Healthy lunchboxes for all!

We started school!! Well, no we about it, just the kids. I started doing the massive pile of laundry and painting the hallway. It's a really big lifestyle change for us and one I'm not 100% sure we are going to stick with. I don't love getting up so early and I know we didn't move here so we could hang around Arabia all the time. Plus trying to travel only when all the schools are out is both difficult and expensive.

 Our school is really special and cool, though. We have chickens, I get to teach a 'Meditation and Movement' class to the upper school (that's 8 kids), the boys are learning recorder and macrame, and it just feels like a nice place to be.  Its so cool you aren't supposed to send your kids with any junk food of any kind. A policy which I helped to write and of which I am wholly and utterly supportive. BUT, I still occasionally find myself ripping open packets and putting the contents into individual BPA-Free fancy re-usable lunch snack packs and hoping nobody notices.

I've been militant about obscene sugar consumption in school and the problem of multiplication in a bring-your-own environment, in the past. But 'nothing in packages' is pretty challenging, especially for the FAC's  Some websites have been helpful so here's my roundup to kick off blogging again:

School Bites 
There's not much here by way of recipes, but there is lots of good 'how-to' info on getting your school crapola-food free.

100 Days of Real Food
This started as one family's attempt to cut out all processed food and has developed into a huge blog with tons of great resources including meal plans. They have a great Pinterest page with TONS of ideas for healthy meals.

The Vegan Lunchbox
I tend to think of this site as the vanguard of healthy-school lunch blogs. I remember pouring over her ideas (we are by no means vegan) when the boys were too little to go to school.

Bon Appetit's 25 School Lunches
Some great ideas, possibly a bit ambitious for my kids, but tastes change...

Green Cold Sesame Noodles

Love cold sesame noodles when the weather is hot. So many recipes for them are really peanut noodles so I decided to try sesame tahnini instead to amp up the sesame flavor. I also wanted something that was a bit like a salad with noodles in it...

Cook one bunch soba noodles according to package directions.
In a medium size bowl, combine:
1 tbsp. sesame tahini
1/2 tsp. rice wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
one finely-chopped clove of garlic
one finely-chopped small thumb of ginger
a splash of sriracha or other hot sauce
2 tbsp. warm water
1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
2 tsp. soy sauce

Mix noodles with the dressing. Then toss with:
1/2 cup blanched green beans
1/2 cup julienned cucumber
1/2 cup shredded lettuce
1 generous bunch of pea-shoots, fresh cilantro and chopped
spring onions

Tuna Fish Sandwiches

I'm a hankerin' for tuna fish. Must be low on mercury...
First, I only use this one kind of Tuna: Genova White Tuna in Olive oil. Its a Chicken of the Sea product, who knew?? I just think Tuna in water tastes like the can.
Some delicious ways to make tuna salad:

One can of tuna, one 1/2 cup mayonnaise (yes, you read that right), one tbsp. capers and a generous amount of black pepper. This is more of a spread for a sandwich than a filling. Its delicious on french bread with lots of tomato, spinach and cucumber or served as an appetizer spread on crackers or thin slices of baguette.

One can of tuna- don't drain the oil. Chop- 1 doz. black olives, one small red onion, clove of garlic, two or three roasted red pepper filets, a small tomato, some fresh parsley. Mix veg with the tuna. Add more olive oil and the juice of 1/2 a lemon. This is good scooped into endive leaves as an appetizer too.

One can of tuna, two tablespoons mayonnaise, chop one stick of celery, one small white onion. Mix, add black pepper. Serve on white bread with dill pickles and Lay's potato chips. Heaven...
Or add about 1/4 cup fresh salsa to the above recipe and skip the pickles and chips, if you dont want to be soooo blanco.

Enchiladas

I've been avoiding this blog for a while. I've just had too much going on. Too much fear and too much sadness. Things are looking up, though, and I'm feeling rather blessed by my immediate and extended family. As part of the post-traumatic event doings, we are having lots of guests which has me in the mode of preparing food in advance so I don't have to worry too much about feeding people while they are here.

I made these enchiladas last night and enjoyed them with good friends today for lunch.

