Chicken Burger Sandwich Lunch Box

Homemade dairy-free bun with the same fillings, organic romaine lettuce, Whole Food all-natural rotisserie skinless chicken breast, natural cheese with ranch and Lingham's chili sauce or organic ketchup.  Sides of fresh fruit and half an boiled egg.  Sometimes instead of boiled egg, they would get a little snack like mooncake, homemade brownie, hawthorn flakes, homemade granola, one dark chocolate, etc.

Pre-wash your romaine lettuce and grapes the night before.  So, on the day itself, you just need to assemble it. Quick and easy!

This is the lunchboxes I prepared for them this morning using the same nondairy buns but with added poppy seeds and rolled oats.  I added pickled radish and carrot into their sandwiches too.

I loved this new BPA free lunchboxes that I got them.  I wanted this so that it would sit nicely into their lunch bags, so that it won't be messy.  With the double deckers, it can fill lots of food.  Just that I don't think they can finish everything during their 10-15 minutes lunch time.  I got them at TJMaxx if you are interested.

Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes

I don't buy potato unless it is on special occasion and organic.  To me is why eat potato when you can eat the superfood sweet potato?  In the Asian supermarket, we can buy all sort of different colors sweet potatoes, from purple, yellow to orange.  I like to buy the purple variety because not a lot of time we get to eat purple color food.  But for adding to curry, yellow and orange colors sweet potato is preferred.

I was planning to make a pot of curry chicken and just so happen that I had some sweet potatoes that were starting to sprout so of course I had to eat it quickly.  Thus, this idea was born.  I loved it a lot because it added an extra sweetness to the curry.  Next time if you have a choice, always pick the superfood!

Kimbap Lunch Boxes

Showing another lunch box idea that can be made easily in the morning.  Cook more rice the night before and keep it warm throughout the night (extended warm function in your rice cooker).  Cut the carrot and celery into long strips (or cucumber) the night before and keep in air-tight container.  Boil the eggs the night before as well and keep refrigerated.

So, on the next day, you just have to assemble it.  No microwaving required and it keeps well at room temperature.

Dairy-Free Buns

I am going milk free, instead of buying organic whole milk, I am switching to unsweetened almond milk (but planning to make my own almond milk).  I am still buying organic yogurt (occasionally, but thinking of stopping it), butter and natural cheese though, just not the milk.  And then I realized that lots of my baking recipes used milk in the recipe.  So, again I had to experiment with my old recipe again.  This is a soft bun recipe that I loved and luckily it worked out well with almond milk.  Hence, my first dairy-free bun uses almond milk was created.  I am not sure but it might work with just plain water, who wants to experiment?

This dairy-free bun is soft and fluffy and goes so well with my matcha kaya!  Next experiment will be to play with the whole wheat version of this bun.  These days, I mostly make my own bread/bun or buy organic bread or all natural bread from Sprouts or Whole Food.  Please read the ingredient list, not all the breads are created equal!  

Tofu Shirataki

Finally I got my chance to try the House Food's Tofu Shirataki!  I gotten my chance because those coupons were just irresistible!  Whole Food accepts one manufacturer coupon and one in house coupon, so when combining the two, I only paid 30 cent for each packet, irresistible right?   A plus for me is it is also Non-GMO certified, gotta love that!

I thought that noodle made with tofu must be soft and fragile but this is not the case, with added yam flour, it is actually chewy and doesn't feel like eating tofu.  Seeing the cashier just dump the packet across the scanner, they probably know that it is not as fragile as its name implies.

I took a picture so that you would have an idea of what it looks like.  One packet is just enough to serve one, not a lot.  I served mine with stir-fried cabbage and Korean style spicy chicken.  Both recipes can be found in my blog.  Then, just mixed it all together and season with a little fish sauce and white pepper.

Homemade Granola

Granola is just toasted oats with a mixture of dried fruit, seeds and nuts.  Homemade granola is so easy to make, so why spend more on the store-bought one?  Since I don't eat oatmeal, but I do buy rolled oats for muffin, cookie, bar and bread, so why not make it into granola too right?  I love the granola on yogurt, so I actually made this for my yogurt.  Besides topping my yogurt with granola, I also added some hemp seeds and chia seeds.  And that would be our dessert!

Granola would make a great snack too.  One or two hands full if you found yourself not really hungry or you just want something to chew.  You actually make this in less than 30 minutes and most of the ingredients are probably already in your pantry.  Next time I would add some nuts too, to make it better.