Curious George Lunch Version Two

 Did you see Miss M's Curious George lunch in this previous post? This is what Honey took to daycare that day.

Her George certainly does look 'Curious', don't you think? o.O
Ham, cheese & nori sitting atop her sandwich.

She also had a banana (a must for every young monkey!), a yoghurt pouch, lamington, cherry tomatoes and milk in her Juice in the Box.

 This was in her first week of daycare and she was all over the shop with her eating. Most of her lunch came home but she was ravenous and proceeded to eat the vast majority of it for afternoon tea.

I suspected she was getting ill when she didn't finish her lamington though! I was suitably impressed by the lack of leaks from her Juice in the Box.

Curious? Head on over to this previous post and enter to WIN a Juice in the Box starter bundle for yourself!

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.

Cheerio Hearts

Are you ready for St Valentine's Day? Here's a little flashback to get you inspired. . .

Cheerio hearts on a be of 2 minute noodles complete with tomato sauce.What toddler isn't going to love that?


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 Lunch Caesar Salad Wrap

Wow, what a flashback! I found this Tupperware sandwich keeper plus lunch amongst my un-blogged lunches. This is from early 2013 when I had 15 minutes for my lunch break at work. Even with that time I still packed a few lamington fingers for a treat ;-)

I love a good wrap and the trick with this one is to make sure everything is prepped so in my limited time all I had to do was lightly heat the chicken and egg in the microwave while I assembled the rest of the wrap. Using muffin cases to separate the ingredients ensured my croutons remained crunchy and made it easier to reheat those few elements.

This is a great lunch for re-purposing any bread scraps you've collected in both the croutons and the crumbed chicken.

 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.

Lunchbox Line Up Australia

Want to see how the new EasyLunchboxes stack up against a couple of tried and true Aussie favourites? Well, the ones from my collection anyway. . . This has been on my list to do for a while, and now that EasyLunchBoxes are available in Australia (affiliate link there), what better time to tick it off my list! So here's visual size guide for you.

 Top to bottom we have
Easy LunchBoxes
Decor Quarters
Nude Food Movers Mini Rubbish Free Lunchbox
Nude Food Movers Rubbish Free Lunchbox
Tupperware Big Luncher
Tupperware Sandwich Keeper Plus

And from above. . .

Lids off/open.

You can purchase a drink bottle with sock to go with the Nude Food Movers. Here's how that fits in the other boxes. I also tried the sandwich saver from the Nude Food Movers in the ELB without any luck.

And for an easy visual size comparison, what a popper (aka juice box) look like in them all too.

Unfortunately those store bought mini yoghurts don't quite fit. The lid can be secured with a band, but you risk the rest of your lunch perhaps not being at its' freshest.

A few other easy visual guides as to the size of the EasyLunchBoxes.

A few of my mini container-stash also got to have a dance with the EasyLunchBoxes. As you can see, some were a little 'two left feet'. If you are planning on using the ELBs remember they are microwave safe! Meaning you can pack a complete microwave meal (including a cold dessert - yippee!) in there. Just remember to remove the elements you don't want heated, or pack the element you do want heated into a removable microwave container. Also, they are not leak proof, so any liquids really need to be sealed in a separate internal container, or packed elsewhere. The mini-dippers are great for yoghurts, sauces, dressings etc and as you can see, fit perfectly! (Top of the 'Win' column)

Want to see how other lunchboxes line up? Check out some of these great posts!

Wendolonia

Bento School Lunches

Eats Amazing

Another Lunch (this one is from 2010)

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.

Cute Z Pig

Quickie today as I continue to try and nut out some technical difficulties (love my lap top, really I do - I just love it more when it works ^-^)

Using a CuteZCute cutter and a little piggy pick with a small roll of ham for a tail.

Have you met the latest member for the CuteZCute family? I will be posting some lunches with them soon, promise :-)

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.

Belated Butterflies

Some butterflies from my unshared lunches for Flashback Friday this week.

Both cut with Lunch Punch Critter Cutters.

This one has some fun food picks and FooDoodler spots.

Hand 'drawn' Vegemite and sprinkles. Got to love a quickie ;-)

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.

Simple Tractor Lunch

Are your little ones back to school today? Miss M is, but this isn't her lunch today.

This one I made a little while ago when I found the purple double snack pod. It did mean I had to use a zip lock bag for Miss M's savoury snack of cheese & pepperoni today, which fitted nicely in with her popper juice.

