Bento lunchbox: seaweed & spaghetti

It's been a while since I posted one of baby girl's bento lunches. Unfortunately she dropped the bento box and the lid broke off, so it's kind of tricky to keep her lunch intact. Lately I've just been putting her food in a bunch of little containers inside an insulated lunch bag - which doesn't make a very appealing presentation.

So broken lid aside, here's today's lunch: In the back row, blueberry cinnamon oatmeal and a packet of roasted seaweed. It looks like a big package but there's only a few sheets in it and she absolutely loves them. These don't fit in the lunchbox when the lid is closed, but they all get put in the same carrying bag.

Now I'll go clockwise, starting with the brown rice spaghetti & tomato basil sauce, banana tofu, Sharkies (one of the
few gummy snacks that are gelatin-free) , sesame rice crackers, Annie's cocoa & vanilla bunnies, home made banana blackberry oatmeal muffin, dill pickle, and half of a navel orange with strawberry slices.

It may look like a lot of food, but it has to be enough for breakfast, lunch and snack time. She's got quite an appetite these days and the lunchbox is almost always empty when it comes back home.

Guilt-free glamour alert!

@UrbanDecay411 launched 7 NEW shadows today. Of the 7 shades, 2 are vegan.

• Deep End - teal blue shimmer
•  Faint - warm dusty brown

Check them out here. I think I might be doing some online shopping this weekend! Which of these new shades is your fave?

Royal treats

Vegan Banana cupcakes with strawberry icing for my birthday princess!

cookies and stuff

Someone in my office asked me the other day if I had any recommendations on what to make for a vegetarian that they are having over for dinner during the Christmas holidays. My first thought was Toforky. It's easy for a non-veg person to prepare, and it's widely available in our city's major supermarkets.

But Gardein also has a huge variety of meatless proteins too. In fact, I have yet to try one that I don't like. My faves are the mandarin orange crispy chick'n and the turk'y cutlets. And as I'm looking at their website right now, there are some new items that I haven't even see in stores yet. Breakfast patties and meatless meatballs?! Yum! This kind of stuff is a treat for me because I make so many of our meals from scratch.

And this reminds me, last week my (non-veg) aunt made us spaghetti and she crumbled up a couple of veggie burger patties in the sauce to make it nice and hearty. It was such an easy thing for her to do, and made our dinner extra nutritious. Love her! Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of it, so I'll leave you with these butterscotch walnut cookies that I made recently.

Latte Luv

Warming up on a chilly autumn morning with a vanilla soy latte from JJ Bean.

Fall Freebie Friday sweepstakes

Contest alert:

 

Food For Life, makers of high quality sprouted grain bread and all-natural baked goods for over 40 years, is hosting a weekly Fall Freebie Friday sweepstakes to celebrate Autumn. Simply “like” Food For Life on Facebook and enter to win free product coupons and your choice of a Food For Life t-shirt or apron!

A new winner will be chosen every Friday through November 16^th.

Ice Cream Dream

Ice cream, the quintessential summertime treat! What better to do with a couple of pounds of freshly picked Strawberries? Bedsides jam, which I will also be making a lot of before the summer is through.

My ice cream machine is a Cuisinart Ice-21C  and it is ridiculously easy to use. Just pour a bunch of stuff in the bowl and let it mix for 15 minutes. Seriously, that's all I did to make this frozen strawberry dessert. Mashed up strawberries, a glurp of soy milk and 1 tbsp of sugar. Easier than pie.

I swear I did nothing to enhance or modify the colour in the image. The strawberries were beet-red all the way through - unlike the California strawberries that are usually available year-round at our local supermarket that are white on the inside.

Today was "ice cream day" at my daughter's school so I sent along a small container of this for her to enjoy while her classmates eat traditional ice cream made with cow milk (thankfully they have a freezer available to keep it frozen until snack time).

And on the topic of ice cream, I wonder if there are other towns out there that have banned the ice cream truck from blasting the iconic music like they did in West Kelowna right before this summer began?