Spray an 8"X8" glass baking pan lightly with cooking oil spray (I avoid the ones with silicone and/or propellants and just buy the supermarket version with only oil). Cover the bottom of the pan with corn tortillas, break them up to get into the corners. Top with black beans, shredded leftover chicken or pork and some cheddar soy-cheese (or real cheese if your guts haven't betrayed you...). Keep layering like this until the pan is about 80% full. You can also take each tortilla and fill it with the beans, chicken and cheese and roll them up individually, but I find the lasagne method a little faster and easier (tastes the same...)
There are lots of options for the sauce:
11/2 cup green chile salsa, blended with 1/2 cup pureed pumpkin and two garlic cloves
2 cups chunky 'fresh salsa'
2 cups classic red enchilada sauce

Whatever you make, top the enchilada with it, cover with foil and either refridgerate or bake at 350 for about 30minutes. Serve with sour cream, chives and some cold salsa.

Party Food!

Suddenly, we are awash in social events. Tomorrow, I have to bring lunch for mine plus extra for about 10 people to a homeschooling event.
Menu: Turkey and cheese sandwiches with mayo or mustard, lettuce and tomato. (Muslim country, no salami, poor Mr. Dumpling...)
I'll bring a bag of apples and a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip muffins.
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup applesauce
1 egg
1/3 cup melted butter
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup each chocolate chips and walnuts (with a walnut alert sticker on the tupperware).

Then, Friday night we have our neighborhood Halloween do. I'll probably bring hot dogs for the kids to grill and then we are supposed to supply a side dish. I'm going to make this spinach and egg pie, just don't call it a quiche, manly airline types might not want to eat it...

One 8oz package spinach (thawed).
8-10 eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I know, but this is why it is really good!)
6oz grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 lg. frozen pie crust OR you can make Martha Stewart's pate brisee, which is the most reliable one I've found.

Pre-heat oven to 350.
Grease and press pie crust into a 12" tart pan. Do this quickly so it doesn't warm up too much, it doesn't need to be perfect, just covering the bottom.
In a blender, mix eggs and mayo.
Pour egg mixture into a bowl and fold into spinach and all but 1/4 of the cheese. Add salt and pepper.
Bake for about 1 hour. At 50 min. top with remaining cheese. Bake for 10 min more, let cool. It is ok if a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out a little eggy. The tart will continue to cook for a bit after its out.

Peanut soba noodles.

Everyone's making peanut soba noodles everywhere in the food-blog-o-sphere.

101 Cookbooks - Lazy Day Peanut Noodle Salad
Food.com - Cold Peanut Soba Noodles
Post Punk Kitchen - Ginger Peanut Soba Noodles

These are just a few of my favorites.

Here's my contribution to the question:

1 package buckwheat soba
1/3 cup Jif or other creamy peanut butter (I like the balance of sweet and salty in Jif)
1/4 cup lower-sodium tamari soy sauce.
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 generous splash of Frank's hot sauce
1 clove garlic
1 thumb ginger
about 8oz well drained, firm tofu (this I had marinated in lemon juice ginger and garlic, but plain tofu will do fine here).
green onions
asparagus
green beans or snowpeas or sugar snap peas or edamame
1/2 cup roasted salted (or unsalted) peanuts

Cook the soba according to package directions. When I drain them, I usually pour the boiling water over the beans & peas to save cooking them separately.
In a bowl, combine peanut butter, tamari, rice wine vinegar, hot sauce and the garlic and ginger (either very finely chopped or pressed). Add noodles, mix well.
Let the vegetables sit in the water until bright green and a bit tender. Drain, add to noodle mixture. Top with green onions and the peanuts.
This is a dish with infinite possibility of course. Pretty much any vegetable is going to work here. Try red pepper and broccoli, shiitaki mushroom and fresh peas etc. etc.

Dietary rehab

Back in dietary rehab after a week of cheese and crackers and cocktails. And the Fair food. Gyros, grilled sandwiches, sausage and peppers, the Pilgrim sandwich (thanksgiving on a bun), and all sorts of gimmicky, greasy, treats... I do try to stay away from the stuff, most people who work the flea market do, but then one figures how bad could anything served in a waffle ultimately be? Alright, pretty bad...
So yesterday I made dahl with spinach in curry. Cant get much healthier...

