Confession: This wasn’t really a school lunch… If I’m being totally honest, this particular lunch was made at home on Valentine’s Day (Saturday). But I wanted to label this a creative school lunch, because it would make the perfect Valentine’s Day themed or Love themed school lunch to send with your little one this month. Besides including many of my kids’ favorite lunchbox items, it can be put together in about 15 minutes and carries easily. And when it comes right down to it, there’s still a whole lot of February left for you to make this Love-Filled Valentine’s Day themed school lunch. Hearts never go out of style, right?
The idea for this lunch started when I was walking through Target looking for valentines and saw a box of Quaker Chewy granola bar valentines (Target has a way of sucking me in…I don’t think I even went there for valentines in the first place). They were standard granola bars with some festive sprinkles on the top. I ultimately decided against the purchase, but figured I could make my own by covering a granola bar in melted chocolate and topping it off with some Valentine’s Day sprinkles I had left over from cupcakes we made earlier this month. Honestly, I like how mine turned out way more than the ones in the box.
If you don’t have melting chocolate, you could always melt a small amount of canned frosting and top it with sprinkles. I popped mine in the fridge for about 5 minutes (while I was making the rest of the lunch) before giving them to the girls, and I’d recommend doing the same if you’re putting them in a lunch container. This allows the chocolate to harden up a bit and keep sprinkles in place.
While the granola bars were in the fridge, I began to work on my strawberry hearts. 
To make these, I highly recommend you cut them open and then carving them to look like hearts as you look at the outside of the strawberry. I started out cutting them in half and carving them to look like hearts while looking at the inside of the strawberry and it was extremely difficult. For some reason, turning them around made all the difference.
For the sandwich, I decided to do a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with strawberry jelly using this Wilton From The Heart Nesting Cookie Cutter Set
And then I included the cut out heart so my daughter could cover up jelly center. Because as pretty as it looked, let’s face it, preschoolers are finicky and I don’t think she would have eaten it any other way.
So that’s it for February! Stay tuned for March’s school lunch…I definitely have some green surprises planned!
