Muffin Tin Monday Archives

Muffin Tin Monday- Easter Lamb

April 9, 2012 By Deirdre

When I think I Easter, it isn’t the bunny that comes to mind, but the lamb. My mom used to make lamb cakes for Easter when I was growing up and lambs have remained my favorite symbol of Easter. Below you will find my lamb lunch and if you visit Rainbows Within Reach you will find a lamb I made for a guest post there made of egg cartons. I hope you enjoy both of them.

Yesterday I shared a rooster crowing, “Jesus has risen.” Today the lamb is responding by saying,” He has risen indeed!”

I don’t normally serve Cheerios on bread with olives, but they came to gather to make a really cute lamb.

The ground is covered with celery and pickle grass with jelly beans hidden in it.

Every meal must have cheese in it if JDaniel is helping plan it. The sun is the cheese element in this meal and it has shredded cheese rays along with mandarin orange pieces!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!

Muffin Tin Monday- Sneaking Carrot Lunches

April 2, 2012 By Deirdre

I am super lucky that JDaniel eats vegetables and I don’t have to sneak them into foods he likes. There are a number of moms I know that have to sneak in veggies through purees of vegetables or baby food.

With Easter right around the corner, I thought I would try creating two sneaky recipes using carrots in muffin tin meals that any bunny or child would love.

The First Lunch

The first meal contained whole grain rabbit sandwiches with cream cheese mixed with carrot baby food spread on top. JDaniel loved them. He enjoyed licking the cream cheese mixing spoon of much that I placed some into celery bites.

JDaniel is not big on celery. It is too strong for his taste. He was willing to eat it with the special cream cheese in it.

The rest of the tin contained foods rabbits would love to nibble. Strawberries, cauliflower, veggies straws, and kiwi grass were all placed in the tin.

My growing bunny loved all of them.

The Second Lunch

The second muffin sneaking carrot lunch has carrots hidden in two foods. The macaroni and cheese have carrot baby food mixed into it. The grilled cheese sandwich has shredded carrots hidden inside.

Actually, when you bite into this special grilled cheese sandwich you don’t notice the shredded carrots in it. The carrots are mixed with a small amount of mayonnaise and a 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese. The shredded cheddar looks just like the shredded carrots.

I served this sandwich to JDanie and his friend Jake and they both loved it.

The meal is rounded out with a small fruit salad.

Both meals were a big hit. If you have a child that avoids carrots, you might want to try one of these sandwiches or the mac and cheese. The carrots are hidden in plain sight, but your child may not even notice they are there.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

Muffin Tin Monday- Homemade Granola Heart

February 13, 2012 By Deirdre

I love granola and yogurt for breakfast. I love heart-shaped doilies around Valentine’s Day. I love berries any time of day or year. Today’s muffin tin meal features all of those things.

I found a wonderful recipe for granola on a blog called Chocolate Carrots. I didn’t follow the recipe completely. Instead of flaxseeds and puff rice cereal, I used Dulce de Leche Cheerios.* JDaniel loves the caramel flavor in this type of Cheerios. I thought it would add some zip to the granola.

JDaniel had a wonderful time helping me mix the dry ingredients. He later had a great time scraping the wet ingredient bowl with a spoon and eating the remnants in it.

When it was done, I formed the cooled granola into a heart.

Then I cleaned up the heart’s rough edges and lined it with blueberries.

Since a muffin tin meal is supposed to have a muffin tin in it, I placed plain yogurt in a muffin cup along with a strawberry heart.

I thought the granola gave my breakfast muffin tin heart at doily effect. What do you think?

Oh! I decided to make my husband a heart-shaped granola bar so he would have something special for breakfast too. As you can see, JDaniel was dying to get his hands on it.

