How many teeth is Maggie missing? It's like trying to guess how many jellybeans are in a jar. The person who guesses the closest to the actual number without going over will win a fabulous prize! (Kidding.) Anyway, on with the post...
One night last week my friend and her son came over for dinner. We had some steaks and a really great, really large salad. It had lovely green leaf lettuce, sweet red pepper, tomatoes, green onions, cucumbers, carrots, and mushrooms - nothing extraordinary, but colorful and delicious. When Jen and I made it, we each had a cutting board, some produce and a glass of wine. We were chatting away, washing, peeling, slicing, and the next thing we knew, we had made enough salad for a small town's potluck supper. Since there were only seven of us, with three kids under ten, we did not eat the whole salad. So, I threw the leftovers in a plastic container and threw it in the fridge. The next day as I packed lunches, I asked if the girls wanted to take some salad with them instead of sliced veggies. You'd have thought I asked if they wanted a big slice of chocolate cake! Both kids screamed, "YES!" and a giant light bulb appeared over my head! DUH!
The kids who bring