by Marty Meitus
Scripps Howard News Service
How did this happen? One minute we're all enjoying summer, and the next minute it's back to school.
You know what that means: It's time once again to start packing the dreaded lunch. But, said Karen Erickson, a Denver home economist and mother of four, with a little imagination, packing lunch can be more pleasure than chronic pain.
"To make it interesting for me, I try to come up with something fun and balanced," she said. The payoff can be huge. "It's fun when Peter comes home from school and says, 'Wow,' or 'Mom, I really liked the tuna without the bread.' That makes me feel like it's worthwhile."
Erickson has two school-age children: Peter, 7, and 5-year-old Luke, who is just entering kindergarten. If you really want to know what's going on with lunch, she said, volunteer in the school lunchroom. "It's eye-opening," she said. "It helped me see what other kids were bringing."
Among the revelations: Forget the I'm-only-going-to-give-them-what-they-should-eat syndrome. "They'll trade it away," said Erickson, "and end up with what they wanted in the first place."
And be flexible. Once Erickson's son wanted a butter-and-sugar sandwich because one of the other kids had one. "To compromise I made a tortilla roll-up with butter and sugar for dessert. He never asked for it again."
Erickson doesn't usually pack the typical peanut-butter-and-jelly fare because she finds coming up with new ideas is half the fun. A typical lunch for her son might include a chef's salad with lots of ham and cheese, and yes, vegetables. Her kids are adventurous eaters, she said, because she makes every attempt to expose them to a wide range of food.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with the kids who eat whatever they eat," she said, "but when they're young, it's a good idea to expose them to a large variety of foods that are healthy. Then when they go on those food jags, they're making good choices all the time."
She's constantly introducing new foods at dinner. "We grow stuff in our yard such as red peppers so they're exposed to it in a non-threatening way. They get to pick the (vegetables) and they want to try them because they know it came from our garden."
If she scores a garden hit--and red peppers are a favorite--she'll continue to buy the vegetable at the grocery during the winter.
Erickson tries to balance what her child likes with better choices for the lunch box. Here are her suggestions: Pack only what they'll eat. Erickson noticed that most parents at her kids' school already had figured out that a lot of children were eating only half a sandwich, and they packed lunches accordingly.
Watch out for those fruit-flavored drinks (the ones that aren't 100 percent juice) and foods that are mainly sugar, such as commercial fruit leathers. Fruit juice is a good choice, but if your child drinks a lot of juice, you might want to encourage him or her to buy milk instead.
"I think milk is more nutrient-dense and the child doesn't get that sugar high and then that sugar low in the middle of the afternoon," Erickson said.
Make sure that they can open the containers. This may sound silly, but Erickson watched a lot of young kids struggle with those tins of peaches with the pull-tops. Given that kids are always in a hurry, something hard to open is likely to wind up in the trash.
Making lunch the night before is a good idea, although Erickson is the first to admit that it doesn't always work out that way. If you pack at night, you're more likely to have time for the child to get involved. Although Erickson's children don't help her make lunches, she lets them pick from among two or three healthy choices.
Don't use the lunch box as a time to explore new foods. "We try them at dinner first, and then when I figure out something he really enjoys, I figure out how to get it into the lunch box," Erickson said. One of her finds was cutting a hamburger into small pieces and adding buns like prepackaged Lunchables. "He loves it and I'm fixing hamburgers for dinner anyway, so I just make extra and cut them up," she said. Erickson also packs crackers and ham or turkey and cheese in slices, also like Lunchables, so that her son can build his own lunch.
Although chips sometimes are OK, Erickson looks for lower-fat alternatives such as pretzels. The same goes for dessert. Although she will pack a treat like cookies, she also likes milk-rich puddings and fruit.
Here are some suggestions for lunch from Honest Pretzels, a wonderful kid-friendly book by Mollie Katzen (Tricycle Press, Berkeley). Remember to practice good food safety when packing lunches, keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold.
