A thing of beauty

Last year's school lunches were a peanut butter and jam sandwich, a granola bar, and some fruit if they were lucky and we had any left at that point in the week. At some point, and I don't know when it happened, PB&J turned from being a family staple into a family nightmare. Adam hates them so much that he is currently on a sandwich strike in general, and he is being so loud and vociferous about how much he hates sandwiches - any sandwiches, ALL sandwiches - that he is dragging Ellie along in his wake, and all of a sudden she won't eat sandwiches either.

Which means that school lunch planning is all of a sudden even more of a pain that it was before. I actually have to think about it, and sometimes I even have to prepare stuff the night before. So far we have been doing really well, and just about every day they come home with (shock, horror!) an empty lunchbox, which is something that never used to happen. It was always stuffed full of most of their manky sandwich that they couldn't be bothered to eat, or swap, or even chuck out discreetly to spare my feelings.

This summer to prepare for the onslaught which I knew was coming, I invested in a set of new lunchboxes - all cute and compartmentalised. I knew that they would force me to be more creative with lunch, and so far it is working!

I was so proud of myself for today's lunch that I am posting a picture of it! How lame is that. Anyway, I think that it is indeed a thing of beauty - homemade lemon poppyseed muffin, homemade protein balls (oat flour, peanut butter, honey, almonds etc), hummus with carrots and celery, and grapes.

That is a seriously awesome school lunch, if I say so myself. Jeff took one look at it and suggested that I should start making myself one as well. It is certainly better than what I eat for lunch most days!