Packed Lunch Ideas and Lunchbox Reviews

Whether you take a sandwich to work or make a packed lunch for your children I think there are few British people who haven’t made a meal at home and taken it with them to eat later. In the US a packed lunch is traditionally known as a bagged lunch and from what I’ve seen on television, Americans usually put their sandwiches in a brown paper bag. I’m not sure if this is completely accurate; to my mind, a packed lunch in a paper bag would get squashed! Surely American children must use lunchboxes as well – or is this a very British thing?

When I was at primary school, your lunchbox was a huge status symbol. They were square plastic boxes with handles, which fit a plastic flask inside (which came with the box), and were often decorated with the latest cartoon characters. I actually had a metal (tin) one at one point with a garden scene on the front, which I loved – until I was too cool for it any more and wanted a Care Bears one!

As an adult I used a plain Tupperware box with a white lid, and I’m not adverse to keeping plastic takeaway containers and reusing those for sandwiches or taking leftovers to work. But as I take a packed lunch to work almost every day it’s nice to have some better quality, attractive and even fun lunchboxes! I need a few in case one is in the dishwasher or I have something larger than usual, or sometimes I take different elements of a meal which need to be in separate containers.

So it was great when Flamingo Gifts offered to send me a few products from their website to review and as I wanted to test out food, drink and kitchen-related products I chose a couple of lunchboxes.

Flamingo Gifts has a wide range of gifts though – as well as kitchenware and gifts for the baker and cook in your life, there is jewellery, stationery, accessories like bags and purses, baby gifts, homewares like cushions and clocks…. The site is also divided into sections allowing you to browse for ideas for your boyfriend, grandmother, teenage girls and so on. The prices are very reasonable, and at the time of writing, a special deal offering 10% off and 1p first class delivery on all orders. I had great fun browsing the site and making a wish list!

I love Happy Jackson products with their fun and sometimes irreverent slogans. This lunchbox really makes me smile, from the sunny yellow colour with the jazzy band holding it together, to the message “Yay, lunch” – which is pretty much how I feel when it gets to midday!

The elastic band holds the two parts of the lunchbox together securely – though I wouldn’t put a liquid (such as leftovers in a runny sauce) into this in case it seeps out in your bag (if like me you have a long commute in the morning, or you have a child who will be carrying this around all day). There is plenty of space for a sandwich and piece of fruit and a KitKat for instance - or whatever you are having for your lunch.

One word of advice, I wouldn’t put this in the dishwasher; I also have their lunchbox which says “my very healthy snacks” on the front – and when you take the elastic band off you see the words “yeah right”! – and the words partly came off after one wash in the dishwasher.

It is really good value at only £5.94.

The second lunchbox I was sent to review is more of a bento box. I often take lunches into work that require assembly when I get there - for instance things that would go soggy if put together in the morning. I also like to take different salad ingredients and there's something nice about having them all separate rather than tossed together in one box, and this little lunchbox lets you do that.

It's from Ted Baker - also available on Flamingo Gifts - and is bright pink with a little metal bow on the elastic. The RRP is £12.99. It's very clever as the two sections can be carried separately with different contents and when they are empty, one fits inside the other to take up less space in your bag - ingenious!

The boxes are fairly small - it is 8 x 15 x 7cm when expanded - and only 5cm when shut. So this might not be enough for your entire lunch - I prefer to use it as a snack box and put for instance some crudites in one section and these Slimming World beef wraps in the other:

They are very easy to make. Take a slice of cooked beef - the kind you get in packets like ham -and spread with a thin layer of Quark and sprinkle over a dash of lemon juice and some salt. Fill with rocket and other lettuce if desired, roll up, and eat as a wrap.

Finally I selected this farmyard compartment tray - it's aimed at kids but I think it's really cute! The RRP is £9.31 which is a little more expensive but I think families with young children would get a lot of use out of it. The reason I like it is because as I said I sometimes like to have different things for my lunch which are all bite-sized, e.g. a portion of potato salad, some roast chicken slices, some carrot sticks and so on. The compartments are deep enough that you could put a dip in one section and perhaps the carrot sticks in the rectangle next to it. When I have lunch at my desk I eat out of a lunchbox -so it would be nice to  put this out in front of you! It also comes in a floral 'secret garden' design.

What do you take your packed lunch to work in?

Thanks to Flamingo Gifts for sending me the three items to review. All opinions are my own.

