes. So, if you want to go with the recipe from Divas Can Cook click here….. If you would like to add our little changes keep reading.

Here’s what you need… Chances is are you already have everything on hand! I LOVE those kind of recipes. ♥ This is seriously so easy I have it memorized! Well, that and we have made them every day this week. ♥ (Remember, I’m a rebel. That’s why our version has 5 ingredients)

• 1 cup of shredded Colby Jack cheese (Any shredded cheese will work. Colby just seems to be the cheese that we ALWAYS have on hand)
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon red pepper Keep in mind that this last ingredient will add a good kick to your crackers. Depending on your tastes adding the pepper might be too spicy. My tiny princess LOVE spicy foods so this was a good thing for us.

Okay, now that you have all the ingredients ready: Add every last one of them to a food processor. Don’t have a food processor? No worries! Do a quick google search on alternatives for a food processor and you will find a ton of great ideas, that I’m sure will work for this recipe. Process until a dough forms. I have to admit that my dough never really formed in the processor. It was more like crumbly little bits. I was VERY temped to add milk or water and you totally could, but upon a hands on inspection of my dough crumbles I realized that just a little hand squishing formed a dough ball quite nicely, so I changed my mind about adding liquid.  Shape your dough into a disc, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour. Remove dough from fridge and let it soften. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll dough onto a smooth surface until you get your desired thickness. The recipe suggest 1/8 inch thick, but we chose to make our a bit thicker. This dough is seriously a breeze to work with! It is perfect for letting your tiny humans roll it out all on their own. It’s not sticky hardly at all so it eliminated the frustration that my little cooking buddy often has when working with a more sticky type dough.  We chose not to go with your traditional square cheese cracker shape. Nope, I had my own custom cheese cracker cutter!

After you have cut your crackers how you wish place them on a foil lined baking sheet. Use a wooden skewer to add holes to the centers of your crackers. I’m pretty sure this step is unnecessary, but it sure is fun for the kids to do! ♥ Bake your crackers for approximately 12 minutes or until the bottoms are slightly golden brown. Remove from oven and let sit on hot pan for a couple minutes before adding to a cooling rack. Crackers can be stored in an air tight containers for a few days, but if your family is anything like mine they won’t even last that long! ;)

Some of my other Bento blog friends have made homemade cheese crackers too…..

Check out THIS awesome post from Jenn of Bento For Kidlet. She uses her Funbites Cube It cutter to create the perfect square shapes with ease! *keep in mind that this is an older post so the Funbites giveaway is no longer active.*

Melissa from another lunch creates puzzle shaped crackers in THIS blog post. How fun!

Momables has a great cheese cracker recipe HERE and really gets you wondering about why you need all those extra ingredients in store bought crackers anyway! While you’re there be sure to check out the subscription lunch packing meal plan! It’s AWESOME!

OMGosh! How perfect would THESE be for the upcoming Halloween season? Astrid of Lunches Fit For A Kid shows you how to make Candy Corn shaped crackers.

Now onto the meals. I’ll try to keep it short. ♥ (yeah right)

I decided to pull out our LunchBots for these meals. I was sort of in the mood for a “Tiny Lunch Box Challenge” I really LOVE trying to fit as much food as I can in a tiny lunch box! Want your own LunchBots container? Click the add over on my right sidebar to be taken directly to the LunchBots site!

In her LunchBots duo tiny princess A had: A leftover grilled BBQ chicken leg, a few cucumbers hidden underneath a bed of baby carrots, ranch for dipping in our small Laptop Lunches lidded container, green and red grape mix, and of course homemade cheese crackers!

Tiny princess K technically didn’t need a packed meal since she had plenty of time to eat at home, but she LOVES Bento, so who am I to deny her requests!

In her LunchBots trio K had: Carrots, cucumbers, cantaloupe, turkey meatballs, ranch for veggie dipping in the small Laptop Lunches lidded container, ketchup for meatball dipping in the green sauce cup, Trader Joe’s yogurt stars, and homemade cheese crackers.

Some things I used to make these meals

Mickey, Yubo, and a little Lunchbox Love!

I have a friend. And she is fabulous! I don’t even know her in real life, but it feels like I do! She shares my Disney passion, and is my number one bento lunch supporter! ♥♥ It just so happens that she lives very close to the Disneyland Resort! Sometimes, she picks up special treats for me and my girls! Yesterday’s mail included a package with Mickey shaped pretzels! YUM! Of course my girls couldn’t wait to have a lunch packed with them in it!

We decided on some packed dinners rather than lunches. My oldest tiny princess started cheerleading practices on Monday. She practices 5 days a week for 2 hours per night. (6pm to 8pm) This is her 5th year in the program. I am going on my 4th year of coaching. From now until mid October our evenings are going to be pretty tight. Especially once school and dance start. We won’t be quite as busy as last year though, cause tiny princess K decided cheerleading just wasn’t for her.

The girls decided on their Yubo lunchboxes cause they love them so! ♥♥ Tiny princess A had: Carrot coins and one lone cherry tomato, ranch for dipping in the Mickey sauce cup, rolled chicken lunch meat, Mickey head pretzels, homemade chocolate pudding, a couple of apple slices, and some bunchkins grapes.

So, who noticed my “hidden Minnie? See it? Right there, in the carrots and tomato. ♥

K had a mouse themed Yubo too!

She had: 2 small chicken/cheese sandwiches, 2 super small chicken/cheese sandwiches, (2 pieces of bread total) Mickey head pretzels, carrot coins, ranch for dipping, applesauce, and homemade chocolate pudding.

I also included a Lunchbox Love note in each of the meals. I love the messages and fun facts that are on each card! I can’t wait to get my hands on the new editions! Tiny princess A’s Lunchbox Love was not photographed.

I just love all the different combinations and layouts you can come up with when using the inner containers of the Yubo Lunchbox! It’s fantastic! I just adore endless possibilities! ♥♥

 

Some things I used to make these meals…

Wishing you lots of love and good fortune!

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

 

I must keep this short and sweet today! There are elementary Valentine parties to be had! Today both tiny princess are the same with the exception of the fruit choice. A got an apple. K got an orange.

Tiny princess A’s lunch packed in our new LunchBots Uno…

Tiny Princess K’s lunch packed in our new LunchBots Duo…

 

Here is what they had…

• Veggie Chips
• Trix Yogurt with heart and lip sprinkles
• Apple for A. Clementine for K. The Apples we picked up at the grocery store over the weekend just happened to both red and green. I used this to my advantage and cut the apple in half and then cutting out a heart shape from each half. I ate one half and then added the heart of the opposite color into the cutout hole onto the apple I included in A’s lunch. I also cut a heart from the peel of K’s orange and colored it with my red food safe marker to add a contrasting color effect.
• Leftover Lo Mein noodles with a few carrot hearts and sweet yellow pepper garnish
• Fruit Roll Up Fortune Cookie
• And of course some Lunchbox Love! I was super excited when I received my Lunchbox Love cards in the mail and realized there were a few blank cards… perfect for creating a special personalized message. ♥

How stinkin’ cute are the fruit roll fortune cookies?

♥ Here is how you can make your own ♥

I must say, mine didn’t turn out nearly as cute as the ones from She Knows. I figured out my problem, though. I just didn’t pinch them into the fortune cookie shape quite enough. I will have to do these again in the future to see if I can perfect the technique.

 

Some things I used to make these lunches…

Eat Your Heart Out!! & a shake test!

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I forgot all about purchasing any fun Valentine supplies to make our Valentine lunches fun! Luckily I do have some basic heart cookie cutters and my sweet husband picked up some cute ♥ day sprinkles to spruce up a few lunches!

By now, we all know that Wednesday is chicken sandwich day at school. I knew that full well when creating, what I thought would be today’s lunches. I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could totally WOW my tiny princesses with fun lunches and new boxes to make them say NO to hot lunch at school. I was wrong. Even my lunch box charm couldn’t pursued them in “bring your own lunch” direction. Oh well, they decided on eating them for dinner last night instead!

Tiny princess A’s meal was packed in our brand new LunchBots trio! This is of course my first lunch in a LunchBots, but I think I’m really going to love packing in these!

Here is what she had…

• chunked colby jack cheese
• hot dog on a heat pick (Now, we aren’t normally much of a hot dog family. Not for any reason other than that I think they taste yucky! :p I think that as parents we tend to try to force our like and dislike on our kids. Am I right? My girls really like hot dogs so when I saw this idea of slicing the hot dog ends just right to form a heart, it reminded me that just because I don’t like something, doesn’t mean my princesses cant! ♥)
• grape tomatoes on triple heart pick
• all natural trix yogurt with sprinkles
• a few sweet pepper rings in the yellow silicone cup
• the red heart cup hold s’mores mix (hold the chocolate because we didn’t have any)
• filling in the spaces of the top left compartment is a few clementine orange slices and a yellow sauce cup that hold BBQ sauce for hot dog dipping

Tiny princess K’s meal was packed in our pink Yubo lunch box and is the reasoning behind today’s blog post title.

Here is what she had…

• nutella fairy bread sandwich with letter picks spelling “Eat Your Heart Out” Make your own fairy bread by cutting a shape out of your top piece of bread and adding sprinkles to the middle. So fun and so yummy!
• heart shaped colby cheese in pink silicone cup cut using FunBites Luv It
• watermelon hearts in Goodbyn sauce cup
• sweet pepper rings in flower silicone cup
• all natural trix yogurt
• orange cutie I cut a slice in the top of the orange to aid in peeling and to add the fun cupcake ring
• I also included some LunchBox Love ♥

I decided since this lunch was a little more complex it would be the perfect opportunity for a Yubo shake test. Following the same pattern as before, we shook K’s pink Yubo, inside, outside, and upside down. Again, we even played a fun game of catch with it! :)

When we opened up the top lid and all inside lids here is what we found…

Tiny princess K and I were quite pleased with the results of this shake test. As you can see, a few of the inside containers shifted a bit, as well as the cheese in the pink silicone cup. The yogurt also got all discombobulated and the sprinkles dissolved quite a bit. This problem could totally be eliminated by using this idea from Molly’s Lunch Box, of including sprinkles in a small a lidded container or sauce cup so that your kiddos can add the sprinkles in themselves. The sandwich seems to have stayed intact really well and not even one of the sprinkles fell off at all!

♥♥♥ Tiny princess K gives the Yubo shake test 5/5 crowns! ♥♥♥

She is such a goof ball!

 

Now I want to hear from you….. Which lunch box would you like to see the shake test done in next? Leave a comment to let me know!

 

Some things I used to make these meals