Food Creations Archives - Page 11 of 11

Earth Day Meal for Muffin Tin Monday

April 22, 2012 By Deirdre

I need to confess that this in not one of my best muffin tin meals. Things just didn’t come together the way I pictured them in my head. That happens sometimes.

An Earth made of blueberries and green grapes looked amazing in my head. My husband tried to guess what this creation was and couldn’t. Even after pointing out the Florida he was unsure. Telling him it was the Earth seemed to help, but it was still too abstract for him.

So what do you do when your Earth does work, you deconstruct it. The fruit salad Earth became fruit in a muffin tin. Some of the fruit was used to top blueberry yogurt which isn’t really blue by the way. Some went into its own cups and some was used to make blueberry jelly. (I am just kidding.) The jam came right from a jar and was spread on English muffin earthlings. I guess without eyes, a nose and a mouth the Earthlings may look a little abstract too.

I placed homemade granola in the cup between the Earthlings. It was placed there mostly because JDaniel helped me to make it. He is loves to snack on it or have it appear in a meal.

JDaniel didn’t seem to care about how the meal looked. He just dug right in and enjoyed it. Maybe on Earth Day Earthlings really want to eat their favorite foods. It doesn’t matter if they are in abstract or deconstructed forms. It seems to work that way at my house.

Here are some other Earth Day ideas I think you will like:

Recycled Planter on a String

Earth Day Crafts for Kids- Coffee Filter Earths

You will find more Earth Day ideas on my Earth Day and Crafts from Recycled Materials. Please take a few moments and look over the wonderful crafts, food creation and activities I have saved on them.

Muffin Tin Monday- Star Wars Birthday Lunch

March 5, 2012 By Deirdre

JDaniel adores Star Wars. He has sticker books, action figures, and even a light saber . Today is JDaniel’s 4^th birthday. How could I not give him a Star Wars breakfast in a Muffin Tin!

R2-D2 and C-3PO are his favorites but, I could figure out how to do all the details R2-D2’s has on his case. I chose to do C-3PO, Yoda and Chewbacca instead.

C-3PO looks like he has been through a battle and lost part of his face. I confess I had a hard time cutting through the waffle. I kept trimming and trimming to smooth out jagged edges and finally decided enough was enough.

Yoda was fun to make with his green tortilla ears and lime yogurt face. At first I had him smiling and he just didn’t look right. Yoda always seemed to have a stern look on his face. I had to try several grape smiles to get it right. His raisin eyes had to be adjusted several times too. Yoda had piercing eyes it was hard to capture them in raisins on grapes on apples without having everything fall into the yogurt.

Chewbacca was so easy to put together. He just needed raisin eyes, a prune nose, a prune moth and apple bite teeth. Chewbacca’s fur really need to be darker but, I was afraid he would get overcooked in the toaster oven.

JDaniel loved this meal. The best part was dipping Chewbacca and C-3PO into syrup! Syrup isn’t mentioned in Star Wars as far as I know but, JDaniel sure loves it.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

Muffin Tin Monday- Mardi Gras Lunch

February 20, 2012 By Deirdre

Mardi Gras Lunch- This BTL lunch was made for my son. I loved taking the mask apart and eating it one piece at a time.

Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras! I thought is would be really fun to construct a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich into a Mardi Gras mask for JDaniel. It was so much fun to search the vegetable aisle at the grocery store for ingredients for this lunch. I really wanted to find lettuces that would look like feathers.

This is a little over the top! I know! I probably got a little carried away with the lettuce part of the mask. JDaniel would probably agree with you if you think so. He didn’t really like either of the lettuces used in the sandwich. I am grateful that he was willing to try them.

The other parts of the sandwich were a big hit. He loves bacon! The bacon disappeared first. JDaniel also loves grape tomatoes and tortilla bread. JDaniel wanted seconds of all of those foods. Due to there being only a little of each in the sandwich I willing obliged. If I were to do it again, I might leave off the lettuce! I could have created the feather section with a little more bacon and tomatoes cut into fancy shapes.

Along with the sandwich JDaniel got veggies straws. I thought they looked a little like confetti. Thankfully he didn’t think they tasted like confetti. He really enjoyed them. You could substitute them with carrots and celery if you want. They would be great served as stick or pieces of large confetti.

Do you foods favorite Mardi Gras foods?

