Hookfang Lunch

How have you been enjoying our How To Train Your Dragon lunches? Today's instalment is HookFang.

I lost part of his jaw with this nori cutting (using this image as a template) but was able to improvise with an offcuts. I think my cheese 'shield' was a little better today. And I know that this image isn't necessarily a Monstrous Nightmare, but Miss M thought it was & that's all that matters!

And she quite liked her Dragon kiwi fruit too :-)

Nestled in her double snack box with a smaller container of yoghurt for afternoon tea.


Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~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 my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Stormfly Lunch

After Miss M requested a How To Train Your Dragon lunch the flood gates opened. First it was Toothless (see this previous post), and then Stormfly.

I used this image as a template for some nori cutting, a technique I discovered last year thanks to Little Miss Bento (check out her tutorial here)

Packed in a mini Rubbish Free Lunchbox from Nude Food Movers with some yoghurt & mango in the double snack pod. Drink under her sandwich.

I tried free-handing this image but again I failed miserably. This went with her favourite brain break of cheese, pepperoni & crackers.


Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~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 my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Toothless Lunch

If you've been following on Instagram you may have noticed Miss M has discovered How To Train Your Dragon. While I'm holding off showing her the second movie for as long as possible, she is thoroughly enjoying the TV series (Dragons: Defenders of Berk), and I do believe that, today at least, Toothless is her favourite.

I made this cute little plum Toothless by adding a bat food pick, carving a smile and using some raw spaghetti to hold some halved & FooDoodler'ed grapes in place.

I used the offcuts from the smile to make a tongue, although you can't really see it :-)

And there he is, nestled amongst some grape 'dragon eggs'.

I was kind of glad that my cheese art smudged a little. It makes it look more 'authentic', don't you think?

For afternoon tea Miss M had some biscuits, rainbow carrot and some dip.

I jazzed up some cheese to go with her brain break of pepperoni, cheese & crackers. Not the prettiest of things, but she got the idea ;-D

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~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 my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Mummy & Me Bento Demo

Last year I was lucky enough to be able to do a Bento Demonstration for our local Community Care group Emerald Neighbourhood Centre and their Day 2 Day Living program. This was the Mummy lunch I made. Themed 'You make my heart sing' which is also written on a card included in the Tupperware sandwich keeper plus with some cutlery.

Simple salad leaves with cherry tomato heart & flowers, carrot flowers, and mini ham & cheese shapes. There's also a heart dressing container.

The offcuts from the 'Me' sandwich were used to make a bread & butter pudding for 'Mummy'. Mix the bread with butter & jam before soaking in long life custard for a few minutes. Bake at 180 degrees until the custard has set. Decorate with picks.

Mummy & Me also had a checkerboard apple in each lunch.

This is the 'Me' lunch, themed 'I like to Mauve/Mooo-ve it'.

Checkerboard apple, ham & cheese flower made using the offcuts from the salad above. Lunch Punch jam sandwich decorated with FooDoodlers. Some offcuts included in the lunch, others used to make the bread & butter pudding above. Carrot sticks & dip with a cherry tomato flower. The sticks came from the carrot shapes in the Mummy lunch. And last but not least a shaped egg.

I thoroughly enjoyed these lunches and the workshop was so much fun that I'm lining up again this year! If you are interested in attending, drop me a line and I will let you know the date once it is confirmed :-)

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~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 my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Beetroot Walnut Dip

I'm not sure whether it's Australia Day or summer in general that does it, but my goodness our household has been going through the beetroot recently! We usually just eat the tinned, sliced variety but when I saw some whole in the fresh food section I thought we really should try something different. The ones I bought were already cooked, so I pondered about making a dip seeing as I've had some success with our previous #52NewFoods ingredient, Avocado made into guacamole. Google led me to Julie Goodwin's recipe and I took it from there.

I roasted the 200g walnuts and blitzed in my blender before adding the 5 small beetroot, 200g feta and a good sprinkle of garlic powder and blitzing again.

While this was lovely it pails in comparison to one my girlfriend made just a few days later. Turns out all you need for cracking beetroot dip is a tin of beetroot, a block of Philly cheese and some garlic. I think I'll be asking my mothers group for recipes before Google in the future!


Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~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 my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Blue Room Lunch

Miss M is in the Blue room this year so I decided to make her a blue lunch.

Brain break is blue popcorn (food colouring mixed with a little butter & salt) in a Nude Sandwich Keeper.

Afternoon tea is blueberries and yoghurt with blue star sprinkles.

Lunch is a juice and Vegemite sandwich with a Rainbow Dash 'Breezie' cheese art. I used this image as my base and used Robot Squirrel & the Monkeys cheese art technique. Served in a Nude Food Movers Mini Rubbish Free Lunchbox, which also happens to be blue :-)


Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~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 my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Happy Valentine's Day

Bonus lunch this week as I've been feeling a little slack on the blog front of late. This simple lunch went with Miss M in her first week of prep. 

Yoghurt and grapes in the snack pods, top left; Vegemite sandwich with heart imprint (made by repurposing my pocket sandwich cutter) highlighted with butter & sprinkles; under the sandwich is her milk drink. The Mango Macadamia Bliss Balls I shared earlier in the week are there along with some lamingtons for afternoon tea. Brain break was crackers, cheese & salami. A small heart cut out of the salami was replaced with a small cheese one <3. A few picks and a silicon cup from Daiso added to the theme.

Wishing you all a most wonderful St Valentine's Day.

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches & 52 New Foods Challenge who generously provided me with a copy of their book. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Bread & Butter Pudding

One of the most frequently asked questions I get about making these fun Bento lunches for my little ones is 'what do you do with all the bread scraps?'. Well, most of the time I save the crusts in the freezer and do a bulk bake of them before turning them into bread crumbs. However, I have been known to make the odd bread & butter pudding too! And it seems I've never blogged about them. [EDIT - I forgot about this single serve recipe and this slow cooker recipe I shared last year] Some of these photos are over five years old, eek!

January on Instagram

Nothing too theme-y this Friday the 13th for you. I've been too busy organising Miss M's birthday - how time flies! Instead, here's a flashback to what you may have missed on Instagram last month. 

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~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 my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.