Teacher Cannot Live by Apples Alone 2015

Miss M helped to make her Teachers' gifts' this year. Waldorf inspired salad in cute little apple lunch boxes.

Rather happy with how they turned out!

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.

Miscellaneous Mummy Lunches

I have been feeling a bit rushed of late and although I am still taking lunch each day, they are rather repetitive and so I haven't been recording them. Pie-day-Friday and once a week toasties (which have been twice a week or more) and then leftovers have been all I seem to be able to achieve for myself. I still look forward to the break though :-)

Leftovers, vegetables, rice and corned beef

Muffin pizzas, crackers and dip

Ham bread roll with pasta salad (packet pasta, frozen veg and corn relish - yum!)

Lasagne and salad

Yumcha box with sweet & sour sauce

Crisp bread with cheese and tomato

And why, yes, that _is_ chocolate hiding under my salt & pepper!

Salad and a lamington.

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.

Easy Lunchbox Dinners

 For the school holidays I chose to trial working less days but for longer hours, which meant that the girls would most likely be aiming up for dinner at around their pick up time if not earlier, so I packed them dinner as well as lunch!

 And while I was packing their dinner, I made one for myself as lunch. I had Ferrero Rocher for my dessert instead of healthy yoghurt like the girls did. We all had garlic bread, lasagne muffins and salad.

I love these Texas Muffin cups I picked up in New Zealand last time we were there. They are a little tall for the Easy Lunchboxes but make a great sized meal. I made the lasagnes on the weekend prior and froze these babies ready to pack on the fly which made these dinner super quick to assemble. All I had to do was toss in some salad, some story bought garlic bread, and the variations on dessert.

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 Caesar Salad

 I was lucky enough to win this lunchbox last year from Bento & Co and while I thought of using it for Miss M it was just far too tempting to save it just for me. I'm glad I did, since returning to work it's been a highlight to see that cute little mushroom in the staff fridge ;-)

It wasn't a hard choice, deciding what to pack for my first meal back at work. Chicken Caesar Salad. One of my all time favourites. The lower level is filled with lettuce, a sprinkle of parmesan and some freshly cracked black pepper. The mini container holds the dressing. The top layer holds some croutons, crumbed chicken, and a poached egg, again sprinkled with a little pepper. I used baran and food picks too! I wasn't going to miss out on the fun!

I didn't include the gel-ice pack that comes with the box in the photo because, quite frankly I forgot that I'd put it in the freezer already ;-)

I'm happy to report that this lunchbox is now available at affiliate Little Bento World, here in Australia.


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.

Some Bunny Loves You Bento Demo

I am super excited to be holding a hands on Bento Demonstration this Wednesday (11th March) in conjunction with the Emerald Neighbourhood Centre and their Multicultural Connections group, part of the Day2Day Living Program. For more information, drop me a line, or send the lovely ladies from the Centre a message on their Facebook page here.

These are the lunches I will be teaching everyone to make!

 Egg mould and FooDoodler bunny with carrot sticks and mini salad.

Apple bunnies

Dip (for the carrot sticks) and a CuteZCute bunny bottom (inspired by BentOnBetter Lunches) with crust off cuts and FooDoodlers.

 'Rabbit food' salad with carrot flowers.

I forgot the dressing! Good thing this was a practice run, right?

Apple bunnies.

Bread crust croutons.

All served in Easy Lunchboxes.

And you know what else I forgot? Picks! Oh well. Miss M took hers to Prep last week and didn't complain. Although I did have to swap out her egg for yoghurt. Even with the yolk removed she still won't go for egg in public.

I can't wait to see what variations everyone comes up with! Keep an eye out on Instagram for updates :-)

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.

Teachers Cannot Live By Apples Alone. . .

They need lunch too!

Thank you to Biting the Hand that Feeds You for this fantastic idea! Check out the gorgeous lunches she made for their Teacher Appreciation Day in this post.

My personal shopper did a Daiso run for me and found a fantastic haul.

Each teacher received a cooler bag , tiered lunchbox, dressing bottle, two ongiri boxes, mini cutlery, drink bottle and an ice pack. There were also a few picks included in their lunches.

And different colours so there was no confusion.

Now, on to lunch! I made colour co-ordinated 'menus' for each teacher. They each had a different juice and there was also dietary considerations. Our menu also doubled as a card.

Miss M enjoyed helping to make the salad and decorating with the rainbow carrots that have just come back into our major grocer.

Honey enjoyed the photo shoot that followed
;-D.

Three lovely salads, all in a row.

I cheated and bought some bags of salad leaves and added the decorative carrots and apple (dipped in apple juice before drying on paper towel). There are some offcuts hidden throughout the salad too.

Ranch dressing in the bottle, with Christmas-y apples and rotisserie chicken.

The sweet snack boxes contained apple and raspberry cupcake or cake pop, depending on dietary requirements. Decorated with pretzels and lollies. This time I used fruit salad jellies, you can see the mint leaves I've used in the past in this previous post. There's also an apple pastry rose each (see my first attempt here) and a mint ball. The ones covered in crushed M&Ms are my Naughty Mint Balls (aka reindeer poop) while the coconut rolled one is a Nice Mint Ball from The Kids Menu.

The savoury snack boxes contained my first attempt at apple crisps. They didn't really turn out as crispy as I would have liked, Chips - yes, crisps - no.

And in the morning I added a Sweet Potato, Quinoa, Apple Stuffing ball to each box. You will have to come back tomorrow for the recipe :-).

These little guys though - finely slice your apple and dip in apple juice. Dry with paper towel. Lay onto a strip of puff pastry so that the skin of the apple is facing out and the pieces overlap, resembling a wave. Fold up the pastry to enclose the bottom half of the strip before rolling tightly. I sat these in a muffin pan to help hold the shape which worked well. Bake at 180 degrees until the pastry is golden.

And if you follow on Instagram you would already know that I had to match the juices to the lunch boxes :-). I admit that I didn't blend these myself. Giving as a gift I didn't want to risk having the flavours wrong. 'Miss Pink' had apple & cranberry. 'Miss Green' had apple, orange, kiwi and spirulina juice. 'Mrs Orange' had carrot, apple & orange juice.

All packed and ready to go. The bags held the lunch and snack boxes. The ice pack and drink bottles were separate.

What did you give your teachers this year?

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.

Mexican Stack

Don't you just love a simple concept? I first tried this at a local cafe a few years ago and quickly added it to our favourites list.

The trick is to find some tortillas that fit perfectly in your spring form tin. You can always make them to fit, but I'm not that good ;-P

I add a little flavour to our basic mince recipe to turn it 'Mexican'. Simply brown some onion, garlic and beef mince. Add a tin of tomato soup, a tin of four bean mic and a tin of corn then simmer until well reduced. I no longer add Mexican chilli powder at this stage, preferring to add it at the table. That way we can make it plain for the girls and spicy for us.

Lightly oil your spring form dish and line with your first tortilla.

Then add some of your Mexican mince mix. . .

. . . and finally some store bought salsa. Again feel free to make your own :-)

Keep layering your 'lasagne' until you reach the top of your tin. We normally get three to four layers in ours.

Generously sprinkle some grated cheese (mozzarella works wonderfully), and bake in a 180 degree oven until golden, about half an hour.

Ta da!

Gently unfold your creation

If you load the base of your spring form tin in upside down (so the hollow is on the bottom) it will make it easier to slide this baby off the tin and onto a chopping board.

Serve with sour cream and a simple salad.

And pack some leftovers for lunch!

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.