Todays lunch...
Morning Tea - Stewed apple and natural sultanas with cinnamon sugar sprinkle
Lunch - Cold beef curry and cheddar cheese mini-pies. Fresh strawberries in vanilla yoghurt (Jalna All Natural pot-set yoghurt)
Drink - Water
The mini pies can be filled with what ever you have on hand as leftovers from your nightly meal - a hearty stew or casserole filling would be just as lovely! We had delicious beef curry leftovers, so that's what I used, especially as it's one of Miss Five's favourite meals. Take a small amount of your leftovers and chop any chunky meat or vegetables so it's a fine consistency. I mixed a little cooked leftover rice in with ours too. Then use two circular scone cutters to cut bottoms and tops for your pies from ready-made frozen puff pastry. (Miss Five liked helping with that part!) The cutters we used were 7cm and 6cm in diameter. Spray a muffin tray lightly with olive oil and place in your larger bases. Top with a spoon of your filling and a small amount of grated cheddar cheese.
Then top with the smaller circles and press edges down gently. We used some baby shape cutters to cut shapes from the leftover pastry to top the pies with but you certainly don't need to do that if you don't want to. Instead you could try sprinkling with sesame or poppy seeds if you fancy those! Or just leave them plain - whatever floats your boat!
Bake in a 180 degree celcius oven until brown and crisp. Mine puffed up an awful lot and leaked a little - I just used a knife to push all that yummy goodness straight back in as I popped each one out of the muffin tray to cool on a wire rack. Once cooled a little, store in the fridge until needed. If you have a piemaker, you could make larger size ones for adults too (or just use this size as a snack). Delish!
To make the stewed apple and sultanas, peel and core a whole large cooking apple and add it to a saucepan with a handful of natural sultanas and a dash of water. Cook on a low heat until apple is soft and sultanas are plump. Remove from heat and sprinkle a small amount of cinnamon sugar - stir through. Once in lunch container, sprinkle an additional small amount of cinnamon sugar on top and refrigerate. (This is also a lovely one to use for dessert with caramel or vanilla icecream or custard. Mmmmmmm!)
Hope you've enjoyed our lunchbox today. Have a great weekend!
Pies!! I'm cravings for pies now! haven't eat pie for ages and homemade is the best! Love the ides of cutting cute shapes on top of the pie, surely will tempt the kids to eat it! Thanks for sharing! I'll surely try it on at home :)
ReplyDeleteYour pies look delicious! We recently bought a pie maker and it is a great way to transform out left overs. The kids like them as an after school snack.
ReplyDeleteYES!! We have a pie maker too and while the pies are a little large for Miss Five, the hubby LOVES them! You are absolutely right - they really do transform leftovers. It makes comfort food even more comforting and a little bit treat-like! YUM!
ReplyDeleteThese lunchboxes are very inspiring. They also make me feel a bit guilty...
ReplyDeleteP.s. Thanks for visiting my blog - nice to "meet" you!
LOL No guilt intended, just inspiration! You would probably feel less guilty if you saw my daughters lunchbox on the OTHER four days of the school week! ;)
ReplyDelete