Admittedly, I’m a bit late in posting this month’s creative school lunch. Let’s chalk it up to the getting-ready-for-Turkey-Day craziness…because, seriously, time is flying. How do those weeks between Halloween and Thanksgiving go so quickly? But I couldn’t possibly let this month pass without showing you my gobble-licious Thanksgiving school lunch. For this lunch I decided to incorporate fall colors while still trying to stay as healthy as possible. I think it turned out pretty well.
Instead of doing the traditional sandwich, I decided to spice it up a bit this month with a chicken fajita. Lucky for me, the lunch ladies at my daughter’s school are always happy to heat up the things she brings from home. The tortilla (stuffed with Tyson Grilled & Ready fajita chicken strips) is topped with peppers that can be stuffed inside the tortilla when your child is ready to eat their lunch. You won’t need as many peppers as the turkey in my example, maybe half as many…I just wanted you to get the idea. And while my kids like red peppers, you might want to avoid them if your kids don’t like spicy/hot things.
For the turkey’s head and face, I placed Cheerios on a large carrot and dabbed a small amount of black icing for the eyes. I originally wanted to use black olives for the eyes, but I didn’t have any on hand and didn’t want to head out to the store. The beak is made of cheese and the wattle is a red pepper. I sliced the back of the carrot so it would lay fat on the tortilla and peppers.
To represent fall foliage, I included cheese leaves on a bed of carrots. I cut the leaves using a fondant cutter from a baking class I took a while back. I also included a small amount of low fat ranch dressing for dipping the carrots (not pictured).
And for that little something sweet, I included low fat vanilla yogurt with fall colored sprinkles on top. If your kids want a little extra flavor, you could always substitute banana, lemon, or even orange cream yogurt and still keep that fall feel. My girls just love yogurt, but if your kids don’t, you could always use applesauce, cinnamon apple sauce, or vanilla pudding.
Not quite a Thanksgiving feast, but perfect for the cafeteria the day before! Best of all, it only took 20 minutes to put it all together – most of which was spent cutting the peppers. If you have pre-cut fajita veggies, you could have this lunch whipped up in no time at all.
If you haven’t kept up with my school lunch series, you can find all of them here. And be sure to check back in December for my Deck the Halls holiday school lunch!
