Getting Ready with Sides

It's Sunday--in my world, that's time to get lunches prepped for the week. Bento blogs mostly focus on the main dish, but the sides can really save your butt. It only takes about an hour to prep them, and usually I'm doing something else in the kitchen anyway. I don't always prep my sides, but I am always so glad if I do.

This week, I put three things in my stash: cookies, gelatin and apples. The three together are a kind of insurance. They are all nutritionally dense, with enough protein, fat and fiber to get a kid through the day. The gelatin helps the body absorb the minerals and protein that are in whatever food they manage to eat. All three elements do contain sugar--not so good, but to some degree you get to control what kind of sugar (for instance, the gelatin is sweetened with stevia), and the sweetness acts as a lure: I can be pretty sure these three things will get eaten if nothing else does. If those three things are in there, it becomes less important what else I send. So if I'm up all night with one sick kid, I can add peanut butter to the apple, include some chips and salsa or a thermos of leftovers, put in cookies and gelatin, and 5 minutes later the other child has a decent lunch. Would you like breakfast, dear? Here's the cereal. Wash your bowl; I'm going back to bed.

These are peanut butter/granola cookies made with homemade GF granola and some Callebaut chocolate shavings (recipe below). They are filling and nutritionally dense. If your child talks instead of eats at lunchtime, they will at least eat these, or hide them in a pocket to eat on the playground. Cookies are also good for student athletes who need bigger lunches to carry them through after-school practices. Store them in the freezer to add a cold element to the lunch bag, and to keep little mice (or big mice) from snitching them.

These gelatin cups are made with canned pineapple. I poured the juice into a measuring cup and added cranberry juice for color, then brought it up to 3 cups with some limeade. It wasn't sweet enough, so I added stevia. Each Sunday I make 4 cups of gelatin to fill 10 little containers and stack them in the fridge so they're ready to go in the morning. You could put anything in the cups: gelatin, yogurt, applesauce, pudding, or whatever your family favorites are.

There is a risk of putting something messy into a snap-top container. Unless your diner is very careful (mine aren't), the top can pop off, spilling the contents into the lunch bag. Yuk! If you can get screw-top containers, that is the best. Another solution is to put the snap-top containers into a larger, rigid container. Or do as I do and add enough gelatin or agar to everything to make it more solid. Gelatin and agar add significant nutritional value as well. Here's a link about gelatin from the Weston Price Foundation: http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/why-broth-is-beautiful

An apple a day....Gosh, I love apples. When I grew up in California, you could get three kinds: red delicious, golden delicious and rome beauties. When granny smiths started appearing, it was a big deal. Now we are in apple heaven with countless varieties to choose from now that fall is here. Apples stay nice all day, even cut up, and they're tasty and filling. All I do on Sunday is wash them. Usually in the morning I cut them cut up, sometimes adding cinnamon, sometimes adding peanut butter. Be sure to soak the slices in cold water (some people add lemon or salt) to retard browning. Our favorites are honeycrisp, fuji and gala--what's your favorite?



Flour-free Granola Cookies 
(I am not a recipe tester, nor am I good at following recipes. This is more of a guide.)

1 cup peanut butter (or the nut/seed butter of your people)
1 cup GF granola (instructions in an earlier post)
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar (more or less to taste; how sweet is the granola?)
1/2 tsp baking soda OR 1 tsp baking powder*
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (more or less to taste)
NO VANILLA! If you add liquid, the peanut butter separates

If you overmix, the peanut butter will separate, so stop the mixer as soon as it is all combined. Use an ice cream scoop to portion onto a cookie sheet. Flatten a bit, then bake as you see fit.

*If you can't find GF baking powder, just use half the amount of baking soda and make sure there is a little acid in the recipe for it to react with, like vinegar or yogurt or fruit. I don't know what acid is in this recipe, but the cookies came out fine.

Mara's GF Peanut Butter Cookies

Here is the original actual recipe that the above recipe is based on. These rock. Do NOT add any liquid, even vanilla, or the peanut butter will separate. Because there is no flour, the peanut flavor really pops--these are the best peanut butter cookies you can make!

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder