65 Roses

Today is 65 Roses Day. You can read about this organisation & their cause (as well as sponsor/donate) here. This is a terrible disease and although I have no personal experience with it, a work colleague's son was diagnosed with it a few years ago. I've since lost contact with Cobber, but I do think of them often & they remain in my prayers.

You may have seen this idea for lunch tested when we 'Painted the Roses Red' for Alice in Wonderland week last week. I had planned to squeeze 65 Roses into this lunch but having had an off day I settled for 12 food flowers & 53 picks!














However we have had quite a few picks go missing of late at daycare, so I pulled out most of them and just left the flower flower ones.

I made 8 ham  & cheese rose sandwiches and 4 ham flowers.

Don't forget to check out the 65 Roses website & support if you can.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Robot or Monster. . . ?

I made a ham & cheese Pocket sandwich cutter using the piece I reviewed here. Again the sides were a little split - I have heard perhaps if I microwave the bread for a few second first this might help - it can't hurt, so maybe next time

I added a cherry tomato halved for eyes, an offcut of ham for a tongue, and one of the crusts for a mouth. I sort of had a not-so-scary monster in mind when I was making this, but when asked at Daycare what it was Miss M said it was a robot. I can see that, OK, happy with that :-)


Served in Tupperware square rounds

Things I used to make this lunch

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post.

Liebster Blog Award

I was hugely surprised (& honoured) to be nominated for a Liebster Blog Award recently! Thank you so much to Cass over at We Should Be Folding Laundry. If you haven't had a chance yet, do pop over & check out some of her gorgeous lunches & fantastic recipes.

After picking myself up off the floor, my next question was - what is this award? I found this little write up about the origins. I was able to find reference to this award back in 2001, but I didn't delve any further. Suffice to say this is a lovely way of fellow bloggers recognising & supporting each other. Here is what Cass had to say about it:

The purpose of the award is for bloggers to recognize new or up and coming blogs that are worth having a look at. It’s an award for bloggers given by bloggers,♥

Rules for the award winners:

So here goes!

11 Random facts about me:
1 - I am 6 months pregnant
2 - I love caramel
3 - My favourite video game series is Tomb Raider
4 - I was married 10 years to the day after starting to date my now husband
5 - Our first baby arrived 10 months later :-)
6 - At one time in my life I held down 6 casual jobs simultaneously
7 - I have cankles
8 - My favourite primary colour is Blue
9 - My favourite secondary colour is Teal
10 - I enjoy grocery shopping (well, most days anyway)
11 - I have a collection of Pocket Dragons


My answers:
1. What is your comfort food?
     Tim Tams
2. What is the one thing you would grab if your house was on fire? Besides kids & pets obviously.
     One thing? Can't I grab a few? Hard drive, laptop, phone . . . 
3. Who would play you in the movie version of your life?
     According to hubby Angelina Jolie. He gets brownie points now!
4. What is your favorite quote?
     'Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% fatality rate' Dr Karl
5. Are you a morning person or night owl?
     Night Owl
6. Books or movies?
     Movies for the time, books for the story. . .does that make sense?
7. What inspired you to start your blog?
     A girlfriend from high school gave me the kick in the pants I needed to make a real go of blogging. I started bento-ing after my sister introduced me to the idea.
8. What is your dream job and are you currently doing it?
     I used to dream of being a movie reviewer - being paid to watch movies all day - yeah! But then I thought of all the awful ones I'd have to watch. Right now I'd say cooking (without the cleaning) someone elses' recipes. . . maybe become someone's test kitchen. Or someone could pay me to sleep :-)
9. What are your interests outside of blogging?
     Food! And movies, TV, once upon a time I could also say computer games but then I had Miss M
10. What are 3 words that best describe you?
     Shy, Reserved, Happy
11. What is your biggest pet peeve?
     At the moment - that my washing machine isn't completing the spin cycle correctly!

I have no idea how to find out how many followers a blog has, so here's my nominees, who may or may not have this number of followers :-) and in no particular order :
Little Bento Blog

Omai

Neat2Eat (affiliate)

Frost Bite

Lulu's Lunchbox

My Fancy Food (OK, so not a blog, but close enough)

Mel's Creative Bakes

Bento Fun

Lunch Boxes with Love

Bento Bits

What Can I Eat?


