A is for Australia Day Snack Box Printable

No Australia Day celebration is complete without Australiana themed decorations.  The Australian flag, Australian flora and fauna and iconic images should cover everything from the paper plates to guests' clothing.

To help make your children feel special at your Australia Day celebration I have come up with this Australia Day Snack Box.  It is simple to put together and makes any snacks look a little bit 'fancy'.

To make the Australia Day Snack Box, all you will need is scissors, glue and the design downloaded from here printed onto card stock (I used 210gsm white card).  The coloured tissue paper is optional.

To put the Snack Box together, cut out the box along the solid lines.

Fold along the dotted lines keeping the pictures on the outside.  Place a small amount of glue on the tabs and stick the tabs on the short sides to the insides of the long sides (see the photos if this doesn't make sense).

Line the Snack box with a rectangle of white or coloured tissue paper.  This step is definitely optional and can be left out if you want to save on waste.

Place your snacks in the Snack Box and hand out to your guests to enjoy.

Bear and Bee's Australia Day Snack Boxes contain vegemite sandwiches, an Anzac Biscuit (see my previous post on making Anzac Biscuits for the recipe) and a pink lamington.

Traditionally lamingtons are covered in chocolate icing however Bear and Bee aren't big fans of chocolate so we went with girly pink.  It is entirely up to you what colour icing you use.

If you want to make your own lamingtons this is what I did:

Cut a store bought sponge cake into even medium sized squares (ours were about 4cm x 4cm).  You can use a butter or madeira cake and it can be homemade but make sure it is not just baked.  The cake really needs to be a day old or it will be too fresh and fall apart when you try to cover the pieces in icing.

Make a runny icing using 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar mixture, 1/4 cup of hot water and 4 drops of pink food colouring.  If you want chocolate icing replace the food colouring with 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder.  Whisk really well to get a smooth icing.

Coat each cake square with icing and allow excess to drain off.  Roll iced cake square in 1 cup of desiccated or shredded coconut and allow to set for 15 minutes.

Happy Australia Day.

B is for Back to School

Most school aged children in Australia will be starting or going back to school in a little over a week.  One of the challenges of this process facing parents will be what to pack for lunch and break time.  Making this task even harder is the hot summer weather.  And while I don’t have to pack lunchboxes for Bear and Bee yet, I still like looking for ideas for hubby’s lunches – much cheaper and healthier than having him buy lunch every day.

Nicole over at Planning with Kids has a great calendar available for 2013 to provide you with inspiration for your child’s lunchbox.  Check it out – the recipes are great and there is also a list of seasonal Australian fruits that work well in a lunchbox. There are also some wonderful ideas in many of the food magazines available at your local newsagent.  

So now is the time to get in and do a bit of planning before you get caught up in the rush of packing school bags and trying on uniforms.  Perhaps do some practice runs with the lunchbox if your child is starting school for the first time.  Pack their lunchbox early in the morning, or better still the night before, and have them eat from it during the day to get use to the idea.  You’ll get any idea of what they can cope with and whether they have any trouble with opening the containers etc.

I would also suggest sitting down with your child and their lunchbox and brainstorming some ideas of what could go in it.  To help with this idea, I have created a lunchbox worksheet that you can download for free. Each section of the lunchbox has a specific food heading and the lunchbox as a whole covers all the food groups (fruit and vegetables, milk and dairy, breads and cereals, meat and protein). 

Click here to download the free pdf worksheet

Younger children can paste in pictures of appropriate foods from magazines while older children can draw and/or label their food suggestions.  If you have time, you could help your child prepare a few versions of this worksheet to have for new ideas for their lunchboxes during the school term.

There are lots of ideas on the internet for what to include in kids’ lunchboxes.  If you need some inspiration, here are a few of my favourite sites.

Kids Healthy Lunchbox Ideas @ taste.com.au

10 Top Lunchbox Ideas @ kidspot.com.au

Healthy Lunchbox Ideas for Kids @ Stay at home mum