Cook 1/2 cup split red lentils in 1 cup of water with a 1/2 teaspoon each of turmeric and salt.
In a pan, saute one cup spinach (frozen chopped spinach is fine) in a teaspoon of olive oil with one onion and one clove of garlic, add the lentils and 1tsp curry paste, if the curry paste is un-salted you will want to add salt to taste.
Serve over brown rice.

Broken eggs...

So today was kind of a strange one. I went to the market after dropping them off at school and running the suburban mom gossip gauntlet. I managed to get everything I needed and get it all into the house before the trouble started.

One 1/2 gallon of milk was almost entirely lost because it was leaking out the bottom of the carton (Organic- $3.49 down the drain...), the peanut butter I bought was expired (I didnt know this was possible and I'm NOT throwing it out..), AND I broke an entire carton of eggs on the floor because I was trying to juggle too many things at once.
The big question was then what to do with all these broken eggs. Since its spring, sort of, I made a pie.

8 broken eggs (pick out most of the shells)
1/2 cup spinach
1/2 cup cooked sausage
1/4 cup cheese cubed or shredded (your choice)
1 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp parmesan
salt & pepper to taste

Butter an 8" baking pan. Put the sausage, spinach and cheese in. Take the eggs and whirl them up in a blender with the mayo, pour over sausage. Top with pepper, salt and parmesan. Bake at 350 or so for 20-30 min or until just set (it will finish cooking in the pan).

Okonomiaki ADDICTION

About 3 weeks ago, before we left for Dubai, I stayed with my seester and the K-man (the soon to be Uncle K-man). We drove to Brooklyn and stayed overnight with them and they brought us to the airport.

K-man made us some Okonomiaki and I have been thinking about them ever since. My sister maintains that the sheer volume of MSG is what makes them so addictive, but I dont know because MSG usually makes me feel TEERRIIBBLLEE. These did not!
Its a savory pancake with cabbage (in my case no shrimp) topped with dried bonito (that writhe when you put them on the pancake - its a little scary-), seaweed, plum-sauce and cupie mayonnaise. Click on this for an insane mayonnaise ad.

Its about the best combination of weird and delicious I've ever eaten.

Unsuccessful lunchbox noodles

I made the delicious udon noodles in sesame sauce for the boys to take in their lunchboxes. Unfortunately, they had a 100% return to home rate so I wont be doing it again. But I liked them lots so here they are in case you want to torture your kids...

boil 1 package noodles according to package directions. I used Roland Brand Organic Udon and two bunches of noodles for 4 servings.

Top cooled noodles with:
1/4 cup tamari sauce
2tbsp fresh toasted sesame seeds
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salad oil
1 tbsp vinegar
1 finely chopped garlic clove (raw garlic might be where I lost the boys)
1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger
about 1/4 cup green onions
some fresh cilantro
1 shredded carrot
a handful of chopped green beans (or sugar snap peas)
about 1/4 cup of shredded chicken.
Toss, refrigerate, serve, divy up into lunchboxes, send it off, take it back, eat it for your own lunch...

Curry chicken salad

I love curried chicken salad. Its such a 50's cocktail party kind of food, but so good. I've avoided making and eating it for a long time, negative associations with a friend who turned out to be NOT a friend... but that's kind of a foolish reason to limit culinary possibilities so, I made it yesterday.

1/2 cup of best quality mayonnaise

1tbsp of mild curry paste (I'm not a fan of curry powder, but if you are, use that instead. Toast it in a pan with a bit of olive oil first)

about 2 cups of shredded chicken

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup chopped red onion

1/2 cup red grapes (split in halves)

1/4 cup of walnuts

mix it all together, serve on toast with lettuce, or on a buffet table with some toast points...

Soup soup more soup more soup, and juice and soup...