I bet some of you love to serve red beans and rice, gumbo, etouffee or jambalaya. They are all wonderful food from New Orleans. If they are not your children’s favorites you might want to serve them a BLT like this one.

I hope you have a wonderful Fat Tuesday tomorrow.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!

Kids Lunch Ideas – Clemson and the Orange Bowl

January 1, 2012 By Deirdre

I didn’t grow up in South Carolina. I grew up in Virginia and went to college there. The people in Virginia love their colleges, but I don’t think they get into displaying their school spirit like the do here in South Carolina. Despite there being several colleges in South Carolina, there seem to be two big ones. There are USC and Clemson. Cars in our area carry symbols of one of the other. People dress in the colors and school logos all year around.school pride. JDaniel started asking about why there were paws on so many cars. I told him that they were proud of Clemson. He really liked that idea. Clemson is going to the Orange Bowl this year so, I decided to make JDaniel a Clemson tiger paw lunch.

Kids Lunch Ideas

I made JDaniel had a ham football with Swiss cheese laces, I wanted him to have some protein in his lunch. Next he had plain yogurt dyed orange with a sprinkle and Smarties tiger paw in his lunch. If your children don’t like plain yogurt, you could serve them an orange flavored yogurt instead. Then I added a mandarin orange bowl (pun intended) to his lunch, Finally dyed cream cheese orange and spread it on bread. A Swiss cheese tiger paw was placed on the spread. Oh! JDaniel had milk in a Clemson water bottle. He loves having his own tiger paw bottle.

He really enjoyed the lunch! Yes, he is eating with his fingers. No, I am not happy about it. Yes, he is wearing Star Wars pajamas he got from his Aunt Kate for Christmas. He never wants to take them off.

If you like these kids lunch ideas, here are some more you will want to look at:

Banana and Orange Messages

LEGO Lunch Ideas

Apple Filled Bento Lunch

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!

Muffin Tin Meals- A Snowman’s Buffalo Chicken Lunch

December 12, 2011 By Deirdre

There is such something wonderful about buffalo chicken dip! I just love the flavors in it. One of its attributes is that it looks like snow in the baking dish. I had decided to make a snowman as one of JDaniel’s muffin tin meals this week. The buffalo chicken dip made the perfect spreadable snowy topping.

The Muffin Tin Meal Building Instructions

Arnold’s 100% Whole Wheat Mini made the perfect foundation for the snowman’s snowballs. They were just the right size to cover the top of the muffin tin cups. The top snowball had a cranberry smile, carrot nose, and raisin eyes added to its dip.
Beside the snowman sandwiches, this muffin tin meal contained a small salad. JaDniel has just started to enjoy salads. I am so excited! It is a great way to get vegetables into a meal.
He also had chunky beef soup to go with the meal. Yes, he had beef and chicken in his lunch. He really only ate the vegetables out of the soup so, the chicken was really the only meat he ate.
Finally, JDaniel had red grapes in his lunch. They have continued to be a favorite of his. He really loved getting to spear them with a snowman pick.
The temperature has finally started to dip here. I am so ready to start filling JDaniel’s muffin tin meals with comfort foods that will warm him up.
Buffalo Chicken Dip:

Ingredients:

2 (10 ounce) cans of chunk chicken, drained

2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened
1 cup Ranch or blue cheese dressing
1 1/2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
Directions:

Stir cream cheese, ranch dressing, and chicken together in a bowl.

Spread mixture into a pie plate.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Serve with crackers and veggies or spread on bread like I did!

More Muffin Tin Meals for Kids

Earth Day Muffin Tin Meal

Star Wars Breakfast for Lunch

Leap Year Snack Idea

Next week I plan on featuring chilly weather comfort foods. Do you have a favorite comfort food? This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

Muffin Tin Monday on Sunday- National Ice Cream Day

July 17, 2011 By Deirdre

Today is National Ice Cream Day! Today’s muffin tin is filled with frozen treats! There is an ice cream cone toasted cheese sandwich, scoops of grape tomatoes, frozen banana pureed with a blueberry (see recipe below), breaded chicken, a cupcake with created with cake mix and melted raspberry sherbet (see recipe below), and frozen grapes.

National Ice Cream Day Muffin Tin Lunch

JDaniel ate everything! The cupcake did disappear first! The frozen banana went second. The chicken went last.

He thought the ice cream cheese sandwich was really cute! I just love it when he digs into lunch! I don’t know if it loved that it was National Ice Cream Day or the fun foods he liked best.