Healthy Lunches Made Easy Courtesy of Planetbox: a product review

I have mentioned in previous posts that our family is on a journey to cut out processed food and eat more local and more whole foods. We buy organic as much as possible, buy grass-fed/pastured meat and eggs from local farms that don't use hormones or antibiotics, visit our farmers market for produce, and read every ingredient label on store bought products looking for items with just a few simple ingredients as well as those that don't have GMOs. It's a very overwhelming learning curve with so many things to consider when making food choices for your family. The majority of our store bought groceries come from Trader Joes, Earthfare, Whole Foods or our local health food co-op called Deep Roots Market. We are not perfect but we are doing our best to keep processed food out of our home as much as possible. I cook dinner from scratch most nights of the week but coming up with fun and healthy lunches that my kids will actually eat has proved to be a challenge...until now. I discovered an amazing lunchbox system called Planetbox! This is no ordinary lunchbox! This is a high quality, non-toxic stainless steel lunchbox with multiple compartments that allows you to pack a healthy and balanced meal that is very visually appealing! The one piece tray makes it incredibly easy to clean too! Just pop it in the dishwasher!!

There are actually two versions of Planetbox, the Rover for smaller appetites, and the Launch for larger appetites. Both come nestled within their own carrying case. This is the Rover Planetbox system...which in all honesty can hold enough food for anyone. I chose the Rover because it is perfect for sending lunch to school with my kiddos. This great carrying case includes a stretchy front pocket that is the perfect size for a water bottle or juice box.

Each Planetbox Rover comes with your choice of magnets to help personalize your lunchbox! My girls LOVE these fairy magnets! They had to take turns taking them off and putting them back on...over & over & over again, lol!

I absolutely LOVE that the Planetbox Rover has 5 compartments. It also includes 2 separate containers (Big & little dipper) to hold dips, yogurt, or an additional snack. The big dipper fits perfectly in the front flap pocket of the carrying case if your child need an extra school snack...or, either dipper can fit inside the box itself. Kids like to have choices when they eat and this lunchbox allows them to have a healthy variety of foods. Having everything compartmentalized also makes it look yummy and fun. Even my husband said he wanted to take this to work for his lunch...he didn't even care that it was pink! (BTW...pink is just one option...there are multiple colors to choose from!)

The possibilities are endless with the lunches you can create using a Planetbox. During the kids spring break I let them each take turns using the Planetbox. They were fighting over who was going to get to use it so it was declared that they all must share it, lol! I created this lunch for my son Hayden (he wasn't as thrilled with the pink, lol). His lunch includes:

2 hardboiled eggs (from local pastured chickens)

organic hummus and baby carrots (Trader Joes)

pita chips (Trader Joes)

organic celery and raisins with homemade peanut butter (made only from roasted unsalted peanuts)

trail mix that includes dried fruit, nuts and a bit of chocolate (from bulk bin at Deep Roots Coop)

He really liked this lunch...except for the carrots. He's not a big carrot fan but I was trying to get him to branch out.

I made this lunch for Halle. Her meal included:

whole wheat wrap with peanut butter (homemade) and organic bananas
organic cheese (grass-fed cows) puzzle pieces (my kids are more likely to eat things cut into shapes!)
organic baby carrots with homemade veggie dip
organic apple slices
a few annie's bunny fruit bites

She liked this lunch except she wouldn't eat the bananas in the wrap. She didn't like them mixed with the peanut butter. And again...she wasn't a fan of the carrots. Halle is my pickiest eater. I'm struggling to get her to try new things.

This was another lunch I created and in all honesty this is more in line with a typical Halle lunch. It's hard to get her to eat veggies. Baby steps I guess. This meal included:

Peanut butter on 100% sprouted whole wheat bread...cut into dolphin shapes (again my kids like shapes)
organic unsweetened applesauce
organic cheese puzzles (from grass-fed cows)
Annie's Organic cheddar bunnies (I realize these aren't a great choice but this is what she'll eat right now)
2 Annie's chocolate bunnies and a couple chocolate chips as a treat

And of course Ella had to test out the Planetbox as well. She got to try it once the kids went back to school. Her meal included:

peanut butter and organic strawberry conserves on sprouted whole wheat bread
organic apple slices
organic banana slices
Annie's honey bunny grahams
Annie's bunny fruit bites for a treat

Planetbox now offers a great new application on their website where you can get meal ideas from other Planetbox users as well as share your own meals. Share-A-Box is a great place to go if you are short on ideas or just don't know where to begin. You'll find lots of creative lunch solutions in one easy to browse location. The application also has an area called Plan-It-Box where there is a diagram of the tray and you can click on each individual compartment and Planetbox will give you image after image of food ideas for that compartment! How cool is that?! Definitely check it out!

I absolutely love the Planetbox lunchbox system and am pretty sure that we will be needing 2 more of these so that each kiddo can have their own. It really does make packing lunches so much easier and the kids tend to try new things when their food is presented in such a fun way!

