[Easter Lunchbox] Baked Cheesy Potato Cake

Happy Egg-citing Easter everyone! I am sure most of you are having a great weekend filled with delicious food like roast lamb, hot cross buns, colourful Easter eggs and treasure hunt games. As for us although we did not prepared any Passover feast but I did made an Easter themed lunchbox for my kid to share with his classmate during lunch break.

MOCK CARROT
(made with butternut squash & kale)

The lunchbox consists of two portions and it is mainly make-up with vegetables like potato, pumpkin & kale together with other ingredients such as quail eggs, ham & cheese.

The "mock carrot" shown above was made using baked butternut squash & kale that were put together to resemble the shape of carrot. On top of that some lightly baked cherry tomatoes were added at the base as "pebbles" too.

(Yield: 1 1 Preparation: 5 minutes | Cooking: 10 minutes)

Ingredients:
3 slices of butternut squash, 0.5cm thick
1 stalk kale leave, roughly tear apart
a few cherry tomato (optional), halved
olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
carrot shaped cutter, optional

Method:
1. Using a food-cutter or free hand cutout the shape of three "carrot" shown above from the butternut squash and set aside.

2. Lightly season kale and butternut with olive oil, salt & pepper. Toss well till combined.

3. Using either an oven toaster or oven, bake kale for 1 minute and pumpkin for 3 minutes or until cooked (do not over baked or the shape will break apart).

4. Assemble the "carrot" by arranging butternut in the container follow by kale leaves.

A quick demo snaps on how to prepare this Easter Lunchbox.

BAKED CHEESY POTATO CAKE
(serve with quail eggs, ham & kale)

Potato Cake which often refers to potato fritter or potato pancake is part of an items in breakfast menu. You can easily prepared them a day ahead and bake in the morning before serving together with some bacon, ham and egg depending on your preference. Here I keep it simple by baking the cooked potato chunks with dots of unsalted butter and shredded cheese to taste before assemble it with quail egg, ham and kale.

(Yield: 1 | Preparation: 10 minutes | Cooking: 20 minutes)

Ingredients:
2 large potato, cut into 2cm chunks
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup shredded cheese
knot of unsalted butter
3 quail eggs
1/2 slice of breakfast ham
black sesame seeds
dash of dried parsley, optional
salt & pepper to taste

Method:
1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil, add in potato and simmer until almost tender. (less than 10 minutes).

2. Drain well and toss with some olive oil, salt, pepper and dried parsley.

3. Lightly squash the potato chunks then transfer them to a grease disposal foil tin or baking tray and form a potato cake.

4. Top with dots of butter and bake for 15 minutes before scatter the top with some shredded cheese and continue to bake for another 10 minutes or surface is browned and bubbled.

5. While baking the potato you can cook quail eggs (4 minutes) and prepare the bunny using cooked ham and sliced cheese.

6. When the potato is done, arrange quail eggs, bunny ham and remaining kale leaves on it.

7. Decorate the feature of the chick and bunny using black sesame seeds and sliced cheese and you are ready to serve.

Lastly hope you will like this simply Easter Lunchbox above and if you need more ideas on Easter themed food do check out our list here.Till then enjoy your long weekend holiday.