School has either started or will be started soon for kids everywhere. How do you make it special? You can bet mine usually involves chocolate!

~ I wrote a post last year about some fun lunchbox ideas for making going back to school special.

~ Homemade Back-to-School Treats: Chocolate Chip Cookies and Peanut Butter French Fries

~ Homemade ice cream sandwiches will brighten up any afternoon homework session.

~ Back to school kid-approved treats from the Food Network, including frozen chocolate bananas.

~ Check out the ideas for chocolate from lunches to electronics to gifts for teachers.

[image: flickr]

Post from: Chocolate Bytes

Anyway, surprisingly they all wanted peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches for lunch, and I cut them into little star-shaped “puzzles” using the Lunch Box Builder that Tracey posted.

Now I need to go get some cleaning done (because now it’ll stay that way longer than 15 minutes!) but make sure you stop in tomorrow — the entire Home and Dining channel has something really fun planned!

Also, my b5 email address in the sidebar is incorrect! If you need to get ahold of me it’s heather.raw@b5media.com. I hope to have the sidebar corrected soon!

And don’t forget the contest!

Post from: Chocolate Bytes

In The Lunchbox

The most obvious is chocolate in the lunchbox. Mass Recipes has a Lunchbox Chocolate Banana Snackin’ Bar that looks pretty good.

My girls also like the regular old mini candybars for a post-sandwich treat. Just make sure you pack it close to the ice pack for a little while longer.

I came across this Charlie & the Chocolate Factory old-school style lunchbox from Lunchbox.com. I didn’t even know they made the metal boxes anymore.

Another fun way to mix things up a little: Instead of plain old peanut butter and jelly, spread peanut butter on one slice of bread and Nutella on the other.

Chocolate for Teachers

I haven’t met a single teacher that doesn’t love chocolate. My faithful stand-by for all things gift-giving is a See’s Candies gift card. I started off giving Starbucks cards a couple of times to my kids’ teachers and in the thank you notes they always mentioned using it on hot chocolate. I decided coffee is apparently more hit-or-miss than I thought and that chocolate is the universally appreciated gift. So that’s what they get and you can bet there have been no complaints! The gift cards can be used for anything in the shop, including pre-packaged boxes or pack your own.

If a gift basket is more your style Velvet Ribbon Baskets has chocolate-themed gift baskets ranging from $18.95 to $69.95.

Chocolate Electronics

Chocolate electronics? In a probably not-so-weird way when something is named “Chocolate” it makes me want to check it out that much more. Case in point: The Verizon LG Chocolate phone. I don’t need a cell phone but this one’s pretty and shiny and with the 1.3 megapixel cam, microSD slot, and a bunch of music features this is perfect for the high school or college student.

And how about the new colorful Dell Inspiron laptops? They have a brown one named “Espresso Brown” which is really calling my name. Maybe for Christmas 2009.

Post from: Chocolate Bytes