Muffin Tin Dinners Still Rock…

We started doing theses muffin tin dinners when Ebi-kun was 2 and he still loves them! Now he is big enough to make his own though! Sadly, we don't tend to have them now except for the holidays since he has school dinners.

From the top, clockwise…
Boiled egg, cucumber slices, strawberries, parma ham, tomatoes, pineapple, cheese in the middle and macapone on homemade bread.

Monday MTD

It is a while since we have had a muffin tin dinner and this was actually fro last week!

From the top...
Cheese and pineapple (why save it for a birthday party?)
Avocado
Mini tomatoes
Boiled egg
Mini tomatoes (one can nver have enough!)
Ototo crisps
In the middle persimmon

and yes, I had the same :)

Let The Holidays Begin....

It is no secret that I love muffin tin meals but during school term I don't really get a chance to make them. Ebi-kun was on half days yesterday and today so I thought we should kick of the holidays in style!

At the back we have cream cheese rolls, the clockwise a boiled egg, ham, string cheese, pineapple and crisps in the middle.

MTD are perfect for the holidays, you can stock up with lots of bits and bobs then just slap it in a muffin tin and call it dinner! If you have kids that like different things or are picky eaters,  perfect - just give them what they will eat, no faffing around making different lunches. Plus the kids love them.

I have collected the ones I have made in the past and made a pinterest board for them, just in case you are looking for some inspiration. We might even do some themed ones again this summer!

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MTD's are back on the menu

When Ebi-kun is at school it is difficult to get muffin tin meals into the menu but now he is off for the summer we welcome them back with open arms.

from the top avocado tortilla chips, cucumber yoghurt dip, steamed broccoli, melon and blueberries, baked courgette, boiled egg, baked courgette and rhubarb crumble in the middle.

For more muffin tin inspiration pop over to the muffin tin mom.

Gold Medal Muffin Tin Dinner

I made Ebi-kun a booklet of Olympic things to do, one of the pages was to design his own Olympic Muffin Tin Dinner. He had to pick foods to go with the colour choice for each ring and he had to go and check that we had that food in (kept him busy as I was working).  So here is his gold medal Olympic muffin tin dinner....

It was a great springboard to start the conversation about the types of foods athletes eat and a discussion about healthy foods. The only thing we missed was the yellow pepper and that was because I said we had some but then realised I had used it all the night before. If you want to make your own Olympic plate I save the page as a PDF for you. You could also use the page for a colour matching activity for little ones or get the kids to draw the food instead of writing it. And as always, there is more muffin tin fun over at the muffin tin mom. If you think this fun and have friends who would enjoy it, then click the share buttons!

Olympic MTD Jojoebi-Designs

A Fancy Muffin Tin Dinner

 

I would like to claim I made this but we had bought a bento. Ebi-kun also wanted a muffin tin dinner so I just put the bits in a the muffin tin liners.

Starting from 12 o'clock... salmon rice ball, salad, hijiki rice ball, fried chicken, pickled daikon, shumai, rolled omlette, sausage & potato and in the middle cherries and salad.

More muffin tin fun over at the Muffin Tin Mom.

Muffin Tin Dinner and green pizza recipe

This was dinner from sometime last week, I just re-discovered the photo!

Starting top left...

Broccoli & cauliflower pizza, strawberries, tomato & sausage pizza, sweet potato

Ototo crisps, pineapple, ototo crisps, avocado

Broccoli & cauliflower pizza, Italian cheese, chocolate crispy nest, mini tomatoes

The broccoli & cauliflower pizza had become a favourite in this house. It is dead easy to make, I always make my own dough, well I say make, I throw the ingredients in my bread machine and it does the work. For the green topping, I steam some broccoli & cauliflower so that it is just cooked. Stick it in the blender with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a 1/2 a cup or so of Parmesan (I have used grated cheese too instead of Parmesan). Season with salt & pepper and whizz in the processor until it is like a thick paste. Spread it on the pizza base, pop in the oven and you are done.

I never actually measure anything for this and the recipe was adapted from one I saw on pinterest but that included garlic too. I found that the garlic version wasn't so popular in this house. I have also thrown in other veg if I have been short on the main ingredients, onion and spinach both turned out well.