Simple Lunch Punch ham & cheese sandwich with off cut fields behind. Serving in our shallow Tupperware square round allows room in the box for a Sinchies of yoghurt.

Miss M is a bit of a fruit bat so this extra large container of watermelon is perfect for her. I didn't send the fork that comes with it as we are lucky enough that Kindy provides cutlery for us.

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.

Simple Stars

It is pure coincidence that I found this stars & sort-of-stripes lunch amongst my backlog for Flashback Friday. Miss M had asked for a vegemite sandwich cut into squares like her friend at daycare always had. I can't remember how the cheese stars came into it, but there you have it.

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.

Flowers Flowers Everywhere

 Did you see the flower lunch I created for Wendolonia yesterday? It got me thinking about all the flower cutter lunches I haven't posted yet, so I'm doing them all in one big hit to finish off the school term. It's funny to see them all together like this - ames me realise how much I do actually repeat myself :-)

This first one is from October last year. Vegemite and sprinkles with cookie-cutter scraps.

Then in November I finally tried out these ham & cheese cutters.

I must have thought they looked good because I made some more a week later.

And if I turn it upside down that counts as new, right?

And guess what I made in April this year?

Not much has changed has it?

Although the snack and yoghurt are packaged slightly different in this year's lunchbox.

I must admit I'm loving these easy ham & cheese flower snacks.

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.

Pumpkin & Passionfruit Soup

Excuse me? Read again? Well, that's what I thought when I first saw this on a menu a few years ago. I had to try it & although it wasn't worth the wait (long story about service and a hungry toddler there) it was really quite nice!

This is my go to pumpkin soup recipe, but here's an update. . .

Toss 750g chopped pumpkin, 2 chopped onions, 2 crushed cloves of garlic, 2 cups chicken stock into the Kambrook Soup Simple and set to 'smooth'.

Come back to a lovely soup that can be enjoyed as is. . . or

For a lovely twist simply add half a passionfruit to each serve.

For a full family conversion, thicken with rice cereal or bread for baby, serve with bread crust croutons (aka dipping sticks) for toddler or thick crusty bread for the grown ups.





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.

Flowers for Wendolonia

Have you been following the 3 Tools challenges over at Wendolonia? A few weeks ago I joined in  with this cute owl lunch and I had such a hoot (pun intended) that I lined up again!

I had grand plans of filling the large space of the EasyLunchBox with ham & cheese sandwich roses like those I made for this Paint the Roses Red lunch last year. You can see the sad remains of them as the 'rolling hills' at the bottom here. I ended up making a flower pocket sandwich 'cloud' with some ham & cheese flowers atop a bed of lettuce. By using a Tupperware square round I was able to pack a small Sinchies of yoghurt in this compartment too.

I'd planned to make rockmelon/watermelon layered flowers but the rockmelon proved too popular with Miss M & Honey and didn't quite make it. Lucky there were some strawberries and grapes in the fridge to make this mini salad. I kind of like how it gives the whole lunch a reddish feel :-)

Those puff pastry bites were also a slight change of plan. I first thought to make some pizza-puffs but ended up piping some strawberry cheesecake mixture into these two. Cream cheese counts as dairy right?

So why all the change of plans? Have a look behind the scenes with me. . .

Cutting & imprinting some store bought puff pastry

Wondering if they would make nice pie shells

In different sizes

And different moulds

Should I weight them? Nah, they won't rise that much, I only want a little filling.

This was after I'd thought to change to a sweet option. Can you see my attempt at clouds on the top left? How good would they look puffed up?

Nutella - can't go wrong, right?

Strawberry jam - a must!

Lots of Nutella surely must equal lots of yum?

A smaller jam flower

And cooked. Those clouds didn't quite work how I wanted :-(

A lot of detail lost

And not as pretty as imagined

Note to self - it's called 'puff' pastry for a reason

This one looked nice

So try the savoury version

Might try doing pocket pizzas

Same size flower pastry on top, imprinted & spread with pizza sauce

Sealed with the next size down cutter

And left a little too long in the oven *sigh*

But the pizza parcels worked!

Albeit a little burnt. They still tasted good

Ok, ditch plan C, back to plan B.

Cream cheese, cream & a little strawberry jam piped into some sweet puffs. Worked well in the end.

This is how I folded the ham before rolling into the rosettes. A little different from a traditional ham flower.

What do you think? Worth the change?

Did you notice I even changed my mind on the lid colour beneath the box? 

Ah, I used to be indecisive. . . 

And this is what it looks like with a Sinchies yoghurt in the main compartment and a popper strapped to the box.

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.