*Planetbox supplied me with the Rover Planetbox system for the purpose of this review. However all the views and opinions expressed within this post are my own.  I only share products I would be happy to use with my own family.

Happy Easter & Dying Eggs Using Natural Ingredients

I have to start out this post with a disclaimer. I had planned for this post to be published earlier however our youngest daughter Ella started seizing suddenly today while I was writing and needless to say we had to call 911 and have her taken to the ER. It was incredibly frightening and brought back horrible memories from last year and this post. Long story short it looks as if she suffered from a febrile seizure triggered by a sudden fever. We are home now after spending some time under observation and she is now sleeping in our bed. We'll be following up with doctors this week. It's been a whirlwind day but we are thankful for another happy ending. My heart goes out to those parents who deal with regular seizures...it is a terribly horrific thing to watch.


Happy Resurrection Sunday!! We enjoyed a wonderful church service this morning celebrating the fact that we have a Risen Savior!! How wonderful is that?! "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said..." Matthew 28:6

We've had a busy weekend filled with various Easter activities one of which was dying eggs last night using all natural food ingredients. It's definitely a more time consuming project that the conventional color tablets but I thought it would be fun to show the kids that you can create dyes using colorful foods! Plus I kinda liked the soft colors these food dyes create. These would be great as part of a spring table display and not just on Easter.

In order to keep it simple I decide to try 4 different colors. All the recipes can be found here. I chose pink, blue, yellow and green using beets, cabbage, turmeric and spinach.

From left to right: beets, cabbage, turmeric, beets, cabbage. I did the spinach after these since I only had so many pots to prepare the dye in. For each color we boiled 4 cups of water and then added the food ingredient along with 2 tbsp vinegar and allowed it to cool. Then we poured each color in these canning jars and allowed the eggs to sit for 2-3 hours.

Here are the eggs after sitting in the dyes for about 2-3 hours. It takes much longer for the color to show up using natural dyes. However I particularly love the soft pale look. Sometimes leaving them in the dye overnight will result in deeper color (if you prefer) however we left several overnight (in the fridge) and didn't have much difference. In fact the ones left in the beet dye were actually even lighter than the ones left for a shorter time...weird. You will also see that there are no green eggs. The spinach method didn't work out for us. 

The spinach didn't really take and instead resulted in a very pale yellow. You almost can't even tell in pictures that there is any color at all (but in person they are a pale yellow). Maybe I should've used more spinach. The other 3 colors came out much better. It's trial and error I guess.

We filled this vintage french egg basket with the finished eggs and displayed them on the table along with the whole wheat honey bunny loaves that the kids got in their Easter baskets. We didn't do candy this year. Instead each child got one of these loaves, some fruit leathers, a Lara Bar, a small trinket and a new toy. They didn't even miss the candy :)

And just for fun I took the basket outside to photograph the eggs sitting in the tall grasses :) They're quite pretty against all the brown. I'm glad we tried this dying method!!

What's for Dinner: Mahi Mahi with Corn & Cucumber Slaw

I've been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen this year in an effort to branch out with my cooking and try new things. I am crafty with many things but culinary art is not one of my talents. Since we are trying to eat healthier, eat local foods, and cut out processed "foods" as much as possible I have been cooking from scratch almost nightly, about 6 days a week. It has been a fun learning experience so far! Tonight's dinner was exceptionally yummy so I figured I'd share the recipe I found via pinterest. The original recipe is found here. Earthfare had a great deal on wild-caught Mahi Mahi this week so we picked up a couple pounds. We actually don't eat a lot of fish simply b/c I'm not a huge fish person...but like I said, I am branching out. Remember the portobello mushroom revelation from my Valentines Day dinner? Well, same thing happened tonight. I normally don't really like fish but this was delicious!! Super easy too! I guess the saying is true...Mahi Mahi, the fish so nice they named it twice!!

 Pan Cooked Mahi Mahi with Corn & Cucumber Salsa

• 1 inch thick Mahi filets (skin on)
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon chile powder
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon butter

 Combine spices and rub onto both sides of your Mahi Mahi (including skin side). Add butter to a cast iron grill pan on med to med-hi heat. Once butter melts and sizzles add your Mahi filets skin side down. Cook both sides about 4-5 min each until meat is flaky. The skin pulled away from the fish once mine was cooked through.

Corn & Cucumber Slaw

• 1/2 cup fresh corn kernels (or thawed from frozen)
• 1 cup cucumbers, peeled and small diced
• 1/4 cup red bell pepper, small diced
• 1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon cilantro, minced
• 1 tablespoon jalapeno, minced
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon raw honey
• 1 teaspoon cold pressed olive oil

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and allow to sit for 20 minutes so flavors can mingle and get to know each other :) Spoon slaw onto cooked Mahi and admire the prettiness! Then enjoy!!

And in case you want to make the roasted asparagus...

Roasted Asparagus

Line asparagus in a single layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper. Bake at 425 for 20-22 min until they start to brown. If you have really thick asparagus you may need to blanch them prior to roasting so that they will cook entirely. Roasted asparagus is a staple in our home and is absolutely delicious!!