It's a Wrap!

I've been in a bit of a lunchtime rut.  Every day I feed the kids a meal that consists of pasta (read: macaroni and cheese), a protein (turkey meatballs or a cheese stick), and fruit and/or veggies.  Basically a healthy lunch (I tell myself when I reach for the box of Annie's macaroni and cheese) and easy to prepare but boring. The divider plates we bought at Target only help to foster this tiresome habit, because every day I rotely fill each compartment with something and there's your lunch, kids.

The omnipresent divider plate

The plates even made an appearance for Snoopy Thanksgiving (jellybeans, popcorn, pretzels, and toast)

I was getting bored. 

As I was organizing meals for the month of March, I saw a recipe in the Whole Family Cookbook by Michelle Stern called "Wrap it Up: Toga Style".  Our family loves Taco Night because everyone can choose the ingredients they love to fill up the taco.  Stern's recipe idea follows the same principle; gather up hummus, whole wheat tortillas, cucumbers, spinach leaves, feta cheese, and kalamata olives and let everyone create a customized wrap. 

So we invited the Carnivore's mom over  (because we love hanging out with her) and together we (minus the Carnivore) had fun with this easy, healthy, totally non-boring lunch.  We added some grapes for a sweet snack on the side (although the Littler One added a couple to his second wrap) and we were set.  The boys loved building their own wraps and tried foods I never thought they'd enjoy (The Littler One ate olives! He ate feta! He ate cucumber!!).  The prep was so simple...lately we've been making our own hummus but since we were out of tahini we used the store-bought variety.  I only had black olives on hand but next time we'll try the kalamata.  I chopped the cucumbers, which took no time at all, put everything in colorful bowls, and ended up feeling pretty proud of myself.  I had broken the cycle of boring lunches!  No longer will I be chained to divider plates and macaroni and cheese!  This is the beginning of a whole new era of lunches for our family!

Ingredients ready

Notice the absence of divider plates. Children, you are free to mix your foods as you wish!!

Well...maybe not a whole new era...but at least we're exploring some different options.

Trying to think of how to make this even more appealing for the Carnivore...lamb?  I prepare meat for him but can't seem to manage any baby animals (veal, suckling pig, etc...)  Other options we'll include next time: chopped tomatoes, tabbouleh, whole chick peas instead of hummus, pita instead of tortillas...

In the meantime, if you have any fun, easy, healthy lunchtime ideas to share, please comment below.