Cheese Dillys

Quesadillas made with organic brown rice tortillas, shredded lettuce, bean dip&salsa, carrot sticks

Quesadilla is Spanish for "cheese dilly." At least, that's my husband's translation, and we like it. This is easily the most-shared lunchbox the girls bring. Someone always wants a bite. I pack extra side dishes to make sure they get enough to eat, although I suppose I could just make another quesadilla! In this case, they got a container of apple slices and a container of dry breakfast cereal (makes a good non-messy snack) in addition to the bento.

The quesadillas are best made in the morning, but it takes just a minute. We keep the tortillas in the freezer and just remove what we need; they thaw quickly in the hot skillet. I put only cheese inside, but depending on your diner, you could add cilantro or chilies, or a bit of leftover cooked meat or tofu. My friend Katherine uses Daiya brand vegan cheese, which is quite good. Don't add too much stuff unless you want it to be a burrito. The brown rice tortillas tend to get soggy faster than wheat ones, so don't add salsa.

The bean dip and salsa are on the side, in a lidded container that fits in the bento. The dip is just refried beans with salsa stirred into it, and topped with another blob of salsa. This is in accordance with rule #3, Never Pack Anything That Looks Like Poop. The red salsa on top disguises the murky bean dip beneath. I filled the box with whatever colorful vegetables I happened to have at hand: In this case, baby carrots and shredded lettuce fit the bill. Other good choices would be red pepper slices, lightly steamed broccoli, cherry tomatoes, snap peas, or anything colorful to contrast with the beige tortillas.

If you can't get brown rice tortillas, use corn tortillas. You could even use crepes. If your family eats wheat, you could buy green spinach tortillas and red tomato tortillas: Make one of each color, cut them up, and alternate colors in the bento. Little kids particularly like finger food, and they like choices, even if it's just to choose between a red one or a green one.

Speaking of choices, it is an important aspect of Special Diet Bento: All kids like choices, and for those who have to follow a prescribed diet, it gives them a measure of control. For instance, traditional bag lunch contains a whole apple, but in bento the apple is cut up. The box above is meant to hold one sandwich--that's not much of a choice unless your child dismantles it, which is messy for the lunch monitor. With sliced apple and quesadilla, they can choose which slice to eat first, which slice to share, whether to dip into the sauce all at once or between bites, whether to put the lettuce on top, whether to use the carrots to do a walrus imitation. They can count all the components and make up little games. Interactive is attractive, and it takes very little extra effort on the part of the lunch packer. The more engaging their lunch is to themselves and the children around them, the more lucky they will feel to have a special diet.

What's in a Name?

People seem to categorize foods according to labels like "protein" and "carbohydrate" without recognizing that most foods, particularly vegetables, fall into multiple categories. For instance, seaweeds have tons of protein. Mushrooms have lots of carbohydrates, as do apples. Most vegetables contain about the same amount of protein as human breast milk, not to mention being loaded with carbs, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Many people would not consider apples and peanut butter to be a meal, but between them they have plenty of protein, fiber, carbs, fat and nutrients, not to mention calories. Apples and hummus is even better!

Labels can be deceiving. It is easy to say that a bologna sandwich on white bread is a lunch and apples and peanut butter is not, because the former is perceived as "lunch food" and the latter isn't. But which one is more nutrient dense? Which makes a better breakfast, homemade soup or Cap'n Crunch with conventional milk? Schools don't question the idea of serving sugary processed cereal to kids in the cafeteria because it is cheap, available and "accepted." But is it doing them any good?

Often people ask why processed sugar is bad. Isn't it just another food? Think about it like this: Whatever you put into your body has to be digested; that is, nutrients are extracted and the trash is removed. We tend to think in terms of calories, but it takes a wide range of our body's resources to break down the food we eat: vitamins, minerals and enzymes are also used up in the process. So every time we eat a food that has empty calories--that is, it provides calories but has no other nutritional value--our bodies operate at a deficit. It's like taking more money out of the bank than you put in the bank; eventually, you'll be broke. This argument can be made of any heavily processed "food": It is nothing more than ash with calories and flavor, and your body has to pay to get rid of it. (My husband often refers to items in the Dollar Store as "cheap plastic from China manufactured for American landfills." It's the plastic equivalent of processed food.)

High calorie, low nutrient foods can lead to obesity, because they allow a person to eat a high volume of food without providing enough nutrition. That's how you can eat a lot and still crave more--there's something missing that your body needs. The "cure" is to eat nutrient-dense foods as much as possible and ignore the calories. Michael Pollen can tell you all about it, but the easy answer is to load your diet with vegetables and fruit, about half of them raw, and the occasional splurge will sort itself out. Diet isn't about what you eat occasionally, but what you eat habitually.

The best reason to pack a lunch: to give your diner tasty, nutrient-dense foods that are body building, not body depleting. Lunchables may look like food, and may fit the description of what people perceive to be "lunch," but it's a sham. Any lunch you make at home from quality, mostly organic ingredients would be more nutritious, even if it is a tangerine, a dill pickle and three homemade peanut butter cookies. Let go of the labels, focus on what your child wants and needs, and a new world of dining will open up for you.

Cold Tofu Bento

Short-grain brown rice with sprinkles, bread-and-butter pickles, deviled eggs with saffron, carrots, cucumber slices, apple.

Cold tofu is very yummy. Get the soft kind and drizzle it with soy sauce and sesame oil. Mmmmmm.

Road Trip!!!

We just got back from a trip to Florida, a 21-hour drive each way--if you don't stop. Many people asked us what we eat, seeing that road food options are not always the best. Here, by way of example, is what we do. Your mileage may vary.