So we've all been sick as dogs since last Thursday. Well, it started with the eldest last Thursday and really got going around Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon, things were looking up after a doctors' visit for all where lots of drugs were handed out, but we've taken a turn for the worse and even I have lost my lunch several times... The airline pilot is suspiciously immune and I suspect he is off secretly gobbling zinc, quinine, echanacea, and vitamin C cocktails (I would be if I wasnt so f-ing sick!!!!)

Here's a soup recipe anyway since I haven't made anything but soup or consumed anything but soup, juice and tea..

Put a chicken in a large pot. I'm very fond of supermarket rotisserie chickens for soup. Remove the breasts and save for later (their texture gets yick if you boil them with the soup).

Add 4 lg. carrots, several stalks of celery (leaves included), 4 small red onions (skin on- gives color), 3 or 4 garlic cloves, a goodly sized hunk of fresh ginger, 1/2 tomato, 1/4 of a lemon, a shake of mixed dried herbs, about 2 tsp. of salt or 1/2 a bullion cube, and a few shakes of pepper. Oh, and water for the less culinary of you out there.

Boil. Turn down to a simmer. Let simmer over lowest setting overnight (electric cooktop only, dont try with gas). Drain soup in morning, dispose of everything except largest chunks of meat and carrots- return these to soup.

Refridgerate for at least a few hours so the fat congeals on top. Skim fat and dispose. Cook some soup with rice or pastina- depending on what you can tolerate. Egg noodles strike me as deeply, richly indigestible right now...

Valentines day is probably cancelled- especially since the whole place smells like soup and throw-up, not real conducive to romance... Just thinking about chocolate makes me ill...

Green rolls

Ages ago, I posted about spring rolls when the most famous person I know taught me how to make them. I finally found the wrappers and noodles at a Choithram's supermarket which may be my new favorite.
Choithram's has a really good selection of ethnic foods and somebody there seems to be paying attention to providing ALL the ingredients you need for a particular dish. (i.e. every supermarket in Dubai has sushi rice, only Choithram's had sushi rice and sushi nori and wasabi paste, pickled ginger and tamari- all in the same place no less!!). It makes shopping here much less of a challenge.
Anyway, today I really wanted a fresh-tasting light lunch, my stomach has been bugging me. I made some lovely green spring rolls with

mung bean noodles
lettuce
snow peas
string beans
cucumbers
mint
coriander
cashews

They were very fresh and pleasant tasting. I still dont know how to make the penut sauce correctly, gotta bug that famous girl for it...

Breakfast of Champions or just me...

My new favorite breakfast is 'Energy Bread' toast spread with Labneh (Yogurt Cheese) with Zaatar. Zaatar is another one of these things that varies wildly depending on where you get it. In general, it seems to be sesame seeds, marjoram, thyme and oregano and then sumac and or hyssop in varying quantities. Its got a kind of light, lemony herbal taste. I top my toast with some tomato slices and sprinkle it with a little salt.

My friend Shellie gave me a pizza like thing at a picnic the other day that seemed to be a fried bread topped with Zaatar. It was tasty, but I have to say I like it better in the yogurt cheese.

License to fry... cheese.

You can't argue with a food culture that has its own cheese made just for frying. Halloumi is a very salty white cheese with a slightly squeaky rubbery texture. Sounds yummy- doesnt it?
BUT, slice it, place it in a frying pan with a very small amount of butter and cook it until browned on both sides and it becomes something else altogether.
A small warning, Halloumi seems to come out kind of gross in restaurants, I think its got to be served piping hot, frying pan to mouth in under 3 minutes kind of a situation, which does limit its usefulness. I see a lot of halloumi recipes out there for appetizers, salads etc. but I personally think it tastes awful if it loses temperature. Maybe I have to play around with it a little more...
So far, I like it best for lunch because I can cook it and eat it quickly.
It is delicious over spinach in a salad (how I've been eating it lately) or on some crispy french bread.

Shiitaki Mushroom Salad

Yesterday, Spinney's had shiitaki mushrooms on sale for 56dhs a kilo. That's about $6 lb to you and me. I pulled the stems off and sauteed the caps with olive oil, lemon juice, some fresh garlic and a bit of powdered ginger. When they were mostly finished, I splashed them with some white wine.

