Autumn Leaves Lunch

Time has just flown by! This year, my household is adjusting to both kids being in school, plus learning how to balance their daily homework loads. Truthfully, it has not been a very easy transition. I'm not sure how it happened but ... it's already officially autumn - my favorite season. Perhaps it's my favorite time of year, because it's my birthday month. Or because I absolutely adore the fall colors of burgundies, oranges, yellows, greens, teals and browns. Maybe it's because I grew up on the East Coast, where the leaves dressed the trees in an amazing array of colors and, once fallen, crunched deliciously under your feet, while the crisp air nipped your nose. Even though I no longer live on the East Coast, I fondly remember the hues of the fluttering leaves, so of course, I had to make a bento lunch to reminiscence.

Wanting to create a lunch that included a full palate of the autumn hues - muted browns, bold greens, pumpkin-y oranges, vibrant reds, maize-colored yellows, I used the following ingredients: broccoli florets, butternut squash, craisins, red fruit roll-up, sesame-covered honey almonds (from Trader Joe's - YUM!), grapes, apples, shredded cheese, and spinach & sun-dried tomato wraps.

It was a multi-step process. Here it goes:

(1) The most time-consuming step: I microwaved the whole butternut squash, according to the directions on a sticker attached to the squash. Using oven mitts, I carefully removed the squash from the microwave, placing it on a cutting board. Peeling off the skin with a paring knife, I cut it into 1.5" slices. Placing the maple leaf cookie cutter onto the squash slices, I gently and FIRMLY pressed down to produce the desired shape. (I bought a maple leaf cookie cutter at JoAnn's.)

(2) I discovered that my football cookie cutter looked similar to the elliptic leaves found on a magnolia or a dogwood tree. So I set out to make leaf quesadillas out of spinach & sun-dried tomato wraps.

While I cut out football, er leaf shapes, I heated my griddle. After coating the griddle with cooking spray, I added one layer of leaf cut-outs, sprinkled on the cheese, added the top leaves and sprayed everything again.

When the cheese melted, I flipped them to toast the other sides, and then let them cool.

(3) Using my letter cookie cutters, I made the word "FALL" out of red fruit roll-up.

(4) Cutting up green grapes and red apples, I created a tasty fall-colored fruit salad.

(5) To begin assembly, I put out ALL of my components: butternut squash maple leaf, leaf quesadillas, fruit roll-up letters, almonds, broccoli florets and fruit salad.

(6) For actual assembly, I placed the butternut squash maple leaf in the center of my deeper of my 2 bento boxes. (I had to slice off some of the tips in order to make it fit. Shh! The kids didn't notice.) Broccoli florets and craisins filled in the empty corners. I then topped that section of the bento box with fruit roll-up letters.

(7) For the second half of the assembly, I made two stacks of leaf quesadillas, rearranging almonds in the nooks and crannies. Before spooning the fruit salad into the bento, I separated the quesadillas from the fruit salad with a layer of plastic wrap. No soggy quesadillas here!

Before I show you the finished product, I have to confess something. The fruit roll-up letters ... they deliciously dissolved into the butternut squash. The result: when my family opened their bento boxes, they did not see this beautiful bento exactly as pictured below. Oh well. It was still pretty tasty.