Quick and Easy School Lunches

We try to hit a legume category (sometimes other entrees will do), two vegetables and two fruits for school lunch. Occasionally, a snack goes in as well...

The kids usually have a bunch of vegetables to choose from so they open the fridge and pick (or, more realistically, I hunt them down asking what they want, yelling I am choosing for them while they hurriedly look for homework papers, shoes and socks). They often prefer raw peppers, cucumbers, crunchy bok choy, tomatoes, carrot sticks or cooked cauliflower, broccoli with dipping sauces, sauteed cabbage, kale, bean sprouts or shitake mushrooms. Sometimes they go for an actual salad with fresh stuff plus some olives and sun dried tomatoes or a cabbage based slaw.

The legume varies between red, brown or green lentils, black beans, chick peas, refried beans, navy bean soup, lima bean soup and a few others. They are all easy, and, when planned properly they are left from dinner the night before. When they are protesting legumes, we go for a staple entree of polenta with tomato sauce, gluten free English muffin with, sadly, sunflower seed butter (don't even get me started on the school's nut policy), brown rice, vegetable fried rice, once in a while tofu or tempeh. Luke also has a fall back entree of oatmeal which he loves for any meal, any snack, anytime.

For little packaged goodies, I sometimes include Sheffa tasty mix which is nut free with pumpkin seeds, chick pea sticks and spices, sometimes popcorn, or corn thins or rice crackers. (I would choose Bhuja once in a while but it has peanuts). For a bus ride snack to sneak, I do include Lara Bars or the Nut Delight Kind Bars. I do not include our homemade versions of those because the nut policy would make me feel I had to use containers that would survive nuclear war and warn the kids the offending product can not leave a certain backpack pouch the entire day.

The necessities for good homemade lunch are good thermoses, (we use Thermos brand), a lunch box with two pouches so hot and cold can be separated, glass lock containers that seal well, and good wax paper bags (no plastic to suffocate the food all day). We aim for little or no trash. I send a cloth napkin and silverware with them although they say silverware is readily available at the table. So, why do all this? The school provides an OK lunch but there is not always going to be a good vegan selection, and while usually the list of ingredients is readily accessible, there are still ingredients of which I do not approve (like soybean oil...is it from China or US? Either way, low quality vegetable oil is is a terrible source of ill health) and the quality/source of the ingredients can not be uncovered. Besides, the kids are simply more comfortable with their own food. I understand that the school is trying (this year the kitchen there is under construction which does not help matters) but we are not ready to take the plunge. Maybe next year we can see what the new kitchen produces. But for now, it is farmer's market to lunch box for us.