Carrot Cups

Making a lunchbox beautiful is satisfying, and it's particularly satisfying when form and function meet. Such is the case with puzzle apples that are cut to hold peanut butter (that will be for a future post), and these carrot cups. They are really a flower-shaped garnish--each piece looks like a little flower, but you can also bunch several together to make a larger flower. Because they are cup shaped, they make fantastic scoops for hummus or other dips. You can find tutorials for these on YouTube, but here is a quick how-to:

Start with straight, fairly thick carrots and a small, sturdy, sharp knife. Cut three slices off the bottom so the carrot comes to a triangular point. Then begin making cuts above the first cuts and in the same plane. This is how you form the petals. Make sure to angle the knife toward the center of the carrot so all three slices will meet in the middle; follow the cuts you made to shape the point and you'll be fine.

These photos are all taken with one hand, leaving the other hand to balance knife and carrot. Keep both hands on your project while you cut! Safety first!

Notice that the knife is held parallel to the first cut and angled toward the center of the carrot. Do not allow this cut to go down to the bottom of the petal or your flower will fall apart.

Once you have cut in, rotate the point of the knife so that the blade is cutting parallel to the edge of the flower. You are trying to make the same three cuts as before to create a point inside the carrot. If properly done, the flower will come off very easily and the petals will be intact.

Since you can't slice to the bottom of the petal in the first cut, rotate the knife blade to cut down into the point.

Here is the flower falling off the carrot. See the new point? Keep making these cuts up the carrot. One carrot is enough for several flowers.

Here is the finished lunch box. Wasn't that fun? Expect to mess up a lot before you get the hang of it. There are so many variables, such as what knife you are using and how thick/hard/straight your carrot is. I began by practicing whenever I was making vegetable soup, and all the ruined ones went into the pot. After a while, you will be able to make them fairly quickly, and your kids will love them!

Kale Taboulli

My friend Katherine was telling me yesterday that kale is a complete food, and if you could eat enough of it to satisfy your caloric needs, you would never need to eat anything else. I believe it. Kale is low in calories, strongly anti-inflammatory, high in antioxidants, has a decent protein profile, and it's packed with chlorophyll. Once you start eating kale, you crave it. As for quinoa, it is sometimes called a super grain, although it is not in the grass family and so is not a grain at all. But it is definitely a super food. Combining quinoa and raw kale into one salad, dressed with olive oil and lemon, creates a nutritional powerhouse, and it's so yummy I could eat it for lunch every day. In terms of bento, kale tabouli holds up much longer than parsley tabouli--you could easily make enough for three or four days.

Traditional tabouli is a labor intensive dish, but not this one. The great thing about substituting kale for parsley is that, while parsley does not chop well in the Cuisinart, kale stands up very well and even improves, becoming dark green and tender. You can make a big bowl of it in no time. Both have the same dark green flavor--you will be surprised that you can hardly tell the difference. Usually I chop the mint leaves in with the kale. Chop the green onions by hand so they stay clean and fluffy; they can get slimy in the food processor.

Lots of dark green kale chopped in the food processor; can of delicious Greek olive oil looms in the background.

Once you have the greens chopped--the bowl above took about 5 minutes--you add in the minced green onions, cooked quinoa and dressing, and that's it. For a real treat, include chopped tomatoes and cucumber. I read yesterday that you can freeze kale without blanching it. Really? I'm going to try freezing kale later and see how it holds up. Here is the finished salad:

Gee, a lot of the salad seems to have disappeared. Hmmmm.......

Kale Tabouli

1 big bunch of kale
1 bunch green onions (in winter use a minced white or yellow onion)
1 handful mint leaves (in winter use the contents of a mint tea bag)
1 cup dry quinoa cooked in 2 cups salted water
1 or 2 lemons, juiced
olive oil
salt to taste
1 tomato and 1 cucumber, optional

First, put the quinoa on to cook in salted water. While it's cooking, get out the food processor. Strip the kale leaves from the stalks, tear them into pieces and stuff them into the processor bowl, adding some of the mint leaves to each batch. You can pack in quite a bit. Put the lid on, being careful not to trap any leaves, and pulse it until the kale is chopped and moving freely. Process until the kale is finely chopped.

Chop the green onion by hand; use the green tops and all. (When I was a kid, we used the green and tossed the white. When I grew up, I was amazed that many people use the white part and throw away the greens!) Also dice the tomato and cucumber, if using.

When the quinoa is cooked, remove it from the heat and fluff it up to speed cooling. Once it is cooled, mix it into the salad. Dress with olive oil, lemon and salt: First, drizzle on olive oil a little at a time, tossing as you go. Stop when each leaf is lightly coated with oil. Next, add lemon juice a little at a time, tossing as you go, until it is a sour as you like. Then add salt the same way. Done!

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. 

Night-Before Middle Eastern Bento

Hummus with olive oil and paprika, deviled eggs with saffron, broccoli, baby carrots, mint tea, tangerine, cookies

Most of the bentos you find online, as well as most of the books, feature Japanese food. And, of course that makes sense, because the bento originated there. But there is no rule that says bento has to be made with Japanese-style food. Sure, the Japanese have elevated lunch to an art and you'll find many great ideas, especially for the gluten-free among us, but if you search a bit, you'll also find bentos with enchiladas, tamales, calzones, blintzes--any food that can be packed neatly and tastes good at room temperature.

