And His Name is Santa Claus

 How are your holidays going? We're busy busy and I haven't had much of a chance to share our last lunches of the year yet. You may have seen them on Instagram, but if you missed it, here's the lunch Miss M had the day of her Kindy Concert.

They've been practicing for months and I think her favourite song has been this one.






He has a red, red coat (salami with vegemite and cheese detail) (Pinspiration here)

And a red, red hat (strawberry with marshmallows held in place with raw spaghetti).

His boots are black (black grapes on apple wedge pants held in place with raw spaghetti), (Pinspiration here)

And he carried a sack (strawberry jam puff pastry parcel)

He has a twinkle in his eye (FooDoodler eye on her Vegemite sandwich with cheese-y star)

And a friendly smile (apple wedge with marshmallow teeth above)

And his name is Santa Clause!

Served in our Easy Lunchbox.

We also had a take-a-plate for morning tea so I used our Kambrook donut maker to whip up some mini chocolate yummies before adding a smidge of icing and a red M&M. The morning of I pressed in some smashed pretzels.

Perfectly imperfect and a tonne of fun!

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.

Park Lunches

Throwing together a quick 'Flashback Friday' this week. These are all from before Honey was born, eek! 

These Decor Quarters are 'Daddy & Me' lunches. Some mini chocolate muffins, popcorn & dried fruit trail mix, sandwiches with packet biscuits and a nut bar for him and a cheese stick for Miss M.

I also sent some frozen Gogo Juice along with them.











I remember this lunch! It was one of our last family of three outings. We had sandwiches, mini chocolate and vanilla muffins, cheese chunks, ANZAC slice remnants and some apples.

A treat lunch for taking to the pool one day. I had a doughnut, fruit pack (no idea why I had packet fruit, perhaps someone had been on a plane and brought their leftovers?), a sandwich, and some strawberries with peanut butter & Nutella dip.
Miss M had a doughnut, sandwich rolls, and fruit in her little character bags.

I think this may have been a pool lunch too. Both contain apple with peanut butter/Nutella dip and some FunBites sandwich shapes. Miss M's also has a juice, some biscuits and dip. Mine has some strawberries and packet biscuits. Any guesses who actually got to eat the strawberries?

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 personal experience with the product.

Get Your Loving On. . .

A public holiday is a wonderful way to start the week isn't it? And a new project is a wonderful way to end it!

Have you heard of hashtag projects on Instagram? I must admit I'm quite the newbie but I would love for you all to join me in #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth!

Are there days when you settle for cereal for lunch? Me too! Do you go for weeks on end preparing the *exact same sandwich*? Me too! Are there days when you feel a creative surge coming and before you know it there's a masterpiece before you? Me too! (Ok, so maybe only a few times a year, but still, it happens ^-^) Do you re-purpose your leftovers for lunch? Me too!

But the question is - do you love it? Some days yes, some days no, some days all of the above. I'm asking you to catalogue *every* lunch for one member of your household for a month. And I chose the shortest month of the year too! You can Instagram, Facebook, Tweet, Blog - even just take a photo for your own satisfaction. And here's the kicker - I'd like you to find one thing about that lunch that you love. One thing. Some thing. Any thing. Do you love that the person receiving it will eat it? Do you love the plate it's served on? Do you love how a particular feature worked out? Do you love that it can be eaten on the run? Do you love that there's a nutritional balance. . . or a not so nutritional one? To get you started, here's a few of the lunches I've prepared for Miss M over the last year that haven't been shared for one reason or another. Let me know what you think. . .

Ham & corn flan doughnuts, sausages and sauce. I love how quick this is, using with frozen flan.

Leftovers - pie, broccoli, sauce, mashed potato. I love using up leftovers.

Leftovers - Corned meat spirals, mashed potato heart, broccoli and carrot. I loved twirling the meat for something different.

Frozen Mac & cheese (with veg), sauce and sausages. I love having sides frozen so there's a quick throw together lunch with some leftovers.

Frozen lunch! Cheerios, ham & corn flan doughnuts and sauce (well, the sauce wasn't frozen). I love that I can pull something out of the freezer on those days when i'm just *blah*.

Leftover face. Mashed potato hair, with carrot hair ties and nose. Broccoli 'hair clip', sausage eyes and mouth with 'red sauce cheeks'. I love that Miss M enjoyed her new Face plate by Fred (I won a prize from Family Mealtimes Matter - thank you Jo!) so much that she asked for the same thing for lunch the next day.

Leftovers. Whole baby beetroot, sausage, sauce, mushroom, tomato and a little lettuce underneath. I love that my new rectangle moulds from Little Bento Shop can hold a whole sausage, and it can be removed for heating without the rest of the lunch having to go in the microwave.

Vegemite 'sushi' sandwiches. I love how quick & easy these are.

Sausages with tomatoes, sauce and a food pick. I love playing with my new Daiso toys.

Meatballs with spaghetti and store bought bottle pasta sauce. I love easy leftover lunches. 

More frozen Mac & cheese with sausage and sauce in the lidded container. I love easy.

Sausage, moulded egg with FooDoodler details and sauce in the lidded container. I love that Miss M will eat the 'broken' egg that got stuck in the mould.

I love that looking back at these I realise how many times we've eaten sausages!

So what do you say? Will you join me and share the love? There will be a Linky Party in March for anyone wanting to share their collections. 

::EDIT - Please feel free to right click and copy the #LovingEveryLunchforaMonth button above::

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 personal experience with the product.

Doughnut Face

Sometimes all it takes is a little squinting to imagine a face.

These zucchini slice doughnuts paired with a sausage sort of reminded me of a smiley.

~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.

Speed Serve Carrot Cake

 I made my first ever carrot cakes last week & showed you the finished results in my Frosty post.

As you can see I didn't quite follow the instruction as I cooked them in my Kambrook doughnut maker (sadly no longer available, but they'd make awesome cake pops)


 Gather supplies







 Grate carrot in the Kambrook Speed Serve. So quick!







There was a little waste, but not much

Throw all ingredients in a bowl. . . .

Mix until well combined. I've never made carrot cake before & was surprised at the consistency, but it worked!










Here is where I strayed from the recipe opting to cook in doughnut maker instead of patty pans

I did burn a few of the batches, but that's just me getting distracted while cooking instead of paying attention to what I'm doing :-)

I did count, but I can't remember. I think I yielded 52 mini doughnuts from this recipe.

The icing yields *quite* a bit. I did add a lot more icing sugar to the recipe to get the consistency I wanted, and icing Frosty didn't really use very much at all. I now have a bowl of icing in my fridge waiting for another cake to be made. . . or hubby to find it :-D

I found this tutorial on youtube for piping a Christmas wreath & thought I'd give it a go. . . I can see why buttercream icing should be used - cream cheese icing melts too much :-)

You can go into the draw to win a Kambrook Speed Serve in this previous post.

I'm also participating in #reverb12 in Instagram. You can follow my responses to the daily prompt here

~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.

Reindeer Donuts

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Welcome December! Today we're starting our Advent calendar (we have baubles instead of chocolate & they go straight on the tree) & what better way to get in the festive mood than with some Chocolate cake. . . cooked in my Kambrook doughnut maker of course :-)

I was so excited when I first figured out I could use my old favourite family recipe for cake in the doughnut maker!

These are just the right size for little mouths & little hands - and they are perfectly portion controlled for bigger ones ;-P

Decorated with pretzels, cachous & M&M held in place with a little icing.

I've decided to turn my hand to Instagram this month. Please pop over & have a look, let me know what you think.

I'm also joining in #reverb12 with the fabulous people who brought you Blogtoberfest, but I'm cheating & not posting each day - but I am planning on Instagramming (is that a word?) daily. Check out some of the other wonderful blogs participating in this event in the link above, or the button on 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.

Frosty. . .

. . . the Snowman. . . well, not quite. I didn't have any corn-cob pipes & I didn't think a button nose would be particularly tasty, so this is what I came up with instead. . .

I saw a cute little snowman on Pinterest and I thought I just had to give it a try!

I tried with an almond. . .



















(from this angle it almost looks like he's smiling & the choc drops are a beard)

















. . . and I tired with a jelly bean. . .

. . . but I must admit I think I like the baby carrot best :-)

I was planning on saving this for next week but I just couldn't resist sharing!

These little guys are carrot cake (recipe next week) topped with cream cheese icing. Decorated with mini M&Ms, chocolate drops & baby carrots (or almonds, or jelly beans)

Made in my Kambrook doughnut maker but I'm sure they'd be just as cute as cake pops




~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.

Halloween Cook Up

I apologise in advance for the lengthy post - my creativity got away on me :-)

I was asked to do some baking for work to help celebrate Halloween, and I did some for daycare too while I was at it - Thanks to Pinterest, here is what I came up with:

Cut the curve off some candy-canes. . .

 . . . pop the curves into a blender. . .

. . . blend to a powder. . .

















. . . and bake into patty cakes.





















My first batch did not work out well. . .

And you can see how much the second batch sunk as well - I'm blaming the candy canes as I used my favourite basic cake recipe.

 The chocolate ones worked out much better. I flavoured them with some peppermint essence & peppermint chocolate bar

Moving on to decorating. . .
Mint Slice + christmas bells. . .

Looks more like a pilgrim hat than a witches' hat. . .

And chocolate covered meringues didn't really work out how I'd planned. . .

and when paired with a Chocolate Wheaten is supposed to look a little like a witches hat. . .

Those candy canes from earlier, plus some jelly beans. . .

And some 2-tone icing. . .

Witch in a Ditch cakes

These are the 'vanilla/mint' with the mint slice hats

I'm a bit proud of the decorating

The chocolate 2-tone icing

Again - just a tad proud

The choc-mint with the choc wheaten/meringue hats

 In all the excitement I forgot to take a photo today so please excuse the terrible lighting

I decided I'd send the excess to daycare but ran out of candy-cane legs, so I improvised & used some Arnott's TeeVee Malt sticks with bananas cut in half for the shoes

Not as nice as the jelly beans, but I'm sure the kids will enjoy them anyway :-)

While we're on witches, I made some broomsticks for them. . .

These are Chang's spiders (noodles in melted chocolate) moulded in a mini-muffin tin with a pretzel handle. In retrospect it would have been easier to put the handle in before I set the chocolate in the fridge, but I wanted the 'skinny' end of the spider at the top

And here are the Reese Peanut Butter Cup version. I was lucky enough to spot a pack of these in the cheap shop the other day so I grabbed them with this in mind

These are also being split between work & daycare - jelly eyeballs. . .

 Well, that's what they're supposed to be anyway. I think they would have worked much better in a different mould, but I only had my mini-muffin tray which gave a rather square finish to the edge

I was going to do some of these edible spider webs for both daycare & work, but these will only be going to daycare

I realise now that I forgot to give the spider legs. . it must be one of those tricky pouncing ones & his legs are tucked underneath him ready to go :-)

I ran out of room in the fridge to let these set properly (they are actually quite large when assembled)

So I left them on the bench & while the chocolate has set, it hasn't set as hard as I would have liked. I ended up cutting the paper under each spider & popping them paper & all into the storage box for the big day

Last one!

I've been racking my brain (and Google) trying to find a biscuit recipe that's egg-free & nut-free so a little boy in Miss M's daycare class doesn't have to miss out on the goodies I make. Then I came across my old scone recipe - egg & nut free!

I had originally planned to do gingerbread men skeletons for daycare & then do voodoo doll versions for work, but ended up adding pumpkin to the scone recipe & attempting a more Jack-O-Lantern inspired creation. . .

I tried with a choc melt mouth

and a coloured nose .. . .

and no nose. I think they're a bit cute for Halloween, but I didn't want anything scary for the little ones.


I do love discovering I can do scones in my Kambrook doughnut maker though!

I haven't linked to all the ingredients like I usually do. If there are any you'd like further information on please let me know & I'll forward the links through

Thank you for supporting me through Blogtoberfest - it's been a big one! I'm now planning on a few days off from blogging, but will be back next week with our NEXT GIVEAWAY!!

Don't forget to enter my Decor Tellfresh Quarters Giveaway! All you have to do is answer a question & follow me on at least one social media (or email). And you can do this everyday to increase your chances of having your answer chosen as best. Good luck :-)
LAST DAY!!!

Thank you for celebrating Blogtoberfest with me. Don't forget to check out some of the other great bloggers participating by clicking on the button 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.