How to Make a Flower Garden School Lunch Recipe Plus Food Safety Tips!

 This is a sponsored post in partnership with fightbac.org. All opinions are my own. 

If you have older kids like I do, they not only want more sophisticated lunches, but they also want to help in the kitchen. I think this is fantastic because not only do I have the opportunity to get creative in making fun lunches for a middle schooler, but sometimes I even get her to help! Those times when we cook, bake, or make creative food together are also times when I get to talk to her about safety in the kitchen. 

There are the obvious food safety rules like washing your hands before you start touching anything. But the ones that get her are things like making her wash her hands again after she touches her phone (yuck). Food safety doesn't have to be complicated, but it is important, so that is why I thought it was time to put together a fun recipe, like my Flower Garden Food Art Lunch, with some tips from www.fightbac.org to help reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses. 

In fact, fightbac.org has a fantastic campaign going on right now called #TheStoryofYourDinner to help educate families on the importance of food safety. For example, did you know that children under 7-years-old are at a higher risk of serious food poisoning? Make sure to head to the fightbac website for more tips after you read my instructions for making this fun school lunch for your kids!

Food Safety Tip: Before and after working with food, wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds.

Flower Garden School Lunch Recipe

Strawberry Rose: Slice strawberries one time on each side for a total of four cuts. Make these long narrow cuts halfway down the berry. Rotate strawberry slightly and repeat with four more cuts further up and halfway between each of the previous cuts. Slice the top into two pieces. Fold the top of each cut down slightly so that it looks like rose petals. Surround with sugar snap peas for green leaves.

Food Safety Tip: Rinse fruits and veggies under running tap water, including those with skins and rines that are not eaten.

Mango Flower: Cut mango into very thin slices. Keeping slices together spread across cutting board. Carefully roll pieces together. Use a spatula to pick it up and move into lunchbox. Place a grape tomato in the middle. Watch video below to see how I did it. 

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How to easily make a food art flower using fresh mango! The trick is to make sure to cut the pieces as thin as possible. Then take your time rolling it into a flower shape. #foodart #foodartist #flower #flowers #mango #mangoflower #snacktime #flowerart

A post shared by Beau Coffron | Food Art (@lunchboxdad) on May 8, 2020 at 7:51am PDT

Mandarin Orange Flower: Remove orange peel in one long narrow piece. Open up orange slices but leave connected at the bottom. Loosely roll up orange peel and place on top of orange slices. 

Bacon Rose: Loosely roll strip of bacon and pin together using two toothpicks through the middle. Bake at 375° for one hour or until bacon is crispy. Remove toothpicks, bacon will stay in the rose shape. I packed them on top of a bed of rice.

Food Safety Tip: Never defrost at room temperature. Safely defrost food in the refrigerator, in cold water or in the microwave. 

Cheese and Celery Daisies: Spread cream cheese on top of celery. Cut cheddar cheese into the shape of a flower. I use a flower shaped cutter to make it easy. Top with a circle of white cheese. I used a large frosting tip to cut perfect circles. Place circle on top of flower and put flowers on top of cream cheese. 

Food Safety Tip: Keep foods separate. Separate raw meat, seafood and eggs from other foods in your grocery shopping cart, grocery bags and in your refrigerator. 

Have fun making this food art lunch with your kids as well as teaching them about food safety. The nonprofit Partnership for Food Safety Education has just created the Kids Build Safe Recipes online interactive lesson plan. So part of your kids having fun could be doing this Safe Recipe Activity. In a matter of minutes they will learn how to put the Safe Recipe Style Guide into action and turn a basic recipe into a safe recipe! Encouraging them to do this will help to keep them and your family safe. My daughter took the quiz and definitely learned some food safety tips that will help her the next time she is cooking in the kitchen. 

So have your kids take the quiz to test their knowledge and incorporate food safety into their next recipe. Also, a good idea would be to go to www.fightbac.org together and find some other tips that you didn't know before. Remember that kids can be leaders in your family for proper handwashing and simple food safety in the kitchen. Preparing food at home should be fun and of course – always be safe and healthy!