I served the mushrooms hot over arugula tossed with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

A lovely lunch.

Breakin' all the rules...

One nice thing about living in a foreign country is that you just arent aware of the food rules of a new cuisine. For example, as an Italian-american I do not serve bread and pasta in the same meal. The American dish of spaghetti with a side of garlic bread kind of freaks me out, far far too much bread. I dont eat salad before a meal- all that fiber, on an empty stomach- very bad for your liver... And dont even get me started about fish and cheese. Might as well drink arsenic.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm breaking lots of the basic rules of Middle-Eastern food, but I dont know them, dont know anyone who could or would share them with me, and well, I just dont really care.

Thus, this really delicious sandwich I made myself for lunch. I split a large Modern Bakery pita bread, spread it with tabouleh and topped it with garlic sauce. Perfectly delicious.

Tabouleh here is very different from what we have in the US (which I think for most is the Near East Brand). It is essentially a parsley salad with some bulgher wheat sprinkled into it, its very mild and refreshing and the crisp, almost lemony taste pairs very well with the garlic sauce. A home run of a sandwich if I do say so myself.

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup

All my little boys have horrible colds. They all look so sad and puny and pale in spite of their movie-star tans... its terrible.

Tonight in an effort to revive them a little and get some protein into them I made a soup. My idea was sort of asian inspired and a little spicy to help loosen up their chests.

About two hours before dinner, I put on about 2 quarts of water (stubbornly avoiding metric system here...) with 2 knorr vegetable cubes, two large shallots (quartered) a couple of garlic cloves and a good sized hunk of ginger (also quartered). I forgot green onions, which it really needed. After letting it boil and simmering it for an hour +, I scooped out the onion, garlic and ginger. I then chopped them finely and returned them to the pan. Alternatively, you could put it in a food processor with a bit of the broth for a creamier texture...I ate about 1/2 of the ginger pieces myself thinking it will help me avoid getting this cold, tasted good anyway...

15 minutes before I was ready to serve it, I added the shredded breast of a, guess what?? , Rotisserie Chicken!!!, some thinly sliced carrots, and some spinach. Snap peas or mizuna would be good here too. Lastly, I put in some buckwheat noodles. They ate it, but without much enthusiasm, personally, I thought it was delicious.

A heroic neighbor arrived after dinner with a pile of kids movies so at least they'll be entertained while suffering tomorrow... Who knows, maybe they'll wake up cured by the soup.

Dont even need to cook anymore...

Everywhere I go I see the mustard-yellow trucks of the Modern Bakery, and I think they make about the most delicious pita bread available here in Dubai. Even their whole-wheat pita is soft and chewy (in a good way). Its gotten to the point where I dont really need to cook anymore.

I could serve Mr. Muffin PuffCake a penut butter and currant jam on Pita each and every meal and he would be quite happy.

Mr. Dumpling would eat pita with salami and mustard at least a couple of times a week and Baby Chuck would be thrilled to have pita and bean paste (Hummus) at every meal.

Modern Bakery has rendered me obsolete as a mom.

Spinach Salad with Chicken

So now that we are fancy Dubai people living in our fancy apartment my dear husband has declared a moratorium on my favorite cheap meat (chicken thighs). No lowly thighs for us, I am now asked to purchase chicken breasts or whole chickens only. I guess this is fine, but to be honest, I find the chicken breast sort of tasteless and a little limited while thighs are just so rich and yummy... oh well.

My husband opened a package of chicken to make a Tikka Masala with (from a jar) and left me with one chicken breast. What to do with it?? I put it in a bag with some lemon, some powdered ginger (from India- potent stuff), and some garlic powder and let it marinate.

Last night, I made this salad for myself after the munchkins had gone to bed because I just didnt feel like eating at 5:30!

First I cooked the chicken in a saute pan, forgetting it while I blabbed on the phone with a friend gave it its nice carmel brown color. Then I put it over some raw baby spinach that had been tossed with lemon and poured the pan juices over it. Drank a large glass of the cheap white wine you get with your liquor license with it.

It was delicious but I will miss chicken thighs.