Like bento foods, most of these are not messy, are easy to eat, keep well, and are tasty at room temperature. Only bring food everyone likes; it might seem like a good time to get people to try new things, but everyone is just sitting around and their appetites are dull and a bit fussy. We keep a cooler in the back and a grocery bag of snacks in the cab of the car. Considering that sitting all day is hard on the digestion, we include raw fruits and vegetables and minimize (but don't eliminate) chips and popcorn. For the same reason, we bring raw cheddar to eat with the apples--it's more expensive, but also more digestible, and the expense reduces the overall consumption.

Here's what we brought on the way down: Apples, cheddar, carrots, GF pretzels, Pirate Booty, and toasted nori for car food. In the cooler we brought more apples, plus milk, boiled eggs, cucumber chunks, leftover cole slaw and GF bread. We also brought cereal to eat with milk for breakfast in motels, and a couple cans of sardines because we like sardines; we don't eat them in the car, though. On the way home we had similar food, plus celery sticks and jicama sticks. We let the kids buy Lay's potato chips; they like to buy something at rest stops, and Classic Lays don't use cottonseed oil. We also give everyone a water bottle and have a couple gallon jugs of water in the back for refills. Other good car foods are grapes, dried fruit, fried tempeh or tofu cubes and mixed nuts. You can bring messier foods to eat when you arrive--on one trip to a water park, we dined for a couple days on a giant can of grape leaves, apples, crackers, olives, cheese, carrot sticks, and a 2-pound pate de campagne.

We tend to eat small snacks every couple hours so no one gets too hungry (read "irritable"). Also, since we're only sitting, eating frequent, smaller snacks leads to less indigestion. As for the cooler, we use frozen water bottles and ice packs rather than ice--it's less messy, and they're small enough to refreeze in the motel fridge.

In addition to actual food, you might find it useful to bring condiments. Sometimes you'll want to stop for a meal, and while you might find a place that fits your diet perfectly, having condiments gives you flexibility. We bring GF soy sauce (for plain rice), organic catsup (for french fries) and salad dressing (for salad bars).

Here is something less obvious that helps tremendously: Eat less, and you won't have to bring so much food. Pack nutrient-dense, organic foods, and chew them well to help you feel full sooner. A car trip is nothing but time and a captive audience, so it is a perfect opportunity to entertain yourselves by chewing really, really well. Fletcherize! Since digestion depends on movement and you'll be sedentary, chewing well is even more important.

Remember a few posts ago when I talked about having flexibility regarding what makes a meal? The benefits pay out on the road when someone is hungry but you cannot stop for a meal because you're in a traffic jam, or there's only KFC, or you have a flat, or you just stopped 10 minutes ago, or your husband is not stopping till we get to Aunt Bertha's, by god! Pick a reason. The point is, if people are used to making a meal of apples and cheese, or a boiled egg and pretzels, they are more likely to be satisfied with that and not put up a fuss.

Sometimes I'm tempted to try "Manifold Destiny," or maybe get a power converter to run a slow cooker. What do you do on a long car trip? I'd love to hear what other families do!

Mostly Make-Ahead

Basmati rice with toasted sesame seeds, shrimp, steamed broccoli and carrot, heart-shaped deviled egg, soy sauce. Not pictured: applesauce, gelatin, and cookie.

My husband always says that if eggs cost $10 apiece, he would still buy one on occasion as a special treat. Eggs are so good, and there are many ways to serve them in a lunchbox. My kids prefer deviled eggs so I don't exercise my other options, but if you look at different bento sites you'll find recipes for a sweet omelette and for eggs that are finely scrambled and used to top rice. The main "decorating" in this box is just color: If you have a few contrasting colors, the food looks prettier. On the mornings when all you have is food of one color, bust out those contrasting silicone muffin liners!

I posted a variation of this earlier, and it's one of the kids' favorites. Mine, too, because it is quick and easy. If you're making rice for dinner the night before, just make extra for lunch. You can also steam the shrimp and veggies and boil the eggs and put them into molds. If you do it while you are already in the kitchen cooking or cleaning, it won't take much extra time. In the morning, just warm the rice, let it cool, then pack it all up. Notice how full the box is. You can get a lot of food into a small container, and the contents won't shift and spoil your design.

Silicone Cups and Sun Chokes

Even Nikola Tesla wants a bite of this: Hummus with carrots, celery, tangerine, sun chokes and gluten-free pretzels.

Now that you have yourself a sandwich box, the next thing you need is silicone muffin liners. They are flexible and can hold a variety of foods, soft or hard. For soft foods, make sure the liner is tall enough. Notice how the green cup holding the hummus is slightly taller than the sides of the container? Once the lid is on, it touches the top of the liner and helps hold it in place. Don't put in anything wet or runny, but thick dips are fine, and juicy pickles won't leak all over everything else.

Silicone cups also keep dry foods from getting soggy--for a while, anyway. Eventually, these pretzels would soften from being in the same container with the moist vegetables, but not before lunchtime. (If you're going on a long plane trip and your lunch might get jostled around, definitely put the pretzels in a separate container.) The silicone cup is able to stretch to accommodate the long shape of the pretzels.

Hummus is a frequent player in our lunches, so I try to change up the vegetables. Apples are good, and carrots or celery are a no-brainer, but if you have anything else crispy, like jicama or sun chokes, that adds interest. The kids dug these red sun chokes in the garden. If you like them, plant a few in a part of the yard where the kids can dig, and where their spreading habit won't be a bother. You'll be rewarded with tall sunflowers in summer and tasty tubers through the fall, winter and spring.