Lunch Boxes with Love

Guest Blog – Lunch Boxes With Love

For those of you who have read my “Food, glorious food!” post you will not be surprised to find that this next Guest Post is from someone that I have now personally purchased products from as well as “follow” for wonderful ideas and now Cath has very kindly shared some fun and funky ideas with us!

Introduction…

Hey, My name is Cath & I am a Mum to two gorgeous little people. Little Miss Crow Bird who is 7 & Mr Smiley who is 2.5 years.

I have created a business called ‘Lunch Boxes With Love’ as I am passionate about providing my kids with delicious and varied lunches which are fun and practical too. We offer a range of products including gorgeous lunchboxes, funky boiled egg molds, sandwich shapers and so much more.

We can help turn any boring old school lunch into a work of art with no extra effort required.

Fabulous Tips!

I have put together a few little tips, tricks & recipes that I use to help make my children’s lunches’ fun, healthy, eco-friendly & irresistible.

Idea #1: I know we all sometimes struggle to get our little ones to eat vegetables or just want to show our children how much fun food is…with these gorgeous food picks it is so easy & fun to do, even the little ones can help!

I just get whatever vegetables I have in the fridge, poke them with a food pick and that is it!….and as you can see they are adorable. Here I have also filled a little dip cup with some avocado dip & there we have a cute fun morning tea/snack.

Idea #2:  It is so easy to make any old sandwich hard to resist with the sandwich stamps. All you need to do is make your usual sandwich. Here I have used the old trusty vegemite. Just push down on the cutter to cut the shapes out, then take the cute little animal out of his spot and push down to stamp the bread…GORGEOUS!

Idea #3:  Boiled Eggs are such a fabulous and healthy snack for the lunchbox. I have had so many comments from people who have bought the egg molds whose children now eat eggs and never did before. To be nice and organized I boil a couple of eggs on Sunday night and mold them ready for the next few days lunches.

To mold a cute boiled egg like these all you need to do is boil the egg as usual, while it is still hot take the shell off under running water (so you don’t burn your fingers) pop the egg in the mold and put the mold in a bowl of cold water for 5 mins. You will have a gorgeous healthy snack that no child can resist!

Idea/Recipe #4: Toasted Sandwich Pops

Not many people like to eat the same thing every day for weeks on end. So to help make things fun for the kids I recently made these Toasted Sandwich Pops.

What you need:

Lolly pop sticks (available from spotlight)

Bread

Ham & Cheese

Animal Cutter Set

What to do:

All you need to do is turn on your café grill, butter one side of each piece of bread, put a slice of ham and lots of cheese (this acts like glue) on the bottom piece of bread. Pop the other piece of bread on top & let it cook. Once it is ready, take the sandwich out and cut it with the animal cutter set. Once the shapes are cut out stick the lollypop stick in between the bread and let it cool………A cute looking sandwich with a difference for the lunchbox.

Cath x – Lunch Boxes With Love

Please help us make Cath feel welcome by posting your feedback below and heading over and liking her page http://www.facebook.com/LunchBoxesWithLove  to find some fantastic products and more wonderful ideas for getting your little one to enjoy their meals!

Pancakes + Muffins = Puffins!

I have been seeing around the net the idea of pancakes with a twist. Instead of cooking them the conventional way they are cooked in muffin trays – so, I thought why not experiment and give it a try… I have not seen any detailed instructions on what to do (or NOT to do) just the concept so, this really was an experiment… And of course as with everything now days the joining of these two must result in an amalgamation of the names also… therefore I declare them to be hereafter known as puffins.

I decided for my first attempt to keep it as simple as possible and see what the outcome was – we would just use one of those shake pancake mixes where you just add the water and shake away… The “we” in this story is myself and my toddler – always the handy sous-chef.

So we got out various muffin trays to experiment what worked best. We used 3 different types of trays – regular muffin trays which make 6 muffins per tray, mini muffin tray which makes 12 muffins per tray and 2 ginger bread men shaped muffin trays. To add an extra twist we decided to throw some strawberries into 3 of the “regular” sized puffins.

We pre-heated the oven to 180degrees (fan forced) and greased the muffin trays then my sous-chef helped add the water and we danced whilst shake, shake, shaking that pancake mix…  He then helped to pour the mixture into each of the trays. As I had no idea what would happen (if anything) and how long it might take to happen we sat in the kitchen and watched the oven which my assistant found very entertaining and exciting anyway!

We were very excited when the pancakes started to actually rise a bit and brown etc. The mini puffins were in about 15-20 mins but the regular sized puffins and the ginger bread ones took a bit longer due to their bigger size. I would say we left them in 25 mins.

The outcome? Well the mini puffins were great they cooked well and tasted great. The regular sized puffins even after the extra time were still “doughy” in the middle, the ginger bread men were in between the two! I would say the mini puffins were a success, the ginger bread puffins my son happily ate and the regular puffins well they unfortunately ended up in the bin.

I will definitely attempt these again… perhaps I should let the regular puffins cook a little longer or not put quite as much mixture into each of the holes? The mini puffins and the ginger bread puffins seemed to be the best option for us anyway – the ginger bread puffins was of course the novelty factor and the mini puffins well they were the perfect “bite size” little snack. Next time I think I will make the pancake mix from scratch as well!

We had ours with some maple syrup and cream and strawberry jam and cream. All in all it was a fun and easy snack to make with my toddler – we both had a lovely time and we all enjoyed eating them too!

Has anyone else tried this? What was the outcome / do you have any hints or tips? If you haven’t, give it a go and let us know the results!