School Lunch Day 52: Lunchable with Cheese Flowers

The Lunch Idea:

This is just simple snack box of little nibbles - like a homemade lunchable. But I realized that I hadn't been using any of my cutters in a long time, so I thought I'd break out a couple and just cut the cheese into some pretty flowers.  It doesn't take more than an extra minute or two, but it makes the lunch look just a little more fun.

I want to point out the egg in one of these lunches.  (sadly, only one of my kids will eat hard cooked eggs). This egg was not boiled - it was pressure steamed in my pressure cooker.  If you don't have a pressure cooker, you simply must get one.  This is the ultimate fool proof way to make perfect eggs every time. The shells literally slide right off.  I have tried every single trick out there for boiling and peeling eggs, and I am telling you that nothing makes better eggs than a pressure cooker.  It is the only way I will cook them now. I have two pressure cookers and they are both awesome.  This one is more basic and a little less expensive.  And this one has tons of extra cool features (you can even make yogurt in it!).  To make eggs in the pressure cooker you simply put them on a basket or a rack with about a cup of hot water in the bottom, set the electric pressure cooker for 4-5 minutes of high pressure (depends on how well done you like them), and then quick release and then cool them in an ice bath. 

What's in the Lunch:

• Crackers
• Cheddar cheese flowers
• Two also have a little sliced turkey cut in the flower shape.
• Sugar snap peas
• Mandarin orange
• Three have a combination of raisins and almonds.
• One has a boiled egg.
• Two have half a banana
• Two have a few animal crackers.

Questions and tips:

• Every time I do any kind of cut out, people always want to know what I do with the scraps.  For this lunch, the extra cheese scraps were eaten by the kids for a snack.
• I made these lunches two days ahead - this was a Tuesday lunch and I made it on Sunday. Everything was still perfectly fresh and the crackers were still crisp.