How to Create Halloween Themed Lunches with Cookie Cutters - Spooktacular Creations

Halloween is just around the corner and what better way to celebrate than by adding some spooky flair to your kids lunchbox? In this post I will share several Halloween themed lunches that I've created with cookie cutters. Here is a link to many more Halloween themed lunches.

Here are some supplies that you may need:

• Cookie cutters in various Halloween shapes (bats, ghosts, pumpkins, cats, and witches, to name a few).
• Fresh ingredients for your desired lunch, such as sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, and cheeses.
• Condiments and spreads (cream cheese, ketchup, honey, etc.). We usually use honey as our food 'glue'.
• Cute food picks or food-safe markers.
• A dash of creativity and a spooky spirit!

Below is how I created these four lunches.

In this lunch: Main compartment contains a Jack-O-Lantern sandwich and a baby seedless cucumber. For the Jack-O-Lantern I used a two sided cutter to cut the shape of the components and then used the other side for the cut-outs only on the top slice. A bit of crust serves as a stem. I used our lettering cookie cutters to leave a faint (spooky?) BOO impression on the cucumber. In the upper right section there is a mandarin orange with a small celery stick as a pumpkin and stem and below them are some strawberries. In the center I included some fruit snacks. Packed in our leak-proof Yumbox.

In this lunch: For these I used my larger bat shape cutter and added eyes and mouth cut from fruit leather ( a dab of honey to glue the features). Above these bat sandwiches there are organic carrots and celery sticks with a BOO pick, and to the left of those are some bat shaped pieces of mild cheddar and mozzarella cheese. I used the same small cutter for both the cheese and the cut-out of the apple half. In the center are Annie's organic fruit snacks. Perhaps dark pumpernickel bread might have been more typically bat like, but what I used here seems to make the little red eyes a bit more startling. This lunch was packed in a Planetbox Rover.

In this lunch: For this lunch I have a sandwich topped with a mozzarella cheese ghost which I shaped with a cutter and decorated with bits of raisin ( tiny dab of honey used as glue for the features), and using another small cutter, I included a tiny headstone shaped piece of crust and also a "BOO" pick. On the right side I have included some strawberries, cucumber slices, and some chunks of cheese. Packed in our leak-proof Yumbox.

In this lunch: Above a bagel with cream cheese filling I put a flying witch on a broom. The witch was shaped with a cutter, the hat was made from nori, and the broom from a bread crust. For the sides I included some apple slices, some green grapes and some M&Ms. Packed in our leak-proof Yumbox.

These lunches were all very easy and quick to make, but most of all they were really FUN to make!

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Halloween Ghost Pizza with Recipe

Any pizza lovers out there? My hubby and Nikolai love pizza and they can eat them served hot or cold. We baked a batch and saved some for the next day's lunch.

Ingredients:

• One tube refrigerated Pillsbury biscuit dough
• 1 bottle of organic pasta sauce
• 2 slices part skim mozzarella cheese (for the ghosts)
• Sliced olives

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400°.
2. Roll or pat biscuits into 2-1/2 in. circles. Place on greased baking sheet or non-stick sheet. I love our baking sheet which has wide handles!
3. Add pasta sauce on top of biscuits.
4. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and remove.
5. Using a small ghost-shape cookie cutter, cut a ghost out of each cheese slice.
6. Immediately place a ghost over each pizza; add pieces of olives for faces.
7. Pack in his Laptop Lunches after the pizzas cool down.

You can recreate something similar with different cheese cut outs for sure. I've also made Pizza Mummy and Jack-O-Lantern Pizza with English muffins that you can find here.

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How To Cut String Cheese Ghosts For Halloween

We are back and it's almost October which is my favorite month of the year. This will be a short post, but I'll have another longer post coming up soon. We are doing well and I hope the same for you :-) It's "College Time" for Nikolai and many others. We are naturally very proud of our son's achievements as he goes off for his junior year.

I've created several ghost themed lunches over the years that are very easy and great fun. Cutting the string cheese to look like ghosts is my favorite part. I'll be sharing with you the method I used for the string cheese.

You can make some cute ghosts similar to the ones I made quite easily.

You will need:

• String cheese
• Paring knife
• Toothpick, food safe marker or sunflower seeds

Method:

1. Cut the string cheese into half.
2. Using a knife, make a slit in the middle and almost 3/4 way down.
3. Make a few more additional slits till you get 8 legs or less.
4. I used a toothpick for these particular face accents. Just poke the toothpick on the cheese to create the eyes and mouth. I've used food safe marker before and I've seen sunflower seeds being used. These are just some ideas, you might have others.

Below are just a few Halloween lunchbox ideas with these string cheese ghosts.

In this bento lunch (packed in a Planetbox): I used a ghost shaped cookie cutter for the sandwich and raisins for the facial details. Honey was used as glue for the raisins. Sides were dye free choc sunflower seeds, Annie's organic crackers topped with a couple of ghost string cheese, seedless green grapes with a ghost cupcake pick, organic baby carrots, organic granola bar and seedless red grapes.

In this bento lunch:

• Grapes and strawberry slices watched over by a ghost pick.
• Sweet bell peppers carved into jack-o-lanterns above bed of lettuce.
• Ghost shaped sandwich topped with provolone cheese, eyes and nose are made from nori with fruit leather letters. Smaller ghosts are from mozzarella string cheese cut into half with sharp paring knife and food safe marker for eyes and nose. Packed in an Easylunchboxes container.

BOO is the first word of the Halloween season and the theme of this lunch. The main compartment of this lunch contains three mini pumpkin shaped sandwiches which I used a small pumpkin cookie cutter to cut out. I used the letter cutters to cut mild cheddar cheese to put on top of these and a couple pieces of string cheese to make the ghosts by first cutting it into half and then making cuts lengthwise for perhaps a little more than half their length and then spreading them apart to give a bit of a spooky look. I simply used a toothpick to make some indentations for the eyes and mouth, but you could also use a food safe marker. I included a piece of granola bar upon which I added letter cookies from IKEA, and in the smaller sections below I have celery sticks and organic baby carrots on the right and a silicone pumpkin shaped cup holding some grapes and a ghost pick. This lunch was packed in an Easylunchboxes container.

Below is my first ever string cheese creation in 2011 (12 years ago)! Wow, how quickly time flies.

In this bento lunch:

• Ghost shaped sandwich with turkey ham and Colby cheese. Topped with Asiago cheese and candy eyes
• Ghost shaped string cheese
• Seedless black grapes
• Cheddar crackers behind ghost marshmallow
• Organic baby carrots

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

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