I mentioned in an earlier post how much I love doing boxed lunches for birthday parties. They're made ahead of time, and the kids feel like they're getting a present when they get to open it up, and they tend to eat more of the healthy food that way. I decided to take it a step further, and have fun with the food inside the box this time, too, and turn the turkey and cheese sandwiches into nautical life preserver rings.
Materials for making Nautical Life Preserver Ring Sandwiches
- white sandwich bread
- provolone cheese
- lunch meat (I used turkey)
- sweet red pepeers
- a set of nested circle shaped cookie cutters
The most important tool for making these cleverly shaped little sandwiches is my favorite set of round circle cookie cutters. It's a nested set of round cookie cutters made by Ateco, and it's so useful for so many things! It's also gloriously compact. I love nested sets!
Start by cutting the white sandwich bread into the largest circle that you can get out of the bread. Use a small circle cookie cutter to cut out a small circle in the center of the circle of bread. I chose to stack up two large circles and punch the center circle through both at the same time so they'd match up perfectly.
Trim the turkey and the cheese into perfectly sized circles using the same two round cookie cutters and assemble the basic sandwich.
Cut strips of sweet red pepper and set on top of the sandwich to create instant nautical charm.
These little deli containers were perfect for holding the sandwiches, and keeping the red peppers perfectly in place. I bought mine locally at Smart and Final, but they're easy to find online as well.
People do absolutely amazing things--far more cool than I could ever imagine--with school lunches in bento boxes all the time. My kids do not get anything more than a sleepily-slapped-together sandwich, piece of fruit, carrots, and whatever snacky little thing I can find in the cupboards. I count on the My Little Pony lunch box to get my little one excited about lunch. But for a birthday party, something special and fun like this was totally worth the effort.
It's not like it was hard at all, but it's still not happening at 6am on a school morning.