Back to School Week - Sandwich Shapes

First of all, for all of my Jewish readers, Happy New Year! I love, love, love Rosh Hashanah. It's so perfect that the Jewish New Year is at back to school time. It's a great time for new beginnings and starting fresh. For dinner tonight, we incorporated honey (for a sweet new year) in our chicken, with a yummy honey spiced grilled chicken recipe that was in the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday. I also made a savory noodle kugel (recipe here) and sauteed some of my CSA baby zucchini with roma tomatoes and parsley from my garden. It was a great dinner! Vivi, our au pair, provided dessert with some traditional Brazilian sweets (Brigadeiro) that she made with the kids after school.

OK, so I promised a fun lunch idea/recipe each day this week. Today I want to just talk a little bit about the sandwich shapes that I showed on the CBS2 morning show yesterday. I have frequently seen suggestions from people to cut sandwiches into fun shapes for school lunches. That said, it always seemed impractical. I hate the thought of wasting a lot of sandwich, and the typical bread size/shape doesn't allow for more than one cookie cutter shape.

As I was brainstorming ideas for the morning show, though, a light bulb went off for me. If I used a rolling pin to flatten out the bread before making the sandwich, I'd create more surface area and be able to make more than one shape with my cookie cutters. Voila! By rolling my bread, I was able to use TWO large cookie cutters, and had very little waste. The waste I DID have was quickly consumed by Max for a little snack, so I felt very frugal.

Do any of you get super creative with kids' lunches? If so, do you always get creative? I find that I usually end up losing my steam after a few weeks.

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Comments

[Melissa]

Don't forget...you can always throw scrap bread in a baggie and save for later (freezing it or letting it sit out for a day) to make breadcrumbs - or to take along to the zoo and feed the ducks!

[emily]

OK, for the creatively impaired...did you roll out the bread, then put on the toppings, and then use the cutters to cut through the bread and toppings? Or roll out the bread, cut it out, and then top the cut outs? The second way would allow you to save the bread like the previous commenter suggested, but the first way seems like it would look better.

[foodmomiac]

Hey Emily. You could do it either way, but I cut them after the fact. Not great for leftover bread to make breadcrumbs, but was faster!

[Alex]

Or you could make a sandwich on white bread and a sandwich on brown bread, cut the middle out of both sandwiches with a cookie cutter and then swap the over so you are left with (example) a white sandwich with a brown flower in the middle and a brown sandwich with a white flower.

Or you can get yourself some special sandwich cutters that are designed to make the most of a slice of bread.