Walking Salads

Photo: flickr user Wootang01

Preparation

Core an apple to within 1/2 inch of the bottom. Carve out the top slightly to make a little well about 1 1/2 inches across. Fill the cavity with some cottage cheese. Pack a plastic fork with this salad. (You can scoop out and fill a tomato with cottage cheese too.)

Wrap a 4-inch slice of bologna around a pickle or a strip of cheese.

Wrap the bologna with a tender cabbage or lettuce leaf. Fasten with a wooden pick.

Fill some 4-inch celery stalks, washed and dried, with cream cheese, pineapple cream cheese spread or your favorite cheese spread. Sprinkle with paprika-red ants on a log!

Fill some 4-inch celery stalks, washed and dried, with plain or crunchy peanut butter, then press in raisins here and there-bugs on a log!

Cut the peel from the top of an orange and make 4 cuts down the side-just through the skin, but not into the juicy part-for easy peeling.

Make mini-kabobs on wooden picks. Here's a suggestion: cubes of cheese with drained pineapple chunks or maraschino cherries, or cubes of bologna with olives and pickles.

Pack a handful of vegetable snacks to quench your thirst: carrot curls, celery sticks, radishes and green pepper strips.

NOTES : The kids would enjoy making these and eating them. They are called walking salads because on a trip, outside playing or in a school lunch, these can be taken right out and eaten without much bother or mess. Wrap your walking salads in plastic bags, plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Then stop along the way for a quick pick me-up.

Easy, healthy and yummy!