My questions for the nominees (of course they are all food related ^-^):
1 - squares or triangles?
2 - bread & butter or toast & jam?
3 - fillings or spreads?
4 - mornings or evenings?
5 - milk or juice?
6 - tea or coffee?
7 - sweet or savoury?
8 - white or wholemeal/multigrain?
9 - entree or dessert?
10 - salad or veges?
11 - oranges or apples?

Once again a great big *Thank You!!* to Cass at We Should Be Folding Laundry for the nomination!

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Alice in Wonderland - Paint the Roses Red

Last week at day care Miss M's class hosted a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. There was a lot of excited build up for the kids & I couldn't help but be inspired & send a week's worth of Wonderland in a Lunchbox. You can see a collection of Pinspiration here.

I've posted these last two lunches out of order to better match the continuity of the movie in case you've been keeping tabs. This lunch is Day 3 - Paint the Roses Red.

In the main compartment I sent:
Cheerio roses; rose sushi style cheese & ham sandwich; flamingo cheese sticks with flower pepperoni & yoghurt

On top I sent juice, checkerboard apple & rose cupcakes 'painted red'.

After a little experimentation I found using a flower biscuit cutter gave a nice finish to these rose 'octo-dogs'.

I normally don't worry about cooking these, but decided for the effect I would dry-fry these little beauties & I think it paid off. . . .

I like how some of the skin is peeling back like a blossoming rose. I discovered that I've lost my leaf picks :-( so I dug deep into the recesses of my goodies draw & found some bottoms from Lindt umbrellas that worked out just fine. I also threw in a few heart picks for the Queen.

Picks available from affiliates Neat2Eat & Bento USA.

My rose sushi sandwiches didn't work out quite as pretty as planned, but I've learned from my mistakes so next time they'll be much nicer :-). You can see the tutorial for egg flowers I followed here.

The real trick to sushi sandwiches is to roll your bread first. . .

And they do work better with spreads rather than fillings, but these still worked OK.

Loosely roll. . .

Then use a flower cutter to give a scalloped edge.

Unroll & admire your work

This time roll it up tighter.

I made these too tall, so lesson learned & these style of cheese doesn't like being manipulated.










I used raw spaghetti to hold the cheese sticks together & coloured them with FooDoodlers from affiliate Neat2Eat. I used a flower cutter to give the Pepperoni from Walkerston Country Meats a bit of rose-iness.

I cheated with decorating the yoghurt today & simply added some candy roses.

 I made some mini-muffin sized cakes & decorated with piping & writing gel. The writing gel I used to draw a line down one side of the piping bag & this was the result. As you can see, some are 'painted' better than others :-)

I then emptied the tube of gel into a little glass & gave Miss M a fresh paint brush. . .

I think she enjoyed herself :-)

I did find watering the gel down made it easier to 'paint the roses red'

And I did come along behind to add a little bit extra colour.

We made these on Sunday & stored in an air tight container at room temperature until the Thursday when they went to daycare. The vibrancy of the red had faded considerably by then, but I didn't hear any complaints :-)

I hope you've enjoyed this series as much as I have! Here's the shortcuts to other lunches from this week:
White Rabbit
Cheshire Cat
Mad Hatter

Don't forget to check out some of the fantastic lunches that inspired me at Bent On Better Lunches Linky Party below.

This Lunch is Linked:

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Alice in Wonderland - Mad Hatter

Last week at day care Miss M's class hosted a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. There was a lot of excited build up for the kids & I couldn't help but be inspired & send a week's worth of Wonderland in a Lunchbox. You can see a collection of Pinspiration here.

I'm posting these out of order. Day 4 was Mad Hatter day, you'll have to come back tomorrow to see what I sent on Day 3 ;-)

As today was the Tea Party day I didn't hold much hopes for this lunch being eaten, but I was surprised at how much actually went.

Main compartment I sent:
Vege sticks with dip; cheese & ham sandwich; crackers with cheese & pepperoni top hats; yoghurt with a little treat topper

On top I sent:
Juice; watermelon hearts; teacup treats - see below for how my take on this Pinterest hit!


Miss M actually ate a lot of celery while I was preparing dinner the night I packed this, so I asked if she wanted some carrot sticks to go with her celery sticks in her lunch box. Of course she said yes, and ate the carrots while leaving the celery. At least I know she got some veges into her day with all the cake ;-)

Food picks available through Afiiliates Neat2Eat and Bento USA.

