A Week's Worth of Vegan Kid Lunches

Dinner is sometimes complicated.  I'll often spend the quiet part of the afternoon while Felix is napping cooking an overly ambitious (for a Tuesday) dinner (yesterday I scrambled for a hot dog bun recipe an hour before emergency hungry time), but lunch is always simple or preferably instant.  It's some sort of leftovers or a combination of food stuffs pulled straight from the fridge or freezer.  Kids like simple.  I like simple. 

Sandwich roll-ups, edamame, grapes.

I made falafel for the first time last week.  I've made baked versions before, and versions that start with cooked beans, but never the real kind that start with ground up soaked beans and end in a bubbling vat of oil.  After reading a kazillion, I followed this recipe, and they were excellent.  It made for a fun dinner and cooking project.  We went to The Good Food Market to get bread worthy of our falafel, and the giant sheets of leftover lavash made excellent wrappers for novel peanut butter and jelly the next day.  (If you don't live near Altadena or a good middle eastern market, Trader Joe's has started selling lavash, and that haven of vegan deli subs, Figueroa Produce, does too if that's closer to you.) 

Potato wedges, leftover crunchy baked tofu, pink sauce, plums.

Even when there's nothing else to eat, there's potatoes.  Either slice them into wedges and steam them or bake the whole thing (in the microwave is just fine) and then slice into dippable segments.  We always eat these otherwise completely unadorned potatoes with pink sauce (ketchup + vegan mayonaise).  Also a quick parenting aside - I would never ordinarily make my kid sit there and wait while I took a photo of his lunch, but he had just come back from the dentist and needed to wait for 5 more minutes anyway.  Poor dear.

Cheesy pasta and zucchini.

This pasta that I whipped up for the dudes was so delicious that we made it for the whole family the next night.  It was just a small zucchini cut up and sauted in olive oil.  I dumped a bunch of walnut parm, some leftover pasta, and a splash of milk into the pan.  Dinner's often really simple too.

Tortilla roll-up, cantelope.

Speaking of walnut parm, sometimes I just butter a warm corn tortilla, sprinkle it on, and roll it up.  So good.  

Avocado on toast, more edamame, white nectarine.

When nectarines are in season, you really don't need anything else to eat, but some avocado and edamame will round it out nicely.  I love the freezer bag of cooked edamame.  It often answers the question, "How can I get something green on this kid's lunch plate?"  Oh, and it doubles as an ice pack.  By lunch they're perfectly defrosted and pleasantly cool.  

What's your current, easy, go-to lunch?