Starry MTD

My silicon muffin liners are starting to look a bit shabby so I picked up some new ones the other day, star shape, could have done with these when we were studying Van Gogh.

Top L-R
Sekihan (sticky rice), miso peanuts, grapes, potato
potato, avocado, sekihan, pumpkin
grapes, pumpkin, potato, girls day rice candy

I was late getting dinner on the table so the photo is a bit dark, apologies!

For more MTD's head over to the Muffin Tin Mom.

First MTD of the year...

What is a MTD (muffin tin dinner/meal)? well, it is a meal served up in a muffin tin or in muffin silicon liners, we have been doing these for years now and Ebi-kun never gets bored of them. Recently though he has started eating dinner a bit later, we have been eating together so I haven't been making them as often.

This is the first one I made this year....

Top left to right...

• red and yellow pepper hearts
• parma ham sandwich roll
• strawberries
• parma ham sandwich roll
• coleslaw
• ototo crisps
• string cheese
• ototo crisps
• more ototo crisps
• strawberries
• parma ham sandwich roll
• coleslaw

Why I like MTD's....

• it is a great way to use up leftovers or little bits and bobs in the fridge and it doesn't matter if it is foods that you wouldn't normally put together.
• it is a good excuse to play with all the bento making things I own
• even better excuse to use the gazillion cute picks I own
• a great way to slip in some new foods (although I don't have that problem with ebi-kun)
• it is a super easy way to produce a balanced meal.
• it gives the child the freedom to eat their meal in any order they wish
• it is quick and easy (usually) and perfect if you have guests or children that all like different things.

I just asked Ebi-kun why he likes them and he said...

• because you put funny things
• because it is a mix of foods
• because it is a surprise, I never know what you will put in it
• I can do food experiments like trying different foods together to see if they taste good or bad.
• I like guessing what the theme is when you make a cool MTD.

I don't make a themed tine every time but I do like the challenge of themed tins and they do take a bit longer to put together but they have been worth the effort, ebi-kun has loved every single one I have made. Looking through these has made me quite sad that we haven't been having them so often recently. Ebi-kun had a half day on a Wednesday and eats lunch at home, I think this would be a perfect time to reintroduce the MTD on a regular basis. To finish up, I thought I would share some of our favourite themed tins from the past...

this years Halloween MTD

the ninja MTD

the completely over the top Willy Wonker MTD

The Antarctica MTD

the Mr Men MTD

Christmas version

Inspired yet or have I put you off? If you want to see what others do with their MTD's then pop over to the Muffin Tin Mom, she has a linky every Monday.

Halloween MTD

My favourite muffin tin dinner of the year! Some of the regular revolting fayre and a few 'new' morsels this year....

The Menu

Ghostly spirit to drink

300 year old eyeballs

zombie brains

freshly dug up graveyard dirt and bones

tender severed fingers

mean mini jack o' lanterns

rotting zombie mouth

pickled giants toe nails

deep fried tarantula

witches broomstick

ghostly ghost

the deep fried tarantula - riceball wrapped in nori with cheese eyes

Tender severed fingers - tutorial here

Ghostly ghost - rice and nori

rotting zombie mouth - apple and almonds

300 year old eyeballs - tutorial here

Witches broom - steam asparagus, string cheese, nori
and painted with brown food colour

Pickled giants toe nails - yellow pepper in light vinegar

Mean mini jack o'lanterns - mini tomatoes with nori

Zombie brain - annindofu and strawberry jam*

Ghostly Spirit - milk with stickers on the glass!

I got the brain molds from Amazon jp but they  are also sold on amazon here. Want to see more Halloween Muffin Tin dinners then check them out HERE

I have put together my favourite Fun & Fast Ghoulish Halloween Treats into an ebook so you can whip them up at anytime (why just serve ghoulish food at Halloween?)

17 absolutely disgustingly delicious treat ideas... 

All fast and fun to make

All pretty healthy, made from kitchen basics

Most of them suitable to make with the kids too

PLUS a bonus labels pack too!

Muffin Tin Dinner...

Oops! I forgot to take the before shot. This is what the after shot usually looks like though!

Looking for more MTD inspiration, pop over to the Muffin Tin Mom...

 

MTD and new picks

I splashed out (at the ¥100 store) and got some new bento picks the other day and couldn't wait to use them. These are super-cute since they look like animals from the top but ....

From the side it is a cupcake! 

It was a bit tricky trying to get all the picks in one shot plus Ebi-kun kept sighing and asking of he could actually eat his dinner yet, hahaha - spot the blogging mom!

and the full meal..

From 12 O'clock.. steamed asparagus, yellow pepper, taco wiener sausages, avocado, chocolate biscuit, pumpkin and spaghetti in the middle.

Looking for more MTD fun, pop over to the Muffin Tin Mom.

I can eat a rainbow...

a rainbow inspired muffin tin dinner...

This is actually from last week, we have just got back from the in-laws and I haven't had chance to upload the pics yet. 

So, from 12 o'clock... 

red mini tomatoes

orange cheddar cheese

yellow mini tomatoes

green avocardo

pink parma ham

purple beetroot

blue blueberries

and white mascapone in the middle for dipping.

Ebi-kun had eaten half of it before he realised that I had colour coordinated the picks with the food!

This rainbow tin started lots of conversation about food and their colours, I love doing a weekly muffin tin meal, it is easy to throw together, Ebi-kun always demolishes the lot and it is a great way to introduce new foods (not that we have a problem with Ebi-kun and new food!) One of Ebi-kun's favourite things to do with his MTD if to combine foods that would not usually be served together. I often hear him muttering things like, 'ewww blueberry and ham is not a good combination' or 'hmmm beetroot and cheese is good together'

If you want to join in with the muffin tin fun, pop over to the muffin tin mom for the weekly linky.

Muffin Tin Dinner

From 1 o'clock.... 

yellow pepper, carrot flowers, rice ball, mixed nuts and dried fruit, 

cucumber, rice ball and tofu with okra in the middle.

MTD

green cups: pasta in garlic sauce

pink cups: cucumber, carrots, yellow pepper

blue cup: taco weiners 

yellow cup: mini banoffi pie

more MTD's over at the muffin tin mom

MTD

Starting at 12 O'clock and working round...

Bread, mini yellow tomatoes, okra (ladies fingers), home made cheese, 

cucumber, bread, yellow pepper, parma ham 

and in the middle some French pastry

for more MTD's pop over to the Muffin Tin Mom

We haven't done a themed tin for a while maybe the next one...

Sushified MTD

This was Saturday nights dinner for Ebi-kun, he had eaten bread on the train so he wasn't very hungry and because we had been out all day I hadn't got anything ready to eat so I picked up some sushi on the way home

cucumber, tomato, melon, 

shrimp sushi, fish egg sushi, tuna sushi and ginger.

More MTD's over at The Muffin Tin Mom

Muffin Tin Dinner

quite bright and cheery this time.

From the top:
Calzone,
tomato, sugar snap peas,
sweet beans, ham
and orange and carrot jelly.

If you want to see what other muffin tin dinner makers are up to,
pop over to the Muffin Tin Mom.

ninja tin dinner

Watch out - there are ninja about....

 and they are likely to get in you dinner!

From the top...

ninja rice balls

cucumber sticks, takenoko sweets (bamboo root shapes sweets, cheese cake flavour!), avocado

tomato, ham and cheese swirls, tomato

I had planned something a bit more exciting but we went out for a walk, ran into friends and got in too late for me to start faffing around making things - next time...maybe.

New to muffin tin dinners and want to know more, pop over to the muffin tin mom.

The Being Prepared MTD

If you are looking for the Bracelet raffle it is HERE 

We we scheduled to have a blackout this afternoon 3.00pm - 7.00pm so I thought it would be best to be prepared and made Ebi-kun's dinner early so I didn't have to worry about cooking. Of course, the blackout never happened but at least his dinner was already prepared and it has been a while since he had a MTD.

From the top left

red and yellow pepper, pasta, senbei (rice cracker) more red and yellow pepper

pineapple, egg, egg, pineapple

ham, mixed dried fruit, konbu (seaweed), carrot flowers

Now, I did have big plans for the egg but it all went wrong, when I boiled it, the shell cracked and some leaked out which meant it was a funny shape once I had peeled it, so I got the food pens out and drew silly faces on them instead - as you do.

Looking for more muffin tin fun, head over HERE