Wednesday 31 July 2013

Blogiversary Count Down Continues



Next week my little blog will be turning one! There will be a giveaway to celebrate, in the mean time, here's a tease of what may or may not be included. . .


I do really love using Lunch Punch. I'm lucky enough to now have the complete set of retail punches.











The only piece I'm missing is the Australia that was available for a limited time with Bega cheese in 2012 (Around Australia Day). If you'd like to see the 'Landwich' set released for retail, please let The Lunch Punch know on Facebook here. This tractor was part of the limited edition set.









I love that with no decoration or effort you can send a fun sandwich. .  .



Or with a little effort you can send a super cute one too.



Most of the time I remove one section of bread from the top to reveal the ham or cheese inside. The 'spare' bread gets popped in underneath to keep the feature propped up.


This one is actually a butterfly, but if you squint I think it looks more like a cow or a dragon. Sometimes my decorations don't quite work out as planned :-).

Do check back next week to see which set is included in my Blogiversary Giveaway!


~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.

Monday 29 July 2013

Blogiversary Count Down




It's hard to believe my little blog will be turning one in a week. There will be a giveaway to celebrate, but in the mean time I'll just tease you with a few things that may or may not be included ;-) See if you can pick some of my favourite things. . .

 This snack-lunch was packed for a car trip. We have Vegemite sushi-style sandwiches, grapes & a Popper Juice


This mummy lunch has grapes, Easter Egg Rocky Road and Spaghetti with meatballs

This park lunch I've planned to post but haven't quite gotten there yet. Consisting mainly of fruit with a peanut butter dip & sandwich


Mummy lunch of leftover fish, chips & salad with tartare sauce & salad dressing in the small containers

Mummy lunch of sour cream potatoes, home made chicken nuggets, yoghurt with passionfruit & grapes

Another park lunch with Nutella dip, popcorn, cheese, slinky apples & sultanas, 'pocket' sandwich & rice crackers.

Do tune in next week for our birthday giveaway. . . Can you guess which product is included?




~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.

Sunday 28 July 2013

Popcorn Round Up



Today is your last day to enter our Kambrook Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker giveaway! Details are in this previous post. I thought it would be a good opportunity to do a round up of some of my favourite popcorn recipes & lunches, in no particular order. . . .







(Ok, so maybe not quite in theme with the Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker, but still a great write up)




And of course there's all of mine:










Thank you for 'popping' by this month. Do call back next month to check out my one year 'Blogiversary' giveaway and some awesome guests posts while I'm busy with our new little bundle. 

~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.

Friday 26 July 2013

Salted Caramel Popcorn






Another treat in preparation for the weekend :-)












I love caramel and when I found this recipe over at Kambrook's blog A Perfect Pantry I knew I had to try it!









I got a little confused about the 'light corn syrup' but according to Google it is the same as (or at least you can substitute) glucose syrup, so that's what I did.










 This is really simple to whip together with only a few steps involved - and the results are too yummy!












I must admit I ended up adding more popped corn as I thought there was too much caramel (as if there ever really could be too much caramel in the world!) But when I did that I didn't sift out the un-popped kernels so ended up with a few scattered through. A very legitimate excuse to consume it all myself, don't you think?



And that is pretty close to what I did! Here's a mummy & me lunch we took out one day running quite a few errands before heading to the park for lunch. I have caramel popcorn, trail mix, nutty muesli bars and a sandwich while Miss M has biscuits, her own version of trail mix, a 'pocket' sandwich and a snack pack.




This was the last of the caramel popcorn that I snavelled to take to work, serve with roast pork & gravy sandwich. These lunches are all in Decor Quarters.






Have you entered our Kambrook Little Chefs Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker giveaway? You can find all the details in this previous post.

~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.

Thursday 25 July 2013

Belated Royal Congratulations



I am slack! I was going to have this post all ready to go so when the Royal baby was born I could just hit 'publish'. Well he's born, left hospital, been named & is already off to visiting before I even start to write.

To celebrate the Royal wedding (between Will & Kate) a few years ago I hosted a mothers group high tea.

This was the spread, please forgive the photos, I never thought I'd be publishing them :-)

From top to bottom we have: Turkish delight; caramel tarts and black bean brownies; scones with jam & cream and muffins with choc-tiara tops; curried eggs and cucumber sandwiches


I didn't have a fancy stand, and those cardboard cupcake stands weren't around yet, so I had to improvise. I think my plates & bowl stack did the trick nicely.


A little closer up


I cheated & made packet mix muffins. The choc tiaras were hand piped into patty pans and frozen. Needless to say there was a knack to them and I haven't made them since. . . although I am tempted to try again



This recipe was in the better Home & Gardens magazine around about this time. I can't remember much about it apart from the black beans, me trying to be a little healthier.


I got a little creative with the icing sugar trying to create a crown, but it looks more like a birthday cake to me :-)




And of course you have to have more than one of everything, including champagne.


And all while still wearing slippers - classy! I did have on a pretty dress & hat, but the apron and slippers stayed on most of the time too :-)

A belated congratulations to the new parents!

Have you entered our Kambrook Little Chefs Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker giveaway? You can find all the details in this previous post.

~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.

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Monster Sandwich

Digging through my old photos and I found this little guy from probably about this time last year! I think because we've recently seen Monster University it reminds me a little of Mike ;-)

This ham & cheese 'flat' sandwich (that's what Miss M calls it when it's not cut) had the crusts trimmed to fit in the box and then reused as decoration. Then I added some tomato and cheese.

Have you entered our Kambrook Little Chefs Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker giveaway? You can find all the details in this previous post.

~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.

Monday 22 July 2013

Popcorn Lion Cupcakes



Last year I made quite a few animal cupcakes around RSPCA Cupcake Day. One of my favourites were these little popcorn lions (you can see the inspiration for them here). And this year I was lucky enough to be able to recipe test for Momables and had a few cakes just laying about. . .so I re-created them :-)






These simple little guys have popcorn manes, choc drop eyes and food writing gel mouths.



I really shouldn't be surprised that there weren't more left over. After all, hubby did make it home for lunch this day ;-)












These are the ones I made last year. . .











This was my favourite version


While any excuse for an M&M is a good one, I thought this guy just looked freaky :-)


This fellow was cute, but I think I like the gel on icing better than on the choc melt. What do yo think?



Have you entered our Kambrook Little Chefs Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker giveaway? You can find all the details in this previous post.



~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.
Pin It button on image hover