Muffin Tin Monday - Gone Fishin'

Each week I tell myself that I'll squeeze in a Muffin Tin Meal, and each week I totally forget. It's been such a long time, I half expected to see cobwebs in the cupboard where my muffin liners and cookie cutters are stored!

Gone Fishin'

PBHoney fish, string cheese "worms," PBH fish,
Rainbow Goldfish crackers, spinach, raspberries

Since Unka Seesee (who normally does the grocery shopping) has been so busy studying for new certifications (computer-y stuff) to get a job, our larder has been getting neglected. We're down to a few green and white wax beans that I got at the Farmer's Market a few weeks ago, and some raspberries left over from jam-making (that were shockingly still good! LOVE my BluApple!)
She had asked for a PB-Honey sandwich for lunch, and since I had this theme mostly planned out in my head, I was able to bang it out pretty quickly so we could head outside to sort through more of the junk in our garage. I used a plastic cutter that came in a set with 2 other shapes for, like, $1 at Michael's I think. The smaller fish was just able to squeeeeze onto the rest of the bread. No clue where I got the little one. My only guess would be from this set, but it doesn't look like it. Maybe it was one of my thrift-store finds.
I cut a string cheese stick into fourths lengthwise, then those into half, and curled them into the liner to look more wormy.
Goldfish Crackers were both an obvious and cop-out-y choice, but she had asked for some at bedtime the night before and I didn't give her any, so I thought it would be fun for her lunch.
Luckily, my spinach has been growing like gangbusters out in the planter pot on the back porch. So I opted for some spinach to be 'leaves' for the fish, rather than the last of the beans to be more 'worms' or maybe 'poles' (she doesn't like the white ones, and there are only 1 or 2 green ones left anyway.) And she loves 'grazing' on the spinach leaves whenever she goes back there.
And the raspberries are clusters of 'fish eggs,' theme-wise.

I chose to alternate two patterns of paper liners because they looked really pretty together (I turned them inside-out to show off the design!) I got my assortment from Bake It Pretty, but I found a new supplier, Sweet! and they are much cheaper! I used aqua with brown dots and blue with white dots.

Picnicing in front of the garage

She ate the little sandwich fish, all of the raspberries (plus seconds,) all but one cheese worm (which she let me eat,) all the spinach, and most of the crackers (she dropped a few, and my husband ate some.) She was super excited about the spinach. I wasn't sure she would be. She loves eating it right off the plant, but I didn't know how much of her enjoyment was in 'harvesting' it herself. But we've always drilled into her that you don't just eat flowers, mushrooms, berries or leaves that you find, so when it first started growing and I told her she could eat the leaves off that plant, she felt some wicked little thrill, like she was doing something forbidden! She nibbled the plants all down to their stems! Even now, she still gleefully tells me whenever she 'got to eat leaves.' But apparently salad doesn't count. Ah well.
I ate the bigger fish sandwich. I made her lunch instead of making myself some breakfast, so it wasn't a hard-sell on her part to get me to eat her sandwich. And I don't feel bad at all, since she ate pretty much everything else! And considering that young children's stomachs are the same size as their fists, it's no wonder she didn't have room for the extra sammie!

Check out the other fun meals this week! Ahhh! So good to be back!