Culinary Adventures with Camilla

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of  Dreamfarm  and  PackIt .   All opinions are my own. Dreamfarm  sent me their redesigned Oni knife and  PackIt   sent their Freezable Classic Lunch Box to try out and review.* These two products breathed some fun into our lunch prep and my Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf was eager to try give them a whirl...then he stole the lunchbox right out from under me! Oh, well, I guess that means it's a winner, right?  The  Oni  quickly became our go-to knife for prepping lunches. It's a handy size that falls between a cumbersome chef knife and a tiny paring knife. The shape of the blade allows you to scrape every last bit from a jar without scratching it; the top edge of the knife is rounded, like a butter knife, so you can spread with it; and the bottom edge is sharp, so you slice with it. There is a plastic wrap slicer built into the handle. I have to admit: we didn't try that. But, li...

Last month, I wrote an article for the Sunday Supper Movement about Winning the Lunchbox Wars . In the piece, I recounted a recent conversation with my husband and a lesson I had learned: the bag matters. It goes like this... Last week my husband complained about the fabric bag I sent his lunch in. "Do you have another bag I can use?" he queried as I placed containers into a fabric bag adorned with little kid-faces and the words YUM YUM YUM. What? You don’t like my bag?! “I work with guys…” he trailed off. Were you not listening when I explained to the boys that it doesn’t matter what other people think as long as you like it?!? "Okay, well, I don’t like it." And that was the end of that. So, I let all three of my boys - my husband and our two boys - pick their lunchboxes. There are so many options these days. Some have gel to keep the lunches cold. Some have multiple compartments to keep food separated. This is an easy concession to m...

School began for us this week. And every year, I ponder the same thing. I ask: "How do I get my kids to pack their own lunches?" Don't get me wrong; I'm not talking about making the food, or even wrapping the food. I'm talking about taking the pile of food that's on the dining room table at their spot and putting it into a bag. That's it. I was dreading the onset of the Lunchbox Wars v.2015. But  PackIt provided me the perfect solution to my problem: Get a cool lunch bag! Earlier this summer, PackIt sent the boys the bags of their choosing, for the purpose of reviewing the products. The boys checked out the website, grabbed their rulers, considered the options, and made their selections. We received the bags in time for the boys to try them out during a few day-camps and, as I mentioned, we started school this week. So, we've used them for a couple week's worth of lunches. The novelty might wane eventually, but for now, I'm relishing ...