Michele Olivier - Little Bento: 32 Irresistible Bento Box Lunches for Kids

Copyright 2016 by Michele Olivier

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Photography 2016 by Michele Olivier

Illustrations Amy Sullivan

ISBN: Print 978-1-94345-128-9 | eBook 978-1-94345-129-6

To E&P, Ill eat you up I love you so

When my first daughter, Ellie, was a baby, I went a little crazy making pures for herand eating many of them myself. My commitment to preparing pures that were healthy, delicious, and adventurously seasoned has since expanded to include toddler and family meals as Ellie (now four) and her sister, Parker (now two), grow older.

To say that I love to make and feed my kids healthy food is an understatement. Now, as a parent and full-time food blogger and cookbook author, its my mission.

So, it comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that when Ellie started preschool, I quickly became a little obsessed with sending her off each day with the healthiest, yummiest, and prettiest lunchesbut only ones I could toss together in a short amount of time. Because even though I love making food, spending all day in the kitchen packing school lunches is not my thing.

Enter bento boxes. The organizer and planner in me was drawn to them. Okay, the shopper, too. The first thing I did was buy a couple of pretty bento boxes for Ellies lunch storage. The next thing I did was buy some functional bento boxes that stored and actually held the food in place. Today, I have over 20 bento boxes and my husband jokes about having to build a shed to warehouse them all. He might be on to something there.

I wont lie: The first week of packing bento box lunches was tough. It took me forever because I had no plan. Every morning I would stand in front of my pantry, drinking my second (or third) cup of coffee, waiting for some magical lunch idea to hit me. It never did. Ellies lunches that first week of school were unbalanced and uninspired. If I wanted to send her to school with the best lunches, I had to go into planning modespecifically, meal planning.

The key to packing amazing, efficient lunches comes down to three things:

1. PLAN YOUR FAMILY DINNERS AHEAD OF TIME.Planning dinners with leftovers that work for lunches is key to your sanity. This can be a big pot of chili you make on Sunday and then serve in a thermos on Tuesday. Or it can mean you use some leftover grilled chicken in a cheesy kale quesadilla later in the week.

2. BE REALISTIC.Life is busy, so having a couple of easy lunches to toss together in a pinch is pretty much essential. In trying out the recipes in this book, learn which you can make the fastest from staples you always have on hand.

3. FIND A TIME THAT WORKS FOR YOU.I cannot make lunches in the morning. It stresses me out to add yet another task to our already busy morning routine. I find that making lunches is easier at night. My kitchen is already a mess and I can toss things into the bento boxes as I prep for dinner.

While it might seem as if you have to give this healthy lunchpacking thing a lot of forethought, I promise you that it will all become second nature. Well, maybe not second nature, but not extreme torture, which is how I think most of us feel about packing school lunches for 180 to 260 days a year.