First I want to apologize to those that follow this blog for not posting in SO long.  Summer is tough keeping 3 kids active and entertained, we had a really fun summer but I must admit I was ready for them to get back to school. Back to school means back to packing lunches!! So I thought I would share a couple of cold lunch ideas that I will be using this school year and please share some of your ideas too.  You can never have enough options for lunch, they seem to get so bored with things so quickly.

• Cucumber Sandwiches:  Pretty simple sandwiches, just whole wheat bread for nutritional value, slices of cucumbers lightly salted and vegan mayo.  We like the reduced fat soy mayo, I think it take tastes better than the other brands.
• Homemade Trail Mix:  We like peanuts, cashews, raisins, dried cranberries, vegan chocolate chips, and pretzels but you could also add any other nuts or dried fruit, sesame sticks, sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds.
• Pretzels and Honey Mustard, Hummus or Peanut Butter:  Make sure to check the ingredients in your pretzels some are not vegan.
• Peanut Butter and Bananas, Honey or Jelly on wheat, this is definitely one of our staples.
• Frozen Fruit works well, by the time they get it for lunch it’s perfect.
• Refried Bean Quesadillas:  the night before we take vegan butter, organic wheat tortillas, and fat free refried beans with cumin, garlic powder, salt, onion powder and vegetable broth and fry them up in the skillet, let them cool, cut them and bag up for lunch.
• Pickles, olives: weird but kids love them
• Apples and Peanut Butter with raisins:  core the apples and cut them in bagel type circles, peanut butter them and sprinkle with raisins, cap with another apple like a sandwich.
• Last lunch idea before putting the kids to bed is Odessa favorite Chocolate Peanut Butter Wheat Tortillas:  just take a wheat tortilla and cover it in chocolate peanut butter and fold and cut.  Odessa likes to cut them into shapes like hearts and butterflies.