Kasey and Karena: School food (+recipes)

Mini bacon and egg pies.

Having something tasty and fun to eat is perfect lunchbox fare.

We remember going to school and having our lunchboxes filled with generous sandwiches of ham, tomato, cheese and lettuce. We would sometimes have little containers of freshly cut vegetables to dip into a mint yoghurt and, if we were lucky, some of our Nana Jill's sultana cake. We didn't realise how lucky we were until we grew up and had to start making lunch for ourselves. The effort and time Mum would put into our lunches while still working a full-time job amazes us.

Everyone is so busy these days, so we are sharing some of our favourite childhood lunchtime treats that Mum would make. The first are her mini bacon and egg pies (pastry-free). She would make a batch of these, then freeze them. She would put them in our lunchboxes and they would defrosted by lunchtime. The fruit jars were one of our favourites. Mum had this obsession with Agee jars (even before they became trendy) and would make us fruit salads in the jars.

We felt pretty cool having fruit all ready to eat in our sealed jars.

Mini bacon and egg pies

Serves 4 (over 2 days)

8 slices brown bread
8 free-range eggs
2 large rashers of bacon, rind removed and diced
1 Tbsp parsley, chopped (optional)
8 cherry tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 210C

Spray a muffin tray with oil spray. Using a rolling pin, roll the slices of bread flat and, cutting around a saucer that is slightly bigger than your muffin tray holes, make circles out of the bread. Crack one egg into each bread case.

Sprinkle the diced bacon evenly among the four cases and place a cherry tomato into each case. Give each case a sprinkle of salt and pepper, add parsley if using, then pinch the yolk with your fingers to break.

Place the pies into the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from tray. Allow to cool and wrap them in plastic wrap and individually and freeze. Place them in lunch boxes and they will be defrosted by lunch time.

Fruit jars

Serves 4

12 Tbsp yoghurt (any flavour)
8 strawberries
1 cup blueberries
2 kiwifruit
1 cup watermelon, diced
1 cup grapes
4 Tbsp shredded coconut
2 Tbsp goji berries (optional)

Place 2 Tbsp of yoghurt into the bottom of each jar. Start adding the fruit evenly between the jars in equal amounts.

Spoon one more tablespoon of the yoghurt over the fruit, then sprinkle over the coconut and goji berries.

Close the lid and store in the fridge.