No picture for this one, because I didn't decide I wanted to start doing this until after the lunch had already been eaten, but I'll try to make sure I have photos for lunches from here on out.

Falafel Plate

Protein

Falafels

I wasn't feeling overly ambitious, so I just bought some ready-made "falafel balls" for this one. Unfortunately the kidlet doesn't seem too enthused by them. Oh well... it was worth a shot.

Vegetable

Cucumber Shapes

I had intended to do a salad as the vegetable portion of this one, but my spinach was looking a little sad so I ended up going with cucumber instead. Which turned out to be a big hit! And here's where I really wish I'd thought to snap a photo because I got to bust out my vegetable cutters and make all sorts of fun little shapes. And all the extra scraps? Got chopped up and pickled to be used in banh mi tomorrow night.

Fruit

Pickled Turnip

I ended up doubling up on the veg for this one because that seemed thematically appropriate. And, even though the turnip isn't a fruit, it still gives a nice hit of colour and burst of flavour. The kidlet still doesn't seem too sure about how he feels about turnip, but he at least tried it. I'm hoping he'll warm up to it eventually.

Starch

Fries

This is where having a toaster oven comes in very handy. I just grabbed a bag of frozen fries and cooked up a couple handfuls in the toaster oven. These were, unsurprisingly, also a popular choice.

Dairy

Cheese Shapes & Roasted Chickpeas

Both the roasted chickpeas and the cheese were popular individually. And I did try to keep them separate in the lunchbox. I put a couple of muffin papers in the "dairy" compartment of the lunchbox and filled one with chickpeas and one with cheese. I think it probably would've been fine if the chickpea crumbs hadn't gotten all over the cheese. Once they mixed, apparently that ruined everything and kidlet wouldn't touch them. Looks like I need to stick to strictly one item per section from now on. Or, at the very least, avoid things that produce crumbs.

Dip

Tzatziki

Ingredients

• ~3-4 Tbsp. grated cucumber
• 2 Tbsp. plain yogurt
• 1 tsp. garlic paste
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Squeeze cucumber to remove as much liquid as possible. It should compress down to about half its original volume.
2. Combine all ingredients and mix well.