I know somewhere in this house I have one of those 'Happy Birthday' cake toppers that live in the back of every Australian pantry with the stash of half used birthday candles. I just couldn't find it, so my 'Happy Un-Birthday' sandwich just became an 'Un-cake' sandwich instead. Filled with cheese & ham & decorated with picks from the same alphabet set as above & FooDoodlers from Neat2Eat.

I used the circle cutter from the decorative set available again through affiliates Neat2Eat & Bento USA to create these top hats out of cheese & Pepperoni from Walkerston Country Meats. The hat pin (aka food pick) is also available through these affiliates.

I wasn't quite sure how to decorate the yoghurt today, but I thought this little marshmallow & freckle top hat (held together with some jam) was kind of cute

I used the flower cutter from the set above to trim the marshmallow down. Someone had eaten all my mini-marshmallows. . . I wonder who?

These simple watermelon hearts were made with the Luv It Cutter and I ate all the offcuts. I did of course make sure there were lots of offcuts :-)

Available from affiliates Neat2Eat & Bento USA.

My favourite part of this lunch would have to be these cute little teacups.












I used mini cones, raspberry tartlet biscuits, freckles, marshmallows, jam & life save musks or Cadbury rounds. All available from Woolworths.

I wasn't sure which handle would look best so I made one of each. In the end I decided that the Musk handle was nicest.

I did try making these with cup style ice cream cones, but they were too tall for the lunchbox & held too much filling. These would be lovely for a party, cut a little taller & filled with cheesecake mix I think.

Do tune in this week for the rest of this series & check out some of the fantastic lunches that inspired me at Bent On Better Lunches Linky Party below.

This Lunch is Linked:

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

World Turtle day

I completely forgot about World Turtle Day until I got a reminder from my calendar, so here's a quickie lunch I threw together to celebrate.

This is only the second time I've made sandwich balls & being I was in a bit of a rush I probably didn't squeeze them as tight or as long as they really needed. The crust legs & head were also a bit rushed but I do like the black sesame eyes & the way the FunBites Cube It ham on top of the turtle shells worked out.

The Cube It is available from affiliates linked in the sidebar.


~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Alice in Wonderland - Cheshire Cat

*Warning - this post contains a *lot* of pics!

Last week at day care Miss M's class hosted a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. There was a lot of excited build up for the kids & I couldn't help but be inspired & send a week's worth of Wonderland in a Lunchbox. You can see a collection of Pinspiration here.

Day 2 is Cheshire Cat day.

Our cheese & ham sandwich is rather CuteZCute today. There's also pink & purple pasta with meatballs, pepperoni with cheese & Babybel and sprinkled yoghurt.

On top we have juice, a smiling apple & Cheshire Cat tail donuts. For more information please continue reading!

Our Cheshire Sandwich is made from using the CuteZCute Cutter & coloured with FooDoodlers. I had to add a tail from the off cuts as per Miss M's instructions :-)

Available from Affiliates Neat2Eat & Bento USA

This is the first time I've made coloured pasta & I learned a few things - red colouring is very strong, and you need more blue to make an authentic purple.

These meatballs are a store bought cheat & the details are all cut out of cheese

I ended up sending a little more for my big eater, the extra meatballs sit on some pasta sauce (again store bought) in a cute little food cup available from Affiliates Neat2Eat & Bento USA.

Our favourite snack of crackers with cheese & Pepperoni from Walkerston Country Meats was given the Cheshire Cat treatment by adding a Babybel with a smile.

And our yoghurt had a few sprinkles added as well.

Being as yesterday's lunch came home practically empty I thought I should add an extra piece of fruit, so our banana was decorated with non-toxic marker.

Red Water

Pink Pasta

Purple Water

Purple Pasta

Cheshire Cat Pasta

I had such a great time experimenting with the donuts for the Cheshire Cat Tails. I made pink & purple cake mix & tried having bi-colour donuts, not a success. And I didn't take into account the fact that cakes brown when cooked so you can't really see the colours on the outside of them. Here's a collection of the happy snaps I took from our Sunday experiment session.

Can you tell how much I enjoyed created this lunch? We had a ball playing this theme today!

Do tune in this week for the rest of this series & check out some of the fantastic lunches that inspired me at Bent On Better Lunches Linky Party below.

This Lunch is Linked:

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.