Less Sinful Smoked Mackerel Pate

smoked mackerel pate

Fish pate is something that always makes an appearance at Christmas, whether it's as a starter on Christmas day or as part of the Boxing Day buffet. We had a food tasting session at my Slimming World group this week which was an opportunity for me to try out another recipe from the Slimming World Christmas book.

Mackerel pate usually uses cream cheese or crème fraiche but you can cut the calories - while keeping all the taste - by using Quark instead. If you haven't come across Quark before you're really missing out - it's a very versatile curd cheese that has a very plain taste so can be used in both sweet or savoury dishes. It can be used in place of crème fraiche, natural yogurt or cream cheese and is virtually fat free. It is also quite thick so is good for dishes where you want a robust texture.

Making this mackerel pate is really simple. The recipe from the Slimming World book was actually for smoked trout pate but I couldn't get any smoked trout, so mackerel it was!

You need
250g smoked mackerel fillets
125g Quark
3-4 spring onions, chopped
1 tsp horseradish sauce
couple of drops of Tabasco sauce

Dry-fry the chopped spring onions for a couple of minutes and flake the fish into the same pan and stir until combined.

Spoon into a large bowl and mix well with a fork into the Quark until you have a relatively smooth texture.

Add the horseradish and Tabasco. Mix well and transfer to a serving bowl. Serve with breadsticks or melba toasts.

Choc Shot Liquid Chocolate

Choc Shot is a liquid chocolate that is sold as a mix for hot chocolate but, as the manufacturers Sweet Freedom say, its uses don't stop there. I'd heard people talking about it at Slimming World and bought a bottle in Tesco; it retails for around £3.50 but a little goes a long way.

Choc Shot is low in calories and low GI, and suitable for diabetics and vegans. It also claims to be 100% natural. I think it tastes really good and is very versatile, so here are some of my top uses for Choc Shot:

1. Hot chocolate
This is after all what it is designed for. Mix some Choc Shot into hot milk - you won't have powdery lumps you get with traditional hot chocolate mixes if you don't stir it properly! It was delicious.

2.  Low-fat chocolate mousse
Mix some Choc Shot into a tub of Quark and within seconds enjoy a creamy low-calorie chocolate mousse.

3. Low-fat chocolate ice cream
Do the same as above, but pop in the freezer for a couple of hours and you have a low-calorie chocolate ice cream.

4. Drizzle on top of cupcakes (or any other dessert)
Much less messy and time consuming than melting chocolate to drizzle over desserts; it is really easy to control where you are putting it and as it isn't hot (unlike melted chocolate), you won't melt your buttercream. These particular cupcakes were delicious and will appear on my blog in the future!

5. Milkshake/Latte
Another Slimming World -friendly recipe. Blend a Mullerlight cappucino yogurt with some skimmed milk until frothy, pour into a tall glass and drizzle with Choc Shot for a low-syn ice cold latte. You could also try other Mullerlight flavours to make a milkshake.

Do you like Choc Shot, and what have you used it for?

Watermelon Fake Cake

 

 This is a wonderful alternative to cake - and quite fun to serve to people who think it is a cake, until you cut inside, and reveal it is actually watermelon!

I got the idea from something I saw on a Slimming World Facebook page; if you left off the nuts around the outside the whole thing would be completely syn free.

All you need is a watermelon, a tub of Quark, sweetener (optional), flaked almonds or chopped mixed nuts (optional) and any fruit you like to decorate the top.

I've had a bit of an obsession with watermelon recently, as regular readers will notice!

Slice the top and bottom off the watermelon so it will sit flat and then use a sharp knife to remove the rind by cutting down from the top, turning it over and doing the same from the other side.

Mix the tub of Quark with a little sweetener (such as Splenda) if desired. Pat dry the watermelon with some kitchen towel and spread the Quark around the outside and on the top. I've already put it on a cake board at this point.

Take handfuls of flaked almonds or chopped mixed nuts and stick around the outside.

Top with fruit to decorate.

And here is the finished 'cake'!

I took this into work and my colleagues were surprised when they realised what was inside - and I think happy that I made something healthy! This is great for a summer party when it is too hot to eat cake but you want to make something.

 

Stuck In The Tree is a bingo review site that is about having fun online and off; they are running a 'bakespiration' competition so I am sending them my cake in the hope they will include it in their gallery.

I'm also sending this to Ren Behan's Simple and In Season, hosted this month by Sally at My Custard Pie.

Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen is hosting a blog challenge called the Vegetable Palette, and this month is asking for entries using red fruits or vegetables. Watermelons are a kind of reddish pink so that will do!

Top 10 Ice-Cream Toppings and some Low-Fat Ice Cream

When I was younger, Pizza Hut was a rare treat- and the Ice Cream Factory rarer still. The soft whip ice cream that came out as you pulled a handle, and the seemingly endless bowls of sprinkles and toppings were the stuff that dreams were made of. Well, almost. Anyway it got me thinking about ice cream and toppings, when I saw that the theme for this month's We Should Cocoa was chocolate ice cream and ice cream toppings.

I would love an ice cream maker but don't have the space - you need to put the base of the gadget in the freezer, and I have a fairly small freezer that is always packed with food. I can't even fit in a small tub of store-bought ice cream (and it was only after my boyfriend moved in that I started buying frozen chips), let alone a massive bowl from an ice cream maker. We are moving to a new house soon - well, I hope it will be soon, as the process is into it's fifth month and we are rapidly losing patience with the other people in the chain. When we move, I think we are going to buy an American-style fridge - it will dominate the kitchen which I'm not thrilled about, but I can't wait to have that much space for food. So who knows, maybe I can put an ice cream maker on my Christmas list this year.

I did make a very good low-fat 'ice cream' (in that it's not technically ice cream) which was very quick to make. I simply took a tub of Quark (virtually fat free curd cheese) and a bottle of Choc Shot. This is a liquid chocolate that you get in the hot chocolate aisle of the supermarket, but you can use it for so many other things as well as making hot chocolate. It's low in calories, dairy-free, low GI and if you are on Slimming World, I believe it's 1 syn for 1 tbsp.

All you do is mix 1-2 tbsp of Choc Shot with the Quark and put in the freezer for a couple of hours. Take out, give it a stir to break up the crystals and return to the freezer. You'll need to allow it to defrost a tiny bit when you want to eat it to get the spoon in the pot - it's a delicious chocolate ice cream alternative.
 

What are your favourite toppings for ice cream? I have to admit I usually eat my ice cream plain, but I wondered if I was perhaps missing out on something. So here are a few suggestions for ice cream toppings; please add any more in the comments box!

1. Sweets

For the full Pizza Hut ice cream factory experience, you can sprinkle Smarties, mini M&M, jelly tots and all sorts of other sweets over your ice cream. I once managed to find a packet of mini Reece's Pieces cups which would be fantastic on ice cream, and if you can't find them, you could chop up the regular sized cups. Sophisticated? No. Delicious? Yes.

2. Sauce

Chocolate or butterscotch sauce is the most traditional ice cream topping and as a child the one I remember most is Askeys Butterscotch Treat sauce.

3. Wafers
I never particularly liked wafers stuck into my ice cream as a child as they were quite plain, but visually they work really well - they add a bit of height to the dish and the different texture creates interest for the eye (even if they are not so interesting for the taste buds!). 

4. Fruit
I had to include at least one healthy option! Chopped strawberries, mixed berries, pomegranate seeds - anything that takes your fancy. Fruit works really well on frozen yogurt too. 

5. Sprinkles

Dr. Oetker sent me some of their newest products which are intended as cake decorations but I think they would work really well on ice cream too. New flavours available in their sprinkles collection include lemon meringue, eton mess and banoffee. You can match the flavour of your sprinkles to the ice cream or add them to something plain like vanilla.

6. Cookies

Crushed Oreos or mini Oreos are delicious as an ice cream topping and add a different texture to the smooth ice cream.

7. Chocolate chips or chocolate curls
This wouldn't work with most fruit-flavoured ice cream but on vanilla, chocolate or mint (or possibly strawberry - think white chocolate perhaps) a little sprinkling of chocolate is lovely, both decadent and quite classy at the same time. 

8. Whipped cream

I think the first time I came across whipped cream on ice cream when I lived in Germany. I was au pair to a little boy and I took him to the ice cream parlour in the village. It was 1 Deutschmark (now I'm showing my age!) per ice cream scoop so I told him he could have two; when I was charged 3DM they explained that the extra cost was for the scoop of whipped cream he had added on top - as I had said two scoops of ice cream and didn't realise there was an option for extra cream! To be honest the idea of whipped cream on top of ice cream is quite strange to me, and I never thought they really worked together. Has anyone tried this?