Apple-Yogurt Salad
Ingredients:
2 cups plain yogurt
1/4 cup real maple syrup
1 lemon, cut in half
5 medium-sized apples (your favorite kind)
extras (you choose)
2 stalks celery, minced (cut in tiny pieces)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped, toasted walnuts
Preparation:
Put yogurt in medium-sized bowl. Stir in maple syrup until mixed in. Squeeze a lemon and pour the juice into a large bowl. Dice apples. Add them to the lemon juice and stir to get the apples all wet.
Pour the yogurt mixture into the apples and mix gently. Put the celery, raisins, dried cranberries, and/or walnuts into small bowls and put them on table. Serve the apple-yogurt salad in bowls. Add your choice of toppings.
Yield: 4-5 servings
Tossed Green Salad with Two Dressings
Toss together the following ingredients:
lettuce, cleaned and dried (several kinds mixed together or just one kind)
spinach, stemmed, cleaned and dried
carrots, peeled and grated or sliced
cucumbers, peeled and sliced
green, yellow or red bell peppers, cored, seeded, cut in strips
scallions, minced (Trim the "hairy" tip, and cut white and lower half of green part in tiny pieces.)
red cabbage, grated
alfalfa sprouts
cherry tomatoes, whole or halved
2 Tbs. of dressing for each serving
Extras: chopped olives
grated cheese (any kind)
strips of baked tofu (available in natural foods stores)
crispy croutons
crunchy Chinese noodles
toasted sunflower seeds or cashews
cooked pasta
leftover cooked grains (especially couscous)
chunks of cooked potatoes or beets
chickpeas or beans (Rinse and drain them in a strainer over the sink if they're canned.)
Ranch Dressing
With a spoon or small whisk, mix the following ingredients in a medium bowl:
2 Tbs. mayonnaise
6 Tbs. buttermilk
1 tsp. cider vinegar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
Yield: 1/2 cup
Apple Juice Vinaigrette
Put the following ingredients in a jar, put top on tightly and shake:
4 Tbs. olive oil
2 Tbs. cider vinegar
1/2 cup apple juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
Yield: 3/4 cup
Easy Pasta Salad
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked pasta (tubes, macaroni, small shells or twists)
half a red bell pepper, minced
1 scallion, minced
2 Tbs. chopped black olives
6 Tbs. Apple Juice Vinaigrette (see above)
salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:
Cook pasta in boiling water. Drain and rinse under cold running water. Drain again, transfer to medium bowl. Add bell pepper, scallion and olives. Mix together. Add the apple juice vinaigrette. Add a few shakes of salt and pepper, stir again. Serve warm or cool.
Yield: 2 to 3 servings
Pita Spirals
Ingredients:
1 pita bread (or 2 flour tortillas)
1/2 cup cream cheese, room temperature
4 chives, 1 sprig of dill, and/or 3 basil leaves (optional)
1 medium-sized ripe tomato, sliced into thin rounds
6 large, crisp spinach leaves, washed and dried
Preparation:
Snip around the edges of the pita bread with scissors to separate it into 2 halves. Put the circles down on the cutting board with the inside part facing up. Put the soft cream cheese in a small bowl. Use scissors to snip tiny pieces of chives, dill and/or basil over the bowl, if you'd like to add them.
Spread a thin layer of cream cheese onto each pita circle. Put 3 tomato slices in a row down the middle. They can be on top of each other a little. Spread some cream cheese onto 2 or 3 spinach leaves. Lay the leaves on top of the tomatoes, with the cream cheese facing up.
Roll up the circle, pressing the edges tightly closed. You will end up with a log shape. Cut the log crosswise into 3 or 4 pieces to show the spiral design inside.
Yield: 2-3 servings
Brownie Oat Chews
Ingredients:
1 cup quick cooking oats
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup baking cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 egg whites
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Preparation:
Combine the oats, flour, sugar, baking cocoa, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the egg whites corn syrup and vanilla. Stirring just until moistened. Dough will be very thick. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on to cookie sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool completely.
Yield: 24 cookies
(Contact Marty Meitus at the Rocky Mountain News.)
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