Fall Harvest Lunch Box for School
Celebrate the end of autumn with a cute school lunch box filled with fall treats for the kids. Pumpkins, foliage, apples, and slices of “pumpkin pie” all come together in a delicious harvest.
Ingredients:
- whole wheat bread
- sandwich fillings of your choice
- triangle shaped crackers (such as Tricuit Thin Crisps)
- cheddar cheese
- cream cheese
- apple
- red and yellow bell peppers
- roasted butternut squash
You’ll also need a divided lunch box, a small bowl, kitchen shears and a small leaf-shaped cutter.
Here’s how to make this Harvest Lunch
Use a bowl or round container to cut a couple of slices of bread into a circle shape.
Make the bread resemble a pumpkin shape by cutting a shallow notch at the top and a couple of smaller notches at the bottom.
Fill the sandwich with the fillings of your choice, then cut a small piece of the bread crust (from the scraps) and add it to the top of the sandwich for a stem. (Save the bread scraps for another use.)
Put the sandwich in the lunch box, then add a handful of chopped red and yellow bell pepper pieces to make it look like the pumpkin is sitting in a pile of leaves.
Next we’ll make some cheese and crackers “pumpkin pie”! I saw this idea in a post by Sandra Denneler on SheKnows and I knew it would be adorable in a kid’s lunch. Hers are extra fancy, with three kinds of crackers, but I only had the one kind so I made a simpler version. To make them, cut a piece of cheddar cheese so it’s slightly smaller than your cracker. Break a piece off another cracker for the back of the crust. Put a small amount of cream cheese on each cracker to “glue” the crackers to the cheese. Use a small measuring spoon to add a small dollop of cream cheese on top of the pie to mimic whipped cream.
Cut a few chunks of apple, then press a leaf-shaped cutter into them until it just goes through the skin. Use the tip of a paring knife to gently remove the cut-out and add the apple slices to the lunch box.
Finally put some leftover roasted squash into the lunch box. Cold? Yes! I didn’t think my kids would eat it that way, but they liked it. Your mileage may vary, but you never know until you try.
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