Brunch Lunch

I was going to make brunch today but I was up most of the night with itchy little girls (allergies & eczema from our weekend away) so when I finally did get to sleep I did not want to get up - lucky for me Sailor Boy is on leave so I got to sleep in until past brunch time! As a result, brunch was actually served at lunch time :)


They had carrot mini muffins, scrambled "eggies", cheese, yogurt, oranges, and juice. This is Bean Sprout & Baby Bird's. Bella had the same thing but on a regular plate, and with a regular size muffin, and Beanstalk had lunch with a friend. Pickle wanted a muffin tin lunch too, so here is his peanut butter sandwich version, that he helped make:


The little girls really like getting their lunch in the muffin tins - and they don't have preschool on Mondays so it works out well :)

Two Firsts

1) I decided to bake carrot muffins in the silicone mini muffin cups I've had for years. It's the first time I've used them for their actual purpose! I thought they might bake faster than regular muffins but they took the same amount of time. And oops, I forgot to spray the cups with cooking spray! Luckily the muffins popped right out nonetheless, and the cups washed up easily as well - which was a relief, as some of the reviews I've read about them have said just the opposite, and I was a bit apprehensive. I cut the muffin batter recipe in half which still made enough to fill the cups nearly to the rim - so I did, hoping they wouldn't overflow... and they didn't :) They are so little and cute!



2) My mom gave me these ice trays from IKEA. They are some kind of synthetic rubber, not silicone, and I don't think they are oven-safe, they are even labelled FOR WATER ONLY - but I think they'd be handy for lots of things other than ice :) If anyone else has these, or similar ice trays, I'd love to know if you've used them for anything other than freezing water! Anyways, Sprout likes rice, so I thought I'd see if they worked as rice molds... I only had some leftover brown rice with veggies in it, not white as I've seen used in all the real rice molds, but they came out just fine, the shaped rice popped out easily and held it's shape. So here is my first rice shape ♥

Flower Power!

We're heading out of town this afternoon, and I didn't use the peppers I had bought for fajitas (we had something else) so I needed to use them today or lose them. Luckily, Bella, Sprout and baby Bird like peppers. 

Flower Power lunch for the girls ✿

• Chicken & cheddar mini bagel sandwiches
• Bunny Grahams
• Bell pepper & cheese flowers on a bed of lettuce
• Carrots (bunnies like carrots)

Bella got her own Flower Power EasyLunchboxes bento, Sprout & Birdie shared one. They all had a good time clowning around with their lunch.

Bella discovered that if you squish a pepper slice it looks like a silly monkey :)

Pickle's peanut butter sandwich was a flower too, made with the blossom Lunch Punch from the Sandwishes set.

He said it was pretty ♥

You are my Sunshine

♪ My only sunshine ♫ You make my happy, when skies are grey... 
This morning was another grey one, so a sunshine themed lunch sounded perfect... and by lunchtime the sun was out, so the sproutlets got to enjoy their sunny lunch in the sunlight :)

Beanstalk and Bella each had the Easy Lunchbox version:

A little love note peeked through the lids to brighten their day :)

They had sunshine shaped three-cheese quesadillas on a bed of Sun Chips with cheddar suns, Clementines, Sun Maid raisins (grapes & sunshine!), honey roasted peanuts, and Teddy Grahams. 10 year old Beanstalk asked me not to make his lunches too cute, so he didn't have sunshine shapes or bears, he had more peanuts instead. Not pictured is a family favourite, sunshine juice (lemonade + orange).

Sprout & Baby Bird had a muffin tin version:

Pickle had a smiling sun peanut butter sandwich

(with his usual yogurt and apple juice)

Everybody loved their lunch. Beanstalk blushed at his note but I could tell he was pleased - he hugged me after he was finished eating! And Bella said she definitely wants me to make this for her school lunch. Hooray!

Now lunch is over and the sproutlets are outside in the back yard soaking up some summer sunshine while they still can :) I think I'll go join them ☀

Like the look of our EasyLunchboxes? Get some!

And the Mini Dippers, and the cookbook too!

Hugs & Kisses

We're leaving for the park in a few minutes, and will have lunch there. It's kind of a grey & gloomy day, looks like it might even rain, but we haven't had much of a summer this year, and if we wait for a sunny day to go to the park, it could be a while!
I've packed Easy Lunchboxes with a snacky lunch of ham & cheese, crackers, apples & baby carrots. I used little cookie cutters to cut some of the ham and the cheese into little X's & O's & heart shapes for a touch of love ♥

Pickle's daily PB sandwich also got some cookie cutter love ♥

UPDATE: The sun never did come out from behind the clouds, but it didn't rain either :) Once again I packed too much food - Bella ate all hers, but the little girls ended up sharing Sprout's lunchbox and we took Birdie's home and recycled it's ingredients into a chef salad for their Daddy's supper. I had planned to use the scraps from cutting out the ham & cheese shapes to make a quiche but the day wore me out and by supper I didn't feel like making pastry, so instead I hardboiled the eggs and threw them and the scraps in the salad too. It was a huge salad! Here's Bella & Sprout having lunch in the park: