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Fall Harvest Lunch Box by Wendy Copley for Alphamom.com

Fall Harvest Lunch Box for School

By Wendy Copley

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

How to make Fall Harvest Lunch for School

Use a bowl or round container to cut a couple of slices of bread into a circle shape.

Cutting bread for Harvest school lunch

Make the bread resemble a pumpkin shape by cutting a shallow notch at the top and a couple of smaller notches at the bottom.

Shaping bread into pumpkin shape for Harvest lunch

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.)

Pumpkin shaped sandwich for Harvest lunch

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.

"Pumpkin pie" cheese crackers

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.

Fall leaf apple carving for harvest lunch

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.

Fall Harvest Lunch Bento Box

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About the Author

Wendy Copley

Wendy Copley is a cook, writer, crafter, lunch-packer, wife and mom. Whenever she goes too long without doing something creative, she starts to lose her mind, so she’s always working on some ...

Wendy Copley is a cook, writer, crafter, lunch-packer, wife and mom. Whenever she goes too long without doing something creative, she starts to lose her mind, so she’s always working on some sort of project. Her focus frequently shifts from sewing to baking to paper-crafting to creating with her kids but she is unwavering in her devotion to packing cute, mostly-healthy bento box lunches for her two boys.

You can follow her adventures on her blog Wendolonia or you can learn all her lunch box secrets from her book, Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go.

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