lunches | Roaming Rosie

So I took a look at when I last published a post on this blog and … *gasp* it’s been HOW long?

Well, my attempt at balancing work and kids and going back to school for my masters and planning a wedding all at the same time did not work out as planned. And things got even more complicated this past spring when we all went into lock down and I was both working from home and home schooling my girls.

I still access this blog all the time, especially for recipes. And heaven knows I’ve never stopped taking pictures of what my girls and I get up to.

But with the craziness that’s surrounding us all right now, I’ve decided to start writing again. There aren’t suddenly more hours in the day, but I miss doing this. Plus, it calms my anxiety (extra important in these stressful times!) and, hey, I love sharing food with you guys.

Halloween is practically around the corner – it IS August after all. So I’m going to start by sharing Halloween recipes and ideas.

This recipe here is for an age-old favorite of mine: open faced cheese sandwiches.

These are so much fun. And in the fall especially, my girls wind up getting some variation of these for lunch quite a bit.

Cheese and bread make a great base for a lunch since they go with so many different sides. I can throw these on a plate with pretty much whatever fruit is on hand and it works.

For the pumpkins and ghosts pictured above, I used yellow American cheese and white Provolone. You could also substitute another white cheese like Swiss, Mozzarella, white Cheddar or Monterey Jack, depending on your family’s favorites.

I placed the cheese slices on the bread and microwaved it for about 8 or 10 seconds, just until the cheese started to melt. This makes sure it doesn’t fall apart in their lunchboxes. You could also try warming it in a toaster oven instead – just keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.

I personally like mine with crispy half-burnt cheese, but well, these aren’t for me…

Once the cheese is melted to the bread, simply use cookie cutters to cut out the shapes. I can’t remember the brand of cutters I have, but they are similar to these and these.

I was able to get two pumpkins out of one slice with the size cookie cutters I have. And, really, I often just save the scraps to eat as part of my own lunches. Or, you know, midnight snack. If they make it till midnight.

You could also use them as cheesy croutons in tomato soup. If yours last longer than mine…

Here is a similar way I like to change it up: Jack O Lantern Cheesy Bread

Follow my Halloween Pinterest Board for more ideas!

Happy Early Halloween :)

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I’ve already started adding fun Valentines-themed snacks to my kid’s lunches.

The top picture is of heart-shaped strawberries.

Okay, okay… they’re not obviously hearts upon first glance, so I did mention to my girls ahead of time that they were getting strawberry hearts in their lunch bags. Just in case my artfulness didn’t shine through right away.

Anyway, to make quick strawberry treats that vaguely resemble hearts, follow these steps:

Wash strawberry.
Cut top off of strawberry.
Cut berry in half.
Cut a triangle out of the top center of the berry.
Cut off the edges of the top at an angle.
Ensure children they’re getting lovingly carved hearts and not mangled fruit pieces.

You can also toss those extra strawberry pieces into a bowl of cereal or oatmeal, by the way.

And onto the next photo…. I used a tiny {about 1-inch} cookie cutter to cut hearts out of American cheese slices and flour tortillas.

I cut out about twice as many tortilla hearts as cheese ones because my oldest likes to assemble her own cheese sandwiches out of the pieces.

The last photo doesn’t have anything heart-shaped, but instead includes something red.

I tossed a few red M&Ms {leftover from Christmas} into a container of nuts. Cashews, specifically, since I think they taste better than peanuts, and there are kids in my daughters’ classes with peanut allergies.

My girls will eat the nuts without any extra incentive, but I felt the dash of red color just added a little fun.

And if you’re wondering about the containers I had the cashews in, these are the ones I use:

My girls love getting snacks in these little triangle containers. They’re technically condiment containers, but they’re easy to open {even for my 2yo} and they hold plenty of food.

Not a LOT of food, mind you, but a handful of nuts or raisins or goldfish or about 5 or 6 grapes. Enough for a snack.

Oh, and I also cut apple slices and used the same heart shaped cookie cutter to remove the seeds, thus putting a heart in the middle of the circle slice. But I forgot to photograph those. I’ll try to remember next time. :)

Please share any fun Valentine’s snacks you’ve made for your own kiddos!

**********EDIT: Aug 2015**********

Aaaaaand….. now that I’ve been making heart strawberries in a way that’s SO much easier for a while now, I should probably update this post! ;)

Anyway, after I wrote this, I discovered that it was way easier to just cut the strawberry in half and use a small heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the heart. Takes two seconds and looks amazing! Plus – the cuteness factor means my kids eat more fruit! (Even at school!!!)

Check it out:

And you can see that I used one of the larger heart-shaped cutters for the sandwiches. Since peanut butter and (strawberry) jelly can get a little messy, I sometimes cut out the bread first and then fill them instead of making the sandwich ahead of time and then cutting out the heart.

Happy Eating! (Or happy school-lunch making!)