The ABCs of lunch
Use the lunch box as a tool for learning by making letter-themed meals. Working your way through the alphabet is a great exercise for your imagination, too—it makes you think up 26 different lunch ideas!
Prep a pear and peach peacock
The ABCs of lunchIngredients
- Pear
- Peach
- Pecans
- Pomegranate seeds
- Pretzels
- Pita bread
- Pesto
- Peas
- Parmesan
Instructions
- 1 Cut a pear in half, drizzle the cut sides with lemon juice to keep it from browning. Make small holes for the dried blueberry or raisin eyes, plus a slot for the pecan beak. A cookie cutter can be used to cut the letter P on the peacock's stomach. Gently press it into the surface, it doesn't need to go deep.
- 2 Using a small knife to carefully lift off the fruit skin on the letter P. Squeeze some lemon over the exposed fruit flesh.
- 3 Insert the dried blueberry eyes and pecan beak. Cut a peach into slices and use for the fanned tail feathers. Place the peacock in the lunch box first, then place the other ingredients. The pita is spread with pesto and filled with peas and parmesan, but you could also use peanut butter and pomegranate seeds. Keeping the pita bread in a Ziploc® snack bag ensures freshness.
Monochrome munchies
Colors are another nice theme, for both looks and nutrition. Brightly colored produce contains more antioxidants—so the brighter, the better. Choose a single color, as seen below, or go for a rainbow-themed box for the ultimate color explosion! Monochrome munchies
Ingredients:
- Strawberries
- Red apple
- Cherry tomatoes
- Kidney beans
- Mini round of wax-encased cheese
- Whole wheat tortilla
- Salsa
- Red bell pepper
- Shredded cheese
- Cherries
- Raspberries
Favorite animals
Celebrate a birthday lunch by making an animal-themed lunch box based on your kid’s favorite animal. Shown here is a dog, but by cutting the sandwich a bit differently you can easily make a cat, fox, or whatever animal your kid likes the best.
Favorite animalsIngredients
- Blueberries
- Celery stalks
- Two pieces of whole wheat bread
- Cream cheese
- One black olive
- Carrot
- Snap peas
Instructions
- 1 Take two pieces of bread, apply desired spread (here: cream cheese) and sandwich them on top of each other. Using a knife, cut two small triangles from the bottom half of the two layers to make a doglike shape.
- 2 Cut a black olive across the middle. Use half of it for the nose, sticking it on the sandwich with the help of a little bit cream cheese. The other half should be further cut into rings to make the eyes. Fill the eye rings with cream cheese and insert tiny pieces of black olive to make the center of the eyes.
- 3 Make dog bones out of celery pieces by cutting as shown.
- 4 Fill the lunch box with remaining ingredients: Blueberries for sky, a celery stalk dog house, the dog sandwich, a carrot fence and snap pea grass with the celery dog bones.
Lunchbox landscape
Your lunchbox landscape can vary according to what you have in the fridge. Try a literal garden salad with tomato ladybugs, carrot flowers and radish roses. Adding a bean and cheese flower and a blueberry yogurt pond looks great and adds protein to fill a hungry little stomach. Choose robust salad leaves to avoid wilting—baby spinach or kale work great. Lunchbox landscape
Ingredients:
- Salad leaves
- Radishes
- Carrots
- Cherry tomatoes
- Black olives
- Kidney beans
- Cheese
- Blueberry yogurt
- Green grapes
- Red grape
Instructions
- 1 To make radish flowers, cut off the top and bottom of each radish. Make four straight cuts from the tip and almost through to the bottom, so that you get eight wedges seen from the top. Place the radishes in a water-filled Ziploc® container and let soak in the fridge for at least half an hour (ideally several hours, or overnight) to make the flowers open up more. Drain and use.
- 2 The little cute ladybugs are simply half a cherry tomato and black olive put together. Slice a tomato in half length-wise and make a small cut partly down the middle. Cut a black olive in half for the head and dice remaining olive really small to make the black spots.
- 3 Peel a carrot and slice it into small disks. Cut out four small triangles on each side to make carrot flowers.
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