Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Eating a Rainbow!

I was able to do this due to a perfect storm of the right foods being in my possession at the same time. This has never happened before. It was awesome!
Today I Ate A Rainbow!

Don't know how I missed that crooked pea pod! Darn it!
Top (my lunch): Onion bagel w/cream cheese, 1/2 slice Colby Jack cheese;
apples; zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower (Ranch underneath)
Bottom (her lunch): Her lunch: raspberries, carrots, apples, peas, blueberries, cauliflower;
rice candy, ham and cheese pocket sandwich, Ranch, nuts w/raisins
The zucchini is from our garden. It was still good, despite the fact that I stopped watering out there ages ago, and had totally forgotten about it.
We got the purple cauliflower from the produce stand at the farm when we went to pick up our first CSA share the other day.
Her lunch is in a SnapWare box that came with a set of various sized containers from Costco. I don't love it like my EasyLunchBoxes, but for this particular idea, it was perfect. As long as nothing got jostled. Then the berries would have spilled over the rim all into her sandwich area (the divider isn't flush with the lid.)

I used my V-shaped blade to make the carrot into flowers, but instead of cutting into coins, I made sticks to stand up better. She was a fan. We used one of the organic carrots from our CSA.

She wanted a ham and cheese sandwich, which she then has a hard time keeping together, since the bits don't stick like PB and honey do! So I dragged out my Pampered Chef Cut-N-Seal, which keeps all the bits in (as long as she doesn't eat off the whole edge first!) I couldn't decide between making a face or a rainbow on her sandwich with food markers. Or using one of my face punches and nori (dried seaweed) to make a face. I decided to make a big red smile first, since I could spin the sandwich and make it into a rainbow if I changed my mind before adding eyes. And if I hated it, I could always flip the sandwich over and put a nori face on the other side instead!

On a whim, I added two of the Botan Rice Candies that I had bought at the grocery store recently (WinCo doesn't carry them, and I happened to be buying some stuff at Safeway one day, which DOES carry them!) I loved these as a kid, since you get to eat the "wrapper!" (Rice paper inner wrapper. Not the outer plastic one!) And I'm a fan of chewy candy. Hence my mouthful of fillings and three crowns.

She'd normally be willing to eat carrots or peas without Ranch, but no way would she eat cauliflower plain, so I added a Smidget with Ranch in it for dipping.

And while getting the Smidget out of my little container box, I found one of the little heart-shaped boxes from Dollar Tree at Valentine's Day. Much cuter than a mini silicone muffin liner to hold the snack mix.
Yes, those are shoes on her hands. What can I say?
She's a whack-job unique personality.
She LOVED the candy, and trusted me when I told her she could eat the inner wrapper (I peeled it off for YEARS before going ahead and trying the candy with the rice-wrapper on!) And even though I was kind of "meh" about the face on the sandwich, she was thrilled. And she ate almost the whole sandwich!
She ate all the raspberries, one carrot stick (and a big bite out of the middle of each of the other two!) both apple slices (and some of mine,) some of the blueberries, and maybe a pea pod. She dipped the smaller piece of cauliflower in the Ranch but then left it there. Ah well.
And she kept telling me that my rainbow was upside-down. At first I thought she meant that the red should be at the bottom, but now I'm thinking she meant it should have been done lengthwise along the side. Which never would have fit.
And judging from the mess beneath her car seat, I'm guessing she dropped more peanuts, raisins and sunflower seeds than she ate!

To celebrate, I got out the "Today I Ate a Rainbow" kit I'd read about somewhere and bought on Amazon months a short while ago.

It comes with a food color chart, magnets, color-coded shopping list and a story book. Since my fridge is not magnetic, we didn't really have anywhere to set the chart up yet, so we laid it on the floor and she put magnets on the colors she'd eaten. Then we read the story. I need to get a white board or magnet board to hang down lower so we can keep this up and fill in the chart daily. It's a great resource for HER, since it helps her to make her own healthy choices by reminding her what some of the healthy foods she needs ARE. And it helps ME to be more creative and offer her more colors, and not just cop out and toss apples and carrots in her lunch every day.

Shibley Smiles


  1. Looks like a great meal. Never seen purple cauliflower before. How fun!

  2. Awesome! I want purple cauliflower!

  3. Awesome meal. I want to find some purple cauliflower! Purple is so hard to find for food, unless you go unhealthy.
    Love the sound of that kit.

  4. This kit sounds wonderful! The meal really looks great.

    Thank you for linking to Read.Explore.Learn.

  5. We love our Rainbow kit. The girls have had it for years and still talk about it almost daily. Love the purple cauliflower!

  6. I still want purple cauliflower and I've still never seen it locally! Gah!
    And thanks for linking to the Rainbow Connection!


