Balls. With grassy residue.

If you don't watch Doctor Who,  this post's title may have given you pause...

... but trust me, you can easily make these peanut butter balls non-Whovian by skipping the green coconut coating.  I've made them both ways, read on :)

If you do watch Doctor Who, consider making these fantastic treats for your 50th Anniversary or Farewell Eleven party!

I wanted to participate in my friend Karen's new sticky note recipe linky party, Stick To It Sundays, and had the ingredients for peanut butter balls, but I wanted to make them special for her inaugural Linky...  

She's the most Whovian gal I know,  and what comes to mind when you think of Doctor Who & balls? Rory's dad Brian's golf balls from Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, of course! She's even made a grassy residue balls bento  :)

The Doctor: You don't have any vegetable matter in your trousers, do you, Brian?

Brian: Only my balls.

The Doctor: I'm sorry?

Brian: Golf balls. Grassy residue.

I dyed some shredded coconut green for grass, rolled a few balls in that instead of the usual graham crumbs,  and Bob's your uncle :)

They are even better with coconut! I did stick to the original recipe for most of them, since that's how the sproutlets like them - but I love coconut so the grassy ones were mine :) 

So the premise of this linky is that you can link up any recipe, but it must fit on a standard sticky note. Sounds simple, right? It's harder than it looks! I've got terrible penmanship when I'm not trying to write smaller than usual! I suppose I could have typed it in a tiny font, but that seemed like cheating... judges? Karen? In any case, I stuck to the rules and gave it my best  a shot :)

Click the cute little adipose button below to see more Sticky Note recipes!

And in case you can't read my printing, I typed out the recipe too.  

Frosty First Day of School

Yes, you read that right :) 3 year old Birdie just started preschool this week! Her first holiday bento lunch is a Frosty one, packed in one of her Goodbyn Mix & Match boxes:

She has yogurt in the dip cup, a cheese snowflake atop the lid, apple wedges, a snowflake peanut butter sandwich, grapes, & a snowman chocolate treat.

Can't forget the spoon! And even though Birdie can't read yet, a Lunchbox Love note for one of her teachers to read to her  ♥ 

I love the Goodbyn's transparent lids that let the cuteness peek out :)

Some stuff used in this lunch:

Sweet & Sporty School Lunches

We were in Canada for the weekend, visiting the family and meeting my new baby niece who was born Friday. I've mentioned before that whenever we go to Canada, or the Canadian family comes to visit us, we get Timbits - donut holes from Tim Horton's. So today's lunches include those for a treat :)

Bella has a cupcake peanut butter sandwich topped with a gummy flower, Fig Newtons, Timbits, grapes spelling "sweet", & half a tangelo. (Beanstalk got the other half. No pic of his lunch though, I hadn't had my coffee yet and my brain was still half-asleep, so I forgot.) The orange things in with the tangelo are reusable ice cubes shaped like orange slices. Bella doesn't like her sandwich to be cold so if I don't need to chill the whole lunch, I don't.

Pickle has a sporty lunch in his Yubo lunchbox, inspired by the ball-shaped Timbits. A soccer ball & mini "sport" peanut butter sandwiches, Chobani Champions yogurt,  the donut holes, & a couple of soccer ball chocolates, with a green spork & a green cloth napkin (under his sandwich box).

Happy Monday everyone! 

Stuff used to make & pack lunch:

Ice Cream Sandwich Day Linky Party!

August 2nd is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day! 

So they say, anyways :) I couldn't find any official documentation proclaiming it as such, but Google produced plenty of unofficial evidence...  and if the internet says so, that's good enough for me!

I lo-ove the ice cream sandwiches. The last time the ice cream man came around I got a big fat Mrs. Field's chocolate chip cookie one that completely spoiled my supper in the most delicious way :)

See the picture of it in the photo? Just above the tire,  near Bella.  $3.50!  So worth it.

To observe this scrumptious day, I've got a box of the rectangular chocolate cookie & vanilla ice cream kind of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer waiting for after supper tonight. But for lunch, the sproutlets are going to be having ice cream sandwiches of a different sort, made using our FunBites Luv it!

It's easy to make ice cream cone sandwiches with the Luv it! 

1. Press the FunBites Luv it! into a plain piece of brown bread and rock back & forth to cut through. Don't pop the pieces out though, not yet!
2. Spread peanut butter (or your sandwich filling of choice) on a slice of white bread. I used white wheat here; white would've looked better.
3. Press the FunBites cutter (with the bread pieces still stuck in it) into the peanut buttered bread and  rock back & forth to cut through. Now you can use the popper to pop the pieces out!
4. Separate the heart shape into 2 half hearts. You'll see they look like ice cream cones!
5. Flip over the half-circle top pieces so that the white bread side is facing up, to look like ice cream on a cone!

I can't take credit for this creative use of the Luv it! though...
I saw it on my friend Sarah's blog, Bentoriffic!

Oh, and those other little things around the sandwiches are strawberry, chocolate, & vanilla flavoured ice cream cone mini marshmallows...
I got suckered by the cuteness & novelty of them :)

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥ 

Mmm, look at all these delicious ice cream sandwiches, "ice cream" sandwiches, and ice cream themed fun lunches!  Yum!  Have you made ice cream sandwiches? Are you celebrating Ice Cream Sandwich Day?

Why keep the ice cream party fun to just one day? This linky party will stay open for the rest of the summer! Join us!

February 14th Brunch

What a mean mama I am, I didn't make special school lunches for Valentine's Day! Nah, it's okay, I had already made the sproutlets Valentine-y school lunches yesterday, for the Valentine themed blog hop  ♥  and Bella & Pickle wanted the school's hot lunch today :) It's breakfast for lunch on Tuesdays, and today they were serving cinnamon french toast & pancakes, and sausages. And since I was up way late making chocolatey pretzel snacks for their classroom festivities,  I was quite happy to let the school make them brunch! I'd done my mama duty making lots and lots of these yummy treats:

Pretzels are kind of heart-shaped to begin with. I drizzled a pound of them with half a pound of chocolate - both semisweet and white (coloured pink) - and divided the salty sweet snack between Beanstalk & Bella to share with their classes. Except I did keep this small plate full, for me & the little girls to munch:

I decided to make the little girls and myself brunch as well. We had strawberries, ham, and pink heart-shaped mini omelettes. I cooked the egg & mozzarella omelettes in the microwave in my heart-shaped silicone muffin pan. I wish I'd taken some pics of them cooking! Birdie & Sprout loved watching them puff up out of the pan as they cooked - they looked like they would explode and make a huge mess - but when the microwave stopped, they deflated into perfect proper heart shapes :)

Come to think of it, Beanstalk did get a Valentine's Day lunch today! He took the lunch I made him yesterday, but that he didn't eat because he wasn't feeling well. He felt better today :) Here it is again - or you can click here to see all of yesterday's Valentine's Day themed lunches, and follow the blog hop to see the other 10 lovely Valentine's lunch posts.

   

♥ I hope you all had a lovely Love Day!  ♥