Teddy Bears Picnic Party - Part 1, Savoury

I can hardly believe our little Honey celebrated her first birthday 4 months ago! Where has the time gone? And I can hardly believe it's taken me so long to share all the glorious goodies from her party!

We decided that for Miss M's first birthday party we'd have a Teddy Bears' Picnic. I thought it was a cute enough party for a one year old, and was gender neutral enough that for any future additions to the family we could easily replicate it. I was busily Pinning ideas when I saw a Winnie the Pooh dressed up as a bumble bee. I had a light bulb moment and though that would be the perfect take on a Teddy Bear's Picnic for our little Honey (Bee).

We had a small gathering in a local park so everything had to be easily transported and/or assembled 'on site'.

I made up some simple yellow (corn relish and Philly cheese) dip and added a few olives to create a bee look in the centre of my Tupperware chip 'n' dip. Then each section was filled with alternating black/yellow goodies. Yellow Kiwi fruit, blueberries, Ritz/Jatz, olives, yellow capsicum, and store bought olive bread.

I was so chuffed with how these bumble bee  curried quail eggs turned out!

Served on a (washed, new) paint tray, the centre holds a container of curried mayonnaise, and each bee is decorated with nori detail and cucumber wings.

The eggs were coloured following this fantastic tutorial from Little Miss Bento.

There were a few leftover so they were sliced in half and laid upon their cucumber wing slices with a dollop of the curried mayo.

Then there was the bee hive inspired cob loaf!

The top layer was a simple hamburger bun, while the centre held all the yumminess that is a classic cob loaf. The bottom layer was a damper. All the bread store bought. To make the cheesey filling I basically followed the topping I use when making sour cream potatoes.

Blanch some spinach leaves, fry some bacon and a little onion. In a saucepan melt together equal parts of sour cream and grated cheese (like mozzarella) with a generous helping of butter. Add your spinach and bacon mixes and stir to combine. Fill your hollowed out cob loaf with the cheese mix and bake until golden.

Cut from the menu were these cute muffin pizzas. Store bought english muffins topped with pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni and cheerio slices.

Stay tuned this week for more Teddy Bear Picnic fun! After publishing, you will be able to click through to see:
Part 2, Sweet and
Part 3, Cake!

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.

Teddy Bear Paw Cupcakes

Don't you love easy decorating cakes? I was Pinspired by this image but it seems the link to the original source is corrupt :-(

I made these for a take-a-plate Teddy Bears Picnic last year. They were the perfect practice run for Honey's first birthday party which I will finally get around to sharing with you next week!

These simple vanilla sponge muffins were iced with buttercream icing and topped with Maltesers and alternating Mint and Crown biscuits.

I had to make chocolate too.

I always prefer chocolate :-)


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.

Market Stall Lunches

 I was very excite to hold my first market stall in December 2014, selling some Bento goodies. If you are in the Emerald, QLD area and would like some more information, please drop me a line: LovingLunches at gmail dot com  :-)

This is the 'display' lunch I made. As it was on display for a few hours with the lid open and many flies appreciating the work it wasn't consumed, but it did look appetising!





The sandwich was actually just the crust with a CuteZCute cute out turned over. I added a few 'pig noses' for the tentacles with the centre circles being made from the crusts. The off cut circles became 'bubbles'. Eye picks and a pig-ear cut out, again from crust complete the look. I've been wanting to make a CuteZCute Octopus ever since I saw this adorable post. What do you think? Did I do the original justice?

Some more cute eye picks and some FooDoodlers turned a couple of cheerios into Octo-dogs which are always a winner for us.

And our fish egg mould egg had a swim in some lettuce 'kelp'. A couple of the circle bread off cuts from the sandwich  acted as bubbles and a little colour added with FooDoodlers.

Then this was my actual nibble-all-day-long lunch. A couple of store bought finger laminations, some Tic Tacs, and a whole heap of local grapes. All served in Easy Lunch Boxes.

I had such a wonderful time meeting so many lovely locals and sharing the Bento love with my community. I look forward to lots more Bento action in town, stay tuned!

If you would like to sign up for our Loving Lunches Locals email, you can do so via this link. I intend to keep the blog more focused on food rather than sales ;-)


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.

Review: Pottery Barn Kids Spencer Bento Box Containers

Have you decided what sort of lunchbox you are going to send to school/work/uni this year? I'm still undecided as Miss M will be heading to Prep and the lunch routine will be a little different from her Kindergarten and day care days. It's not like I don't have an array to choose from, but I'm always on the look out for that one-perfect-for-everything box. You can check out some of my collection in my Lunchbox Line Up and Lunch Box Experiment posts.

I asked my friend, and reason this blog got started, Anna about her latest lunchbox. You can read more of her work over at Frugally Fabulous! Welcome Anna!

We (well, the kids) just got new lunchboxes! We'd (I'd) been coveting these for a while now. With B starting Kindergarten in two weeks, I thought we'd better go for something with a better seal since it could get bundled around in his backpack. And of course, it would have been a great injustice for L to not have a new matching lunchbox in her favorite color.

I decided on the Pottery Barn Kids Spencer Bento Box containers based on the recommendation of a friend (and mom of a newly graduated Kindergartener). So far I really like it, and the kids do too.

Ease of use for 2 yr old - 10/10
Ease of use for 5 yr old - 10/10
Sandwich size compartment - No, but I always cut the sandwiches anyway. It fits an entire cut sandwich in the big compartment.
Dishwasher safe - Yes, top rack only, but in truth it takes up too much room - two of these babies pretty much fill the top rack of my dishwasher so I'm hand washing them.
Compartments - 5 - honestly, I found it a little overwhelming working out how to fill that many compartments - I am going to order some bento picks so I can put one of those and a couple of antibacterial hand wipes in one section - I think I can handle four foods in a lunchbox!
Lids - Attached - Hooray, no looking for lids! The downside is they don't fit in the dishwasher easily because the lids don't detach.
Leaks - No! Haven't tried with yogurt yet but the watermelon in the small lidded section did not leak! L was able to close it herself and drop it repeatedly in the car with no spills!  
Price - $US16.50 (Now available in Australia, check this link for details)

UPDATE:
We christened the kids' new lunchboxes today, and I couldn't help but add a little extra fun!

It's literally taken years of negotiation with B to agree on square-shaped sandwiches. With hesitation I decided to take a leaf out of Jackie's book and put my crocodile cookie cutter to use. Since B also now FINALLY eats crusts, I decided not to rock the boat too much. I made two identical sandwiches and cut just one crocodile for each child from one sandwich and cut the rest of that sandwich into two small squares. The second sandwich was cut into four squares, so each child ended up with three small squares and a crocodile.


Watermelon; Red seedless grapes, Apple slices, Raisins, Nutella sandwiches (3 square, 1 croc)

I decided the crocodile didn't look all that crocodile-ish, so I added a raisin eye (I put a tiny bit of honey on the bread first so it would stick).

 Sadly, B liked the little croc too much to eat him at lunchtime while I was in my gym class. He said he wanted to photograph him first. I assured him that I had already taken a photo for the blog. He ate the little croc later in the afternoon.


Disclaimer: I was not paid for this review. I received the lunchboxes as a gift from a friend as a thank you for looking after her 2 year old twin daughters for a day!

-- A

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 the author's, based on their personal experience with the product. 

December on Instagram

Happy New Year!! How are you faring? Let's just look at some pretty pictures shall we? This is what you missed last month on Instagram. . .

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.