I have suddenly found myself out of practice after being a lunch-making machine for a few years, This year, we gave up on bringing school lunch hoping the kids would navigate the salad bar and make do with the vegetarian pickin's. But, for this week, they are bringing lunch, and, then for the next eight weeks I will make a big lunch at home. And, I am first to admit I like the control. For breakfast, we made omelettes with unpasteurized local eggs, cilantro, and parsley. (While we are primarily vegan, we once in a while get an egg at a farm that has a few chickens. The dark orange yolks and the fresh un-tampered with product offers valuable nutrition and helps keep sweet breakfasts at bay.) I count the cilantro, parsley combo as a breakfast vegetable knowing I could not slip too many more vegetables into their lunch bags. They also had fruit at home (peaches) because they do not stay good all day despite our awesome brand-new insulated lunch coolers. So, I am just mentioning breakfast as it is my grand excuse for a less than stellar lunch.
Everyone did pick a cold " vegetable" (in quotes because these kids often lecture me that some of what I call a vegetable is actually a fruit & I lecture them back that they know perfectly well what I mean). So Luke had a cucumber, Perry had two small peppers and celery sticks and Lizzie and Susannah had peppers only. The peppers are hydroponic, crunchy and deep orange or red so a good source of vitamin A. And these are all easy to keep cool during the day.
Then, there was a snack situation. I bought individual serving sizes of two kinds of macadamia nuts, roasted pistachios, granola bars, and apple sauce. I am usually very opposed to individually wrapped stuff, both because it tends to harbor worse ingredients and because the trash is overwhelmingly bad for the environment. Everyone added two snacks to their bags. If I had to predict it right now, I am going to be stuck with some macadamia nuts, high in B vitamins, selenium and mono-unsaturated fat they are a great source of energy but being so rich, heavy, and filling, my kids are going to steer away from them. I expect a war to break out over the two apple sauce containers left. I think I should just hide everything unless we have four. I usually individually serve snacks in wax paper bags that are completely biodegradable and I plan to replenish my supply tomorrow. Then, we can go with raw almonds, cashews and walnuts as a choice.
As a main dish, we went with the very low-end, it is almost embarrassing to admit this, peanut butter and jam sandwich. I bought an organic rosemary sourdough bread, and each child cut two slices and spread Field Day organic peanut butter (Lizzie is very partial to this brand because it is so smooth. This makes me suspicious.) and an all fruit black raspberry jam and / or a local, very interesting Honeybell marmalade made with honey and no added sugar and lots of Honeybell peel. When I was young and went to my grandparents' day camp, my grandmother made me a sandwich every day. And I threw it out every day. I simply hate sandwiches. My husband has a friend who describes people using my sandwich hatred. He wouldn't say the word hate; he merely says he feels about so-and-so the way Anne feels about sandwiches, and everyone gasps and knows he means business.
For tomorrow, we have a really great watermelon, half of which we served tonight for Luke's birthday. I think if I cut it into chunks and put it in glass containers or thermoses, I will be able to keep it cold and fresh. I will also give them leftover black beans (cooked with cilantro, cumin, and sea salt) and brown rice (cooked with saffron) so there will be no resorting to sandwiches.
For the rest of the week, I am planning nuts and seeds as snacks, more crunchy, raw vegetables, leftover-dinner-style lunch entrees (rice, lentils, stir fried vegetables) and maybe, just maybe, one more sandwich.
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