Hospobaby's Daycare Diet

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday mornings are special for us. Hospobaby has started daycare!
AGGS daycare doesn't have a chef, so I have to come up with lunch and 2 snack time meals for Zoya.
They have strict guidelines - no whole egg, peanuts/nuts, chocolates, juice allowed. Well that makes things a bit hard as Zoya loves boiled egg and toast  for breakfast and PB n J sandwiches for lunch.
I didn't think this lunchbox dilemma would start until 5 years of age when she entered school, so I was a bit stumped.

Last Thursday Hospobaby's teacher had some interesting observations for me (this is only her second week, I thought it was best they suss her out for themselves.) I went to pick Hospobaby up and her teacher commented on her funky lunches. She wondered whether her dad who is a chef, packed her lunches because they were so interesting. Well he doesn't! I do. Until I came across a blog about Bento lunches I found the task tedious. Check out www.anotherlunch.com
 Now it is a little game every day.

Zoya's Bento Lunch box

Tools of the trade

Tomorrow her box includes, little round french toasts,  ham and cheese stacks, pitted cherries, box of raisins, yogurt pot, rice crackers and tuna rice sushi. These were so simple to make. As the blog suggested, I made a quick trip to the dollar store and to Japan mart on Queen street to buy some cookie cutters, a couple of silicone muffin moulds and a sushi mould. Milly's on Ponsonby road also stock some cool cookie cutters (we got the heart shape and egg shape ones for $2). Use the cookie cutters to make funky shapes out of bread or cut cheese shapes. Stick your fruit or vege into the silicone moulds. I bought the little flags on toothpicks from Japan mart and skewer ham and cheese on them. The sushi mould was handy to layer rice and canned tuna like a terrine.
The combinations are endless I guess, you only have your imagination to limit you. I have been getting empty lunch boxes ever since I started doing this, whether I am motivating the daycare staff to feed Hospobaby more or Zoya to eat more is another question.