Ahhhhhh…Halloween! Halloween is my favorite time of year to make bento boxes! There are so many fun ways to add spooky touches to a lunch box that putting together a themed bento is easy. One ingredient that makes those little touches especially easy is California ripe olives.
When the people at California Ripe Olives asked me if I would be interested in creating a lunch box recipe and hosting a giveaway for a bento lunch kit (see more below) I was happy to say yes. I love olives. Love, love, love them!
To start, I made a couple of creepy face sandwiches. I started with a dollop of cream cheese, some chopped ripe olives and some chopped roasted red peppers. I just estimated the amounts.
Mix the three items together until they’re well combined. At this point show the mixture to your children and tell them they’ll be eating “guts” sandwiches for lunch. Bwah ha ha ha!
(OK, OK — if they’re skittish DON’T tell them that!)
Cut a four rounds of bread out with a circle cookie cutter. Mine is 2 inches across which is the perfect size if you want to fit two little sandwiches in one of the big sections of a Laptop Lunches bento box. Spread some of the cream cheese mixture on two of the rounds of bread. Add a half inch wide strip of roasted pepper to the lower third of each circle.
Cut the other two rounds of bread about 2/3 of the way down in zigzag line. You can use a knife or sharp kitchen shears for this. Top the bottom part of the sandwich with the zigzag bread leaving a bit of a gap between the two pieces and centering that gap over the pepper so it looks like a mouth. Add two slices of olive for eyes and center a little bit of the red pepper in the holes to make it look even more monster-y. If you want, you can glue the eyes down by smearing a little bit of the cream cheese on the back of them before you put them on the bread.
Now it’s time to add everything to the Laptop Lunches bento box. I love the colors of this box — green and black like olives (Ha! See what they did there? Clever!) but also wonderful Halloween colors.
I put the sandwiches in one of the larger inner containers and then filled in the gaps with ripe olives. Another container holds blood (raspberry jello) with rotten eyeballs (small black grapes). I made the gelatine the night before right in the little container. I also included some hummus with an olive spider on it. The body of the spider is a half olive and its legs are the other half of the olive that I cut into 8 thin slivers. Finally, I included some novelty tortilla chips that are shaped like bats, jack-o-lanterns and ghosts to dip into the hummus. Wooooooo! Spoooooky!
Win a Bento Starter Kit from California Ripe Olive
Would you like to make your own spooky lunches using olives? The folks at California Ripe Olives want to send one Wendolonia reader this awesome bento starter kit to get you going with fun olive-y lunches (Halloween or otherwise)! The kit includes:
- Two cans of California Ripe Olives
- Can opener
- Pizza slicer
- Bamboo cutting board
- $25 VISA gift card
- Laptop Lunchesâ„¢ bento box
- Star and heart vegetable/fruit cutters
How to Enter:
Sorry! This giveaway is now closed.
Disclosure: California Ripe Olives sent me a kit identical to the one I’m giving away so I could make a Halloween lunch for you. I’ve received no other compensation for this post aside from the satisfaction of making my favorite ever Halloween bento.
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I like to use pumpkin cookie cutters to cut their sandwiches. A circle of yellow cheese for the moon with a few flying olive bats is a favorite. The possibilities are endless. I love Halloween bentos.
I use a pumpkin cookie cutter for sandwiches, but I am going to look for those Halloween chips!
I love to add some spooky Halloween food pics to my kiddo’s lunches 🙂
I use Halloween themed cutters and picks to make if fun! colleenbright@earthlink.net
I like to make an ripe olive pesto and then cut a sandwich in a pumpkin shape and cut out eyes and a mouth. A little splash of ketchup on other items like blood splatter. I like scary Halloween. 🙂
I will include special Halloween and Autumn themed treats. When we have more “Bento Box Supply” funding in our back-to-school budget I plan to get some fun cookie cutters to use for holidays.
Halloween is our fav! We would use these great things all the time! Thanks for the chance to win : ) So many great items : )
I like to use halloween cookie cutters to cut my LO’s sandwiches & a favorite of my hubby is to cut Jack O’ Lantern faces in the cover of the Babybel cheese and can’t forget the new Halloween shaped marshmallows that we found…those are the kids favorites!
I use my little cutters to make tiny cheese pumpkins for Stella – and I have several halloween themed party supplies that I like to add to her lunch. Her ‘color for the month’ at school is orange, so I am trying to have at least one orange thing in her lunch every day – jello, carrots, etc.
pumpkin cookie cutter are great. 🙂
I have a bunch of halloween cookie cutters, pumpkin, bat, etc. that i have been using as sandwhich cutters. Still trying to come up with a couple more fun ideas to go with them.
Decorative food picks, cookie cutters, and stickers are my favorite ways to add Halloween to a bento. Last night I frozen white yogurt in a silicone skull-and-bones ice tray, and then this morning I scooped pink yogurt into cups and pressed a frozen skull or crossbones in. Neat and easy way to add color and a bit of Halloween spirit to their lunches! I’m going to have to try the olive spider sometime this week. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays!
I love halloween and I am always cutting my son’s sandwiches with all my halloween cookie cutters, I also like to back pumpkin muffins and use halloween cupcake liners!
Halloween is my fave! Black and orange everything, and using cookie cutters as much as possible. Plastic spiders as napkin rings and monster face sammy’s are some of the faves.
I love the finger motif… carrot fingers, string cheese fingers, pretzel fingers. And they can be wrapped to look like a mummy. I use sliced turkey. Add a scary spider ring, and you are all set! Thanks for posting all the fun ideas, Wendy.
I like finding black and orange food, fun ghost shaped chips and scary looking eye rings finish the touch!
With all the fun comments below, it looks like I have to be a little more creative with the main course! I usually make Halloween fun lunches with the desserts: fun cupcakes or a little orange food colouring in vanilla pudding or ghost shaped cookies, etc.
I write notes on ghost, cat or monster cutouts. And we do orange and black foods. Great giveaway!!!
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