This is a nice Middle-Eastern bento, and it's a frequent favorite because the kids like it and I can make the whole thing the night before. Keep the ingredients on hand so that as soon as your daughter tells you, "Oh, yeah, you have to braid my hair in the morning to go with the Artemis costume for my social studies project," you can pack everyone's lunch after dinner.

Hummus is tasty with lots of different vegetables like carrots, turnips, celery, cucumbers, radishes, cherry tomatoes, jicama, or even apple slices. (Apple slices, or anything that might turn brown, are best cut in the morning.) You can also add olives, pickles, crackers, pretzels or any number of shelf-stable foods to round it out.  Make it more on the stiff side so it travels better--runny hummus can be a mess. Another easy addition to this bento would be canned grape leaves--I usually keep some in my stash for emergencies; they're not too expensive and they seem like a special treat. Sub grape leaves for the egg to make a vegan bento.

Hummus Recipe

Before I write the recipe, you must know that what separates good hummus from "just okay" hummus is the ingredients, particularly the freshness of the tahini and the texture of the beans. Sesame paste goes rancid fairly easily--keep it in the fridge, and if there is any bitterness or rancidity, toss it. As for beans, they must blend up creamy, not gritty. Sometimes beans cooked from scratch are fine, and other times they don't have good texture. My favorite canned beans are the Al Wadi brand: One 15-oz can makes enough hummus for 3 or 4 lunches, depending on what you pack.

1-15oz can of chickpeas, drained and brine reserved
~1/2 cup of tahini (two big blobs)
~1/2 clove garlic, or to taste
juice of one lemon
salt to taste
ground cumin to taste

Put the chickpeas, tahini, lemon, and garlic into a food processor and blend well. Add the brine a bit at a time to make it smooth but not runny. Add salt and cumin to taste. Put it into silicone cups or lidded containers; drizzle with olive oil and a shake of paprika. Serve with cut up vegetables and apple slices.

Apple Slices for Bento

Cut the cold apples into quarters or eights, depending on your purpose. Put them into a bowl of cold water for a few minutes. (Some people add salt or vinegar to the water, but I don't.) This keeps them from turning brown for a few hours. Try cutting one red and one green apple, and packing the slices in alternating colors!

Improvising!

Root salad, asparagus, turkey dog, broccoli, tomato; half-sour pickle, apple, mango gelatin

Time to improvise: Tie the opposite corners of the napkin together--the napkin is both the lunch "bag" and the tablecloth! The ties make a convenient handle.

Stack sandwich boxes together and secure with a rubber band. Put a fork or spoon under the rubber band, if you like.

La Primera left her lunch bag at school yesterday. That can be a stinky problem if I pack shrimp! Usually they keep their leftovers to eat in the car on the way home. If we have an event after school, I pack extra lunch just for that reason.

Today they have karate, so I needed to pack lots of food with no lunch bag. Here's how we rolled: Stack two sandwich boxes, secure with a rubber band, and tie it all up in a big napkin. You can get quite a lot of food into two sandwich boxes, even enough for a karate kid. Heck, you could pack three sandwich boxes if you have a teenager on the swim team. Just put a sandwich in the third sandwich box. (I've never tried it, but it might work! Hee hee!)

Gelatin is a great lunchbox staple, for several reasons. You can make a bunch of them in minutes and have them ready all week. Nutritionally, gelatin helps the body absorb protein and minerals, one reason why soup made with bone broth is so sustaining: When food is scanty, gelatin lets you get more from less. Some parents worry that their kids don't eat enough or don't eat enough "protein." Human breast milk contains 5% or less protein--there is at least that much protein in vegetables, in addition to all the vitamins, minerals and fiber. If you're worried, toss in a gelatin to assure yourself that your child is absorbing maximum nutrition from what they do eat. Vegans and dieters can make a nourishing gelatin with agar that is high in fiber and high in minerals, especially calcium and iron.

Make your gelatin firmer so it's more like Jigglers; that's your insurance that it won't get runny at room temperature. In today's lunch-in-a-napkin, I could not pack the gelatin separately, so I popped it out of the container (which was too tall to fit into the sandwich box) and slid it into a silicone muffin cup. The muffin cups are flexible, making it easy to tuck the gelatin into a corner of the sandwich box.

SUB NOTES: Special diet? No problem!

Vegans can omit the turkey dog or sub a tofu pup, and use agar in the gelatin. Yum! Or leave out the gelatin and put a little cup of peanut butter to go with the apples.

Specific Carbohydrate Diet? We followed this for a while: Make the root salad from celeriac, rutabagas, carrots and golden beets, or whatever legal roots you prefer. Dress with homemade mayo. Instead of hot dog, sub a boiled egg, a slice of cheese or a homemade sausage patty.

Hypertension: This lunch is perfect already! The turkey dog is low fat; go easy on the mayo in the salad.

Diabetic: If you are avoiding fruit juice, sub peanut butter to dip your apples in. You might need to sub something for the root salad. Here is an interesting recipe using green bananas to make a mock potato salad:
http://www.diabetesforum.com/diabetes-recipes/4138-faux-potato-salad.html