The Yum Yum Factor

First of all, what is onigiri, you ask?

Middle Eastern Meatball Wraps *disclaimer: If you have a kid who only wants to eat a ham sandwich with an apple every single day, you are a lucky woman who should stop gloating but you don't need to read this. For those of us who have kids who love food and demand some variety when it comes to their lunches, read on. This is a bit of a rehash for what I wrote last year at this time, but bear with me because this time I am going to show you a few of the things I use to make my life easier and give you ten more recipe ideas to carry you through the school year. I am not really the most organized person on earth but, somehow, I manage to shine when it comes to packing lunches. Until he was in grade 7, The Kid ate the lunch provided by his school so I only had to make a packed lunch from time to time and it was a fun novelty. I would get up an hour early, make him sushi or onigiri and send him off to the Science Centre, knowing that he would not be coming home hun...

As part of my continuing experimentation with this whole  blend and extend  thing, I have discovered another recipe that is improved by the addition of mushrooms. The mushrooms release liquid that keeps the filling from drying out and it really does make your meat go a lot farther.  I managed to make 7 burritos using only 300 grams of beef and because this filling doesn't have to hold it's shape like a meatball, I think that you could even up the mushroom to beef ratio in this recipe without any trouble. I am going to try it half and half next and will report my findings. If anyone tries it first, please let me know how it went in the comments. As August comes to a close, I start to panic about the lunch sitch with The Kid and I am suddenly obsessed with the need to stock the freezer with lunch items. It's like a foodie mom's non pregnant nesting or something and I can't stop until I know that I have enough food for at least three lunches/dinners a week for S...

Even though The Kid is going into grade 9 and could probably make his own lunches by now, I still enjoy doing it. Until he started grade 7 he ate a hot lunch at school so I have really only being doing the daily packed lunch thing for 2 years and I haven't had a chance to burn out. That is probably the only reason why I don't abhor the grind of packing a lunch to be honest. Even if you are sick of it, these kids have to eat so I like to make it a bit easier on myself.

It's September and school starts in two days so all of sudden, I have ten months of packed lunches looming ahead of me. I am fortunate that my kid will eat just about anything I make for him so I can have a bit of fun with his lunches, use up bits of leftovers and not get all stressed out about it. If that wasn't the case, he would totally be packing his own lunch by now but because I still enjoy doing it, I will continue to feed him during high school. I am combing through all of my old posts for inspiration and found  this one which was originally posted on NoReEats, my year long experiment of never repeating a recipe. This recipe was posted in August of 2011 on that blog and I have updated the photos and tweaked the recipe a bit to put it here. One of The Kid's favourite snacks is something called onigiri and it is a great thing to send in his lunch. I can make it before bedtime and pack it up the next morning. For this batch, I had some leftover curry c...