My kids aren’t the least bit adventurous when it comes to eating – so they usually get the exact same sandwich in their lunchboxes day after day.  Except for the occasional mornings when I realize I’m out of bread – and then suddenly it’s “Guess what kids?  We’re having peanut-butter burgers today!” That was cool for about 5 minutes – but now the pb&j on hamburger buns just doesn’t get them very jazzed.

I was re-reading an older post this week about freezing sandwiches and saw a comment left by our friend Tiffany.  She mentioned making wraps for her kids lunches, then freezing and slicing them into coins.  I loved her idea so much (partly because I have lots of tortillas in my stockpile) – that I tried it on my own kids this week – renaming it “ham & cheese sushi rolls” (because dad loves sushi which makes it cool).    It was a big hit with the kids (their friends at school all wanted some) – and a fun way to change up the lunchbox routine!  (This is just one basic combination, scroll to the bottom for more ideas of ingredient combos)

You’ll need:

• Flour or Wheat Tortilla
• 4 Ham Slices  (Kasey’s favorite is Land O’Frost Bistro Favorites Honey Glazed Ham)
• 1 Cheese Slice
• Optional Condiments: Mayo, Mustard, etc….

The night before, lie your tortillas out on a plate or cutting board.  Cover with 4 slices of lunchmeat.  Fold your cheese single into thirds, then going along the fold lines, tear it into 3 equal strips.  Place 2 cheese strips side by side in the center, and the extra cheese strip near the top or bottom of the tortilla.  Fold/roll like a burrito, you’ll need to kind of press it flat so your meat/cheese stay put.

Wrap each rolled tortilla tightly in saran wrap and place in the freezer.

In the morning, pull out a wrap and let thaw for about 5 minutes. (Use that time to make coffee!)  Remove the plastic and slice the wrap into several coins or “Sushi Rolls”.  Put them in the lunchbox with an ice pack and they’ll stay cold, but they’ll thaw out perfectly by lunchtime!

If your kids isn’t afraid of condiments (like mine are) spreading something on the tortilla makes it all stick together even nicer.  Tiffany made her wrap by spreading a little Philadelphia cooking creme on the tortilla, then layering turkey and spinach on top (that sounds good!)  I’m sure you could think of LOTS of ideas here- here are a few more:

• PB&J
• Honey mustard, ham and cheese
• BBQ Sauce, chicken and cheese
• Guacamole, Turkey, Bacon (Lie the bacon down much like the cheese)

Huffy Sidenote: My sushi-loving husband would like me to inform you, dear readers, that he doesn’t condone my calling these sushi rolls.  Apparently I’ve offended his culinary sensibilities…  I told him it’s just a cute name, but he would have me know that (and I quote him from gchat):

“when i think of putting a delicious morsel of sushi in my mouth and then to have it suddenly transform into cold cuts and american cheese makes me feel ill.  So put that in your post…  In red ink…  In freshly squeezed squid ink.”

(Massive.  Eye Roll.) Let’s hope he’s not this indignant when he sees next week’s post entitled “Chicken Nugget Tempura”  (hee-hee)…

As you might know – this week is SHARK WEEK!  Since I have four boys – we watch a lot of Animal Planet around here, and Shark Week is kind of a big deal.  I was thinking of something fun we could do to celebrate in our own little sharky way – and I remembered this cake I made for my son James a few years ago.  It wasn’t too difficult to do – and it made a big splash with the kids!  I was trying to remember my exact pattern, but I’m fairly sure I didn’t have one.  I just kept carving on my cake as I went along  (Seat of my pants, that’s me!)  Anyway – if you want to draw it out on paper first, I’ve found that can help when you get to the cake cutting stage.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• (2) cakes, baked as directed, one as a sheet cake, one baked in a loaf pan
• Candy Corn (for the teeth)
• Homemade buttercream icing (Recipe Here)
• 2 Chocolate Chips (for the eyes)
• Pink, Grey & Blue Food coloring

Instructions:

1. Bake the sheet cake and spread a crumb coat of blue icing on it.  You’ll be able to add more icing in a choppy-wavey pattern later.
2. Bake the second cake in a loaf pan, overfilling it a bit so that it gets that fat round top.  Take it out, cool completely, and freeze it for a couple hours.  (This will make it much easier to slice later.)
3. Cut the frozen loaf in half lengthwise.  The top rounded half will be the the top of the shark (his back), the smaller flatter bottom will be his lower half (mouth).
4. Cut the flat bottom of the loaf cake in half -  giving you two smaller squares.
   a) 1st small square: Carve into a fin (basically cut it in half diagonally so it makes a triangle)  Eat the extra triangle, you deserve it!
   b) 2nd small square: Carve the points off of one side until it looks rounded (like the pink shark’s mouth in the photo above)  Spread pink icing all over it.
5. Assemble!  Using globs of icing as glue, assemble your shark on top of the blue sheet cake.
   Start by lying down your rounded pink square for the mouth.  Now carefully set the top half of your loaf cake on top of it at an angle – so that it looks like the shark is coming out of the water.  You’ll need to trim the rear end off at a slant so it lies nicely resting on top the square mouth – and here’s the part where you’ll sort of play it by ear.  (Don’t worry – just fill in the gaps with squirts of icing as you go along.)  Glue the fin to the back of the shark with more icing.
6. Thickly pipe on grey icing to cover the shark and his fin (covering any gaps and crumby parts in the process)  Make side fins by piping grey icing next to the shark as shown.
7. Cut the white tips off candy corn, and stick them into the icing around the mouth – for rows of vicious teeth!
8. Place chocolate chips on for eyes.
9. Add more blue icing around the shark with a spreader – pulling up into little wave crests here and there.  This comes last – because now you can hide any more gaps or crumbs around your shark.

Making 3 dimensional cakes isn’t an exact science I’ve found – but as long as you have some extra icing to pipe into the architectural snafus here and there – you can cover it all up at the end and noone will be the wiser!

Now it’s time to sit back and enjoy (er… cringe through) some shark week programming – with a slice of Great White and a nice cold glass of milk.  Yum!