Bread Repurpose - Meatloaf Muffins

Truth be told I normally do all my blogging one night over the weekend, but this weekend was just so busy I haven't even put the photos from last week's lunches onto the computer yet. So instead I decided to finally publish some bread repurposing that I've been meaning to do for *ages*! A whole week's worth of recipes! Woo-hoo!

This one is based on one I read from Neat2Eat a few years ago.

Combine 1 egg, 1 finely diced onion, 1 grated carrot, 500g beef mince. 1/2 cup grated cheese, 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (see this previous post)

Divide the mixture into a greased 12 hole muffin tin. If I'm terribly organised and get this part done early in the day, I then cover with cling-film and leave in the fridge until I'm ready to cook dinner.

You can bake as is, or glaze with some tomato/worstershire sauce mix. I tend to use store bought BBQ sauce these days.

Bake at 180 degrees for around 30 minutes until cooked through.

These can easily be frozen and popped into lunches.

We like to serve with potato mash and seasonal veg.

Delish!

And some for my lunch this time!

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.

Bread Repurpose - Bread Crumbs

One of the questions I get asked a lot is what to do with bread off-cuts & scraps. One my favourite ways to use them is to make bread crumbs.

I keep a zip-lock bag of offcuts in my freezer and when it gets full I bake the crusts/off-cuts at 180 degrees until golden. The length of time varies depending on the size of the scraps and how full I stuff the tray ;-). You may need to turn after 15 minutes and let it go for another 15, but the best way to tell is to 'keep a nose' out for it.

About 6 cups of loosely packed toasted crusts will blend down to about 1 cup of bread crumbs. These can be stored in an air tight container in the pantry and used for all sorts of goodies. I'll share some of my favourite recipes this week with you, so stay tuned!

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.

Rock Star Lunch

 Last week I shared the lunch I made for Miss M's first Disco of the year, and before it gets away on me I'm going to share the one that represented the Term Two Disco. 'What You'd Like to be When You Grow Up'. Apparently Miss M no longer wishes to be an Astronaut, opting instead for the lures of Rock-Star-dom. I wonder what she will want to be next week :-)

 Every star needs their glasses and a little bling so a food pick and some writing icing were the perfect touches for this star Vegemite sandwich. If you squint you can see the Sinchies food pouch under the sandwich saver of our Nude Food Movers Rubbish Free Lunchbox. The stickers were part of a set I picked up at back to school time. I love the idea of them, but would prefer a card or something reusable. These are definitely a one-use item.

Her double snack pod holds some *rock*melon (did you see what I did there?) cut into star shapes with some more fun food picks. I also left the fork attached to the top of the pod in case she preferred that to the picks.

Her juice box had a few stars quickly drawn on as well.

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.

The Cow That Laid an Egg Lunch

Every morning at school drop off Honey loves to run to the reading corner and pick a book (or ten!). And Miss M's friends love reading them to her which is so lovely to see. One of the new books she noticed this term was The Cow That Laid an Egg. All three of us really enjoyed it and in the back of my mind a quick lunch began to take shape!

I've been looking for an excuse to try out our Fred & Friends Chicken Egg Mould. What could be more perfect? And our favourite Lunch Punch cutter got a work out too. (The cow was part of a limited edition set, sadly no longer available). I trimmed baby cow's legs and set to with some FooDoodlers to turn it into a chick. 

Image source

I also (poorly) attempted to recreate Marjorie's (the cow) expression when she found out she'd laid an egg. A few food picks complete the scene.

While we're here I found this cow lunch amongst my un-blogged photos. Let's pretend these were the sides I sent along with the feature lunch since I can't actually remember what I did send that day! All in our Nude Food Movers.

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.

Tinkerbell Tea Party

Our local cinema is great with fundraising! The most popular movies are premiered at a party to raise funds for assorted local groups and schools. Our Gymnastics club scored a double premier of TinkerBell & the NeverBeast and Cinderella. At intermission there was a TInkerBell Tea Party. I thought that was the perfect excuse to do a spot of baking!

These cute little toadstool cakes were a cinch to make.

Basic vanilla sponge

Removed from silicon baking mould.

I used a mini cutter to give a straighter edge to the base

Like so

And trimmed with a knife.

Giving a more toadstool look. In the end I think I gave up as these were so small you couldn't really tell, but in a muffin size I would recommend trimming. Or you could fill your moulds a little more so the mixture naturally overflows in the cooking process.

Add some bright red buttercream icing and some mini marshmallows, et voila!

I also made some sushi bites with nori cuttings.

I was quite proud of my Tinkerbells, what do you think? I think the hardest part was searching for the perfect image to cut.

I think this was my favourite. Adapted from this gorgeous photo.

The rice bites were made using this set of rice moulds.

This was regular rice cooked so it was a little stickier than usual. Some of these bites were plain, others were filled with pre-marinated teriyaki chicken. I love having a skewer or two on hand, they are the perfect size for a few sushi rolls.

Some peas helped to complete Gruff.

Being that it was a double movie premier (and I've always wanted to try) I also made some high-heel cakes.

Mini patty cake/cup cakes with buttercream icing then decorated with a wafer biscuit and a Rondoletti stick held in place with a little more icing.

So simple!

For the Gruff inspired ones I used some black chocolate melts with chocolate icing and topped each with a green M&M. I also used two toned wafer fingers for the heel.

I think my melts were heat affected and they didn't really melt properly making piping them quite interesting. I still think they looked cute though!

I failed miserably at these sunflower balls but still love them. I used a cake pop mould for the yellow chocolate (again heat affected I think - the joys of living in central Queensland. Good thing I had some coconut oil on hand). The truffles are TimTam cheesecake balls rolled in chocolate sprinkles. You can see the Pinspiration for them here.

I was so happy with how my little TinkerBell slippers turned out! And just 3 ingredients! Well, I made the coconut balls with condensed milk & desiccated coconut, but you could quite easily use store bought. 

And Miss M had a great time helping colour the biscuits.

And using a little condensed milk to attach the coconut bites.

I can't remember now why we couldn't make it to the movies that day, but you can see some of the spread in this post from the Club.

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.