*Disclaimer- I was sent a box of Dulce Leche Cheerios to review along with a prize pack. The prize pack was provided free of charge by Cheerios and General Mills, through My BlogSpark. JDaniel loved them in the granola and he adored them with milk for breakfast this week.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

Muffin Tin Monday- Valentine’s Day Robot

February 6, 2012 By Deirdre

My son loves robots so, I decided to make him a Valentine’s Day robot tin. It won’t be Valentine’s Day for a number of days but, I decided to celebrate it with him a little early.

The robot is made of many of his favorite foods. The robot’s head is Arnold’s sandwich thin with a thin layer of cream cheese on it. The facial features are made up of a strawberry, blueberries, and red grapes.

The center of this body is made of Arnold’s sandwich thin with a layer of Alouette’s new Bacon Cheddar Cheese Spread. JDaniel really loves it. The bits of bacon mixed into the cheese really make this wonderful cheese even better. A ham heart was placed over the cheese. I guess you could say the robot has a “pork belly.”

The robot’s arms and legs are graham crackers. The feet and chomping hands are strawberries.

I decided to add extra fruit into the muffin tin along with plain non-fat yogurt with sprinkles.

JDaniel inhaled this meal. I think it was because it contained food that he likes but, it could be that preschool left him really hungry.

Disclaimer: I was sent the Bacon Cheddar Cheese Spread along with a Sharp Cheddar Cheese Spread by Alouette Cheese. You can find my review on both products later in the week.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday and What’s for Lunch Wednesday!

Super Bowl XLV: Patriots vs. Giants Muffin Tin Meal

January 30, 2012 By Deirdre

JDaniel really isn’t into football but, I thought it would be fun to have muffin tin lunch with a Super Bowl theme anyway.

Let me start by saying that I don’t usually serve JDaniel bread with a fruit chew on it. It was really hard to come up with a way to create the symbol for the Patriots. I must have thought through five different ways to do it but, they seemed even more complicated than the way I ended up with.

Creating the Patriots logo was one of the hardest things I have done to create a muffin tin element. I had to trace the symbol onto cardboard and then trace it onto the fruit chew. The red elements were easy to trace onto a red fruit chew. Placing the cheese under the logo for the face and star was the easiest of all.

I am so thankful that the Giants are in the Super Bowl. Why? They have an easy symbol to recreate. It was so easy to trace their logo onto American cheese.

The rest of the meal is made of ham rolled into a cylinder held in place with toothpicks and football-shaped Oreos.

I really thought about trying to try and make the bread into a football shape but, I was afraid it wouldn’t be big enough to hold the symbols if it was cut down.

While this isn’t the healthiest of meals, I think it contained enough healthy elements in it.

What would you serve in a Super Bowl lunch?

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday?

Chinese New Year Dragon Craft and Snack

January 23, 2012 By Deirdre

Today we are celebrating the Chinese New Year! It is the year of the dragon! I thought it would be fun to create a dragon lunch for JDaniel. Rather than make a scary dragon I made a fun dragon for his lunch. After sharing the lunch I made I will share some fun Chinese New Year dragon craft ideas you will just love.

Chinese Dragon Snack

We had such fun dyeing beige tortilla neon green and cutting them out with cookie cutters for this meal. If you prefer you can create the dragon using a spinach tortilla. It would eliminate the need to dye the beige tortilla and give your kids a vegetable serving too.

The dragon has a ham inner mouth and carrot tongue.The dragon’s eyes are black olives with corn pupils. I am not sure most dragons have crests on their heads, but this one has an American cheese crest.

Yes, that makes this ham and cheese sandwich with a few vegetables. JDaniel loves ham and cheese right now. This was a fun way to serve him some of his favorite foods.

Since New Year’s is usually celebrated with fireworks, I gave JDaniel red grape, red strawberry, and red grape tomato fireworks to have with his dragon.

Chinese New Year Dragon Craft Ideas

After creating a fun dragon snack or lunch, your kids will have fun selecting one of these dragon craft ideas.

Red Cup Dragon from Danielle’s Place

Paper Roll Dragon with Flames You Can Actually Blow from One Little Project

Chinese Paper Dragon from Made with Happy

How to Make an Egg Carton Dragon Craft for Chinese New Year by I Heart Crafty Things

You will find more craft ideas on my Crafts for Kids board on Pinterest. Please take a moment to check them out.

Muffin Tin Monday- Layered Christmas Tree

December 26, 2011 By Deirdre

Merry Christmas! I hope you and yours had a wonderful day yesterday! I have been seeing all kinds of Christmas crafts with strips of paper and other craft materials. I decided to try to make one with food that we had at home rather than buy special foods. Next year I may try other foods that look more like strips. This one is okay, but it isn’t what I pictured.This year’s tree has plain yogurt with a star made of sprinkles, cheese bells, multi-grain crackers, ham cut to look like Christmas lights, red grapes in festive cups, and truck of a cracker.JDaniel really enjoyed this snack! He really enjoyed placing the cheese on the crackers. The grapes were also dipped in the yogurt. The remaining yogurt was eaten with a spoon. This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

Muffin Tin Monday- Away in the Manger

December 19, 2011 By Deirdre

I had it in my head that this week’s Muffin Tin Meal needed to be a manger scene. It was hard to wrap my brain around how to make it happen. Some weeks it is really easy to put together lunch.

Putting the Manger Meal Together

What I couldn’t figure out was who needed to be in the stable. Did I need to have Mary and Joseph or the animals? I finally decided to place a hard-boiled egg on a bed of mozzarella cheese in a holiday muffin tin cup. The yellow of the egg is supposed to represent his face and the white is the swaddling clothes.

The stable was the easy part. JDaniel is big into cheese and crackers right now and these crackers were on special at the grocery store. I think they look a little like a stable building material.

I couldn’t decide how many stars to include in the lunch! The cheese star was a given. The apple stars were added to dress up the plate a little and add a fruit to the meal. I know the Bible doesn’t talk about stars circling the stable, but I do think they look pretty.

If you like this manger lunch, here are some other food creations we have had at my house.

Apple Chicken Salad Bento Lunch

Lunch Ideas with LEGO

Minion Lunch with Blueberry Overalls

Giving Others Christmas Challenge and Muffin Tin Sunday

December 4, 2011 By Deirdre

There are so many in need during this Christmas season. I am hoping you will join me in giving to others in your community or beyond this holiday season.

Each week I will feature a way my family is giving to our community during the month of December. I am hoping each of you will take the time to not only give to your community, but to write a blog post about it. If you do, I would love for you to link it up below and include a link to this post or this badge.

My posts will go on Sundays, but feel free to share your giving post any day of the week that works for you. The link up will be available during the rest of the month of December and will appear on every Giving Others Christmas post.

Week One of Giving at Our House- The Mitten Tree

JDaniel’s preschool has a mitten tree set up in the lobby. We took in two pairs of mittens for the tree. At first there weren’t many mittens or gloves, but the tree is slowly getting covered.

In honor of giving mittens JDaniel had a crescent apple pie with icing in his muffin tin this week. He also had ham and cheese sandwiches on picks Two Bears Farm sent us, red grapes and green pickles.

I think the picks kind of look like Christmas tree toppers on the sandwich stacks. JDaniel loved have tiny sandwiches on sticks. His only concern was that one sandwich might not have cheese, but we found it tucked in a fold of ham. Whew!

I truly hope you will join me in giving others Christmas!

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!

Muffin Tin Monday- Advent 2011

November 28, 2011 By Deirdre

Advent just started yesterday and I thought JDaniel would start it out with an Advent tin. I made flat presents out of an empty cereal box to cover in old wrapping paper.

I used a Christmas tree muffin tin I won from Two Bears Farm last year to house my advent meal. A mandarin orange Jesus lay down his sweet head in a cheese manger. A pear star shone in the darkness on high. Cooked carrots nestled in a church cookie cutter. A brownie sun hung above muffin cups filled with cauliflower sheep and lamb chops bites.Yes, some of this is a stretch, but JDaniel really enjoyed it and emptied the tin completely.This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.