Healthy Snacks and Lunches

I'm in a serious lunch rut. But something I learned from another mom friend is peanut butter/jelly roll-ups. It's a different take on a sandwich, and you could do it with meats and cheeses, too if you want. Just warm a tortilla slightly (or it will crack when you roll it) and spread peanut butter and jelly, or lay meat and cheese inside, then roll it up. We stick toothpicks through the middle to hold them together, and my boys have yet to hurt themselves, but you'll have to judge your girls' abilities.
We love applesauce when we don't have fresh fruit.

Another yummy dish, although it's not super-cheap, is Dream Salad. My boys eat it up, and last night we even had it for dessert instead of cookies or ice cream.
I have to make it in large quantities, so here's the big recipe.
1 tub of Costco cottage cheese
1 tub of Cool-Whip
2 packages orange Jell-o (other flavors are yummy too, especially raspberry, but orange is everyone's favorite)
Mix this all up, then stir in
2 small cans of mandarin oranges, drained
1 large can of pineapple, drained (my mom likes crushed pineapple, but I like chunk better. The best, however, is tidbit sized)

The cool-whip and jello add some sugar, but the fruit and cottage cheese is great.

My kids love to make and eat fruit kabobs. Use cut up fruit (any kind), put it on skewers, and eat it with a dip made from softened cream cheese, a dash of vanilla, and some brown sugar.

My daughter really likes yogurt and since it is so hot, instead of her eating it like normal, her and I put some in small cups (bathroom cups-the ones in a dispenser). Anyway, once they were in the cups, we took popsicle sticks and placed it in the yogurt then froze them. Now she has frozen yogurt. We also did the same with Sunny-D. She likes trail mix and so we are planning on making our own with cereal, banana chips, peanuts or almonds.
As for the sandwiches for your kids, if you have any cookie cutters, once the sandwich is made, let the kids pick out a "shape or design" and let them design their sandwiches.
My daughter also likes fruit as your kids do so on occasion, we have fruit kabobs. We put grapes, bananas, pineapple, apples, etc . She really likes that and it is a little different. One other thing that I just thought of, instead of doing a whole kabob, you can do a fondu type thing. Put out some dips, yogurt, kool-whip, and let them dip the fruit into that. Hope this gives you some ideas.

I was watching Rachael Ray a while ago and she did something called Banana Sushi...

Basically, you take a piece of whole wheat bread, spread peanut butter like you're making a PBJ and then put a banana on one of the long edges. Roll the bread up around the banana and then cut it up into "California Roll" widths. My daughter LOVES this and I give it to her for lunch with milk...a great, healthy and easy way to give her a balanced meal.

Have fun!

you could do lunch meat rollups with a slice of cheese inside. Dips are good - kids love to dip vegetables and such.. Rachael Ray has some great recipes for kids.

C.
www.AHomeCareer.com