9. Coffee
Affogato is a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over the top, served as a dessert in Italy - I think I recall seeing it on the Pizza Hut menu as well. I've never tried it as I'm not really a fan of cofffee but it would be a sophisticated way to end a meal. 

10. Coca -Cola

This is not something to put on your ice cream, but something to put your ice cream in. I loved Coke floats as a child, and still do. There's nothing like adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream to a tall glass of coke, watching the cola fizz up and then enjoying the creamy taste as you drink the concoction through a straw and scoop out the last of the ice cream with a spoon. I gather you can make all kinds of 'floats' but this is the classic. You could try adding a scoop of raspberry ice cream to lemonade or a scoop of cookie dough ice cream to a cream soda. I don't recommend doing what a friend of mine once did however. He told me that when he was younger he was told he could make any kind of float he wanted, so requested - if I remember correctly - a scoop of mint ice cream in a glass of Lilt. Which just sounds plain wrong.

I'm sending this to We Should Cocoa, created by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary, as the theme this month is chocolate ice cream and ice cream toppings.

Slimming World Stuffed Lemony Chicken with Quark

 Chicken stuffed with cheese has always been popular in my house so I was intrigued by this low-fat version that I found in a Slimming World recipe book, Extra Easy All In One. It's not entirely a one-pot dish in the sense that I would want to cook potatoes and vegetables separately, but it is pretty easy to make. I adapted it because the recipe involved roasting sliced red and yellow pepper and mini vine tomatoes in the same pan and I didn't want to have any of those with this dish. So this is just the chicken, but it's very tasty (and you could add the peppers and tomatoes if you wanted).

To serve two, you need:

2 large chicken breasts

1 clove garlic, crushed

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

2 tbsp quark

1 tbsp finely chopped Peppadew Mild Peppers

1tbsp chopped fresh tarragon or 1 tsp dried tarragon 

2 rashers bacon, all visible fat removed to make this properly SW (which I didn't do)

salt, pepper

1 lemon, sliced 

Preheat oven to 180C. In a bowl mix the quark, garlic, lemon zest, peppers and tarragon. Season.

Make a slit in each chicken breast to form a pocket. Spoon the filling inside.

Wrap a piece of bacon around each chicken breast, securing with a cocktail stick if necessary. As someone has pointed out in the comments below, I didn't remove all visible fat - you need to do this if you want it to be a proper Slimming World recipe. My bad!

Place in a baking tin lined with foil and add the lemon slices, plus sliced peppers and baby tomatoes if you are using them. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes depending on the thickness of your chicken as it needs to be cooked through, of course.

 Serve and enjoy!

Slimming World-style Low Fat Chocolate Swiss Roll

 Members of my Slimming World group have been raving about a "half syn cake" for ages; it's so low in fat that is is half a syn for the entire cake. The cake doesn't use any flour or butter so it comes out very flat, so I had the idea of rolling it up to make a Swiss roll. I thought it would be much nicer as a chocolate Swiss roll so I added cocoa powder, which is 1 syn per level tablespoon. I used two in the cake and one in the filling, meaning this whole cake worked out at 3.5 syns, or just over half a syn a slice as I cut it into six pieces.

You need:
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 tub Quark
3 tbsp cocoa powder
4 tbsp Splenda or other sugar-free sweetener

Preheat oven to 180C. Separate the eggs and whisk the whites until you have soft peaks.

 In another bowl, mix the eggs with 2 tbsp Splenda, half the tub of quark and the baking powder and 2 tbsp cocoa powder.

Mix well and fold into the egg whites.

Line a Swiss roll or shallow baking tin with greaseproof paper and spray with Fry Light, then pour over the cake mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes then allow to cool. When cool, turn over and remove the baking paper.

Mix the remaining cocoa powder and sweetener into the rest of the quark.

Spread over the cooled cake

And roll up to make a Swiss roll.

Slice to serve. It doesn't look all that amazing but it's a decent cake for only half a syn a slice. My boyfriend even enjoyed it and asked for second helpings, which means it's definitely as good as a non-Slimming World cake!

I'm sending this to the One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen and Laura at How To Cook Good Food, as the theme this month is healthy recipes.

The Four Seasons Food Challenge, hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux, is themed around healthy or virtuous recipes as well this month so I am sending over my low fat Swiss roll.

The star ingredient of this month's Tea Time Treats is egg, and since eggs are one of the only things in this cake I think it's perfect! The challenge is hosted by Janie at the Hedgecombers on behalf of Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked.