School lunches, Week 3

This last week was full of thrown together odds and ends as we all spent the majority of our time marveling at the insane weather. But the week before that actually had a couple good lunches. I'm reminded that most kids, mine included, typically do not like leftovers in their lunch and simpler is always better. To that end, my son has kindly offered to step in and offer more direction about what he likes and doesn't like. I've agreed to take this constructive criticism with zero indignation and am embracing it. So far.

Monday:

• Sweet and sour chicken from this recipe (I replaced cornstarch with arrowroot and the soy sauce with coconut aminos)
• Brown rice with grass fed butter
• Apple sandwiches
• Seaweed chips
• Mango coconut chia seed pudding (recipe follows)

Wednesday:

• Cucumber tuna "sushi" bites with cherry tomatoes (recipe follows)
• Strawberries
• Seaweed chips
• Almond butter breakfast bread from this recipe
• Ginger raspberry spinach almond milk smoothie

Mango coconut chia seed pudding

I've yet to meet a chia pudding I didn't like but this one is my current favorite. 

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons chia seeds

1 1/2 cups full fat coconut milk (one can)

2-4 tablespoons maple syrup or honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger or 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

pinch sea salt

frozen mango chunks

toasted shredded coconut

Directions:

Place chia seeds in a large jar or bowl. Add coconut milk (shaken), syrup or honey and vanilla extract or scrape vanilla bean pod. Mix well with whisk or fork. Add ginger, cardamom and pinch of salt. If using bowl, pour combined mixture into a jar making sure to shake well and stir thoroughly to avoid globs of chia seeds. Place in fridge for 3-5 hours or ideally, overnight. When ready to pack, place portion into a small container and top with chopped frozen mango. Add toasted coconut just before serving. 

Cucumber tuna "sushi" bites

I can't remember where I originally saw the idea to give credit but these were a hit. Just the right size, really refreshing and so easy to make.

Ingredients

1 English cucumber, washed

Tuna recipe using your favorite go-to or use this recipe for a vegan option. Adding julliened, chopped carrots makes a great addition. 

avocado

toasted sesame seeds

Directions

Slice cucumber into rounds between 1" and 2", depending on taste (and mouth size!) Place cucumber slice on cutting board and using a paring knife, gently cut out center of each slice, leaving a hole large enough to place filling. Add tuna filling, top with small bit of avocado and toasted sesame seeds. These are best made the day of and are also great with wasabi and coconut aminos (or soy). They are delicious and so versatile. 

Prep Time

Food prep for the week generally happens on Sunday nights, but since it's Labor Day weekend and my lovely husband is headed out of town (again) I did it yesterday. Yes, it's a pain to dedicate time to cooking a bunch of things all at once and yes, it can feel like you're in a really wacky Top Chef Thanksgiving Challenge but it's so very worth the effort! In a little over two hours I made:

• 2 trays of kale chips
• 6 hardboiled eggs
• Mashed cauliflower for lunch/dinner later in the week
• Smoothies for breakfast plus some to freeze for the week
• Soaked oatmeal for breakfast
• Prepped a dinner of pineapple chicken
• Batch of cardamom mango chia puddings
• Almond butter breakfast bread for snacks

I was a devoted reader of Cookie magazine, which is now, sadly, out of print. One of my favorite sections was their dinner flow chart and some bit that was called, "Just get me to Wednesday" and showed how to shop and cook for the first part of the week. I've found that the things it's hardest to make during the week are snack foods, so I try to make the Sunday prep heavy on all the little things that will carry us to Thursday. Then I can scrape the crumbs of all the snacks together and call them a mystery bite. When you don't rely on bagged or wrapped snack foods you see how tedious they can be to make and you may take it very personal when the homemade crackers you spent over an hour making are gone before they've cooled. 

Another problem we solve with Sunday prep nights is our woeful date night situation. We are so bad at scheduling them. For one reason or another it just doesn't work out for us to have a regular night set aside to be out without kids. I agree that it's so, so important to spend time sans kids but I don't think it means you necessarily have to always do it out of your home. It was also brought to my attention by a friend that having one person do ALL the cooking was not good. When we were first dating cooking together was one of my favorite things. I have so many wonderful memories of us getting home from work, going to the store, lazily combing the aisles to see what looked good, coming home, drinking wine while we talked and cooked then sitting down to a nice dinner at 8:30. Fast forward to now, where I am the gate keeper of all things food and my son recently asked, "Does dad actually know how to make anything besides pancakes?" YES, he does! Well, he did before I forced him to unlearn his skills by shooing him out of the kitchen when he offered to help. It just seemed easier that way. So we decided to kill two birds with one stone and establish a Sunday night cooking date after the boys have been put to bed. And I love it. We can drink a bottle of wine, my husband can get back to the stove without the pressure of hungry kids and I get to sit around with a magazine while whatever I'm prepping cooks, biting my tongue as he does something slightly different than I do. It's also a very valuable lesson in letting go of control; something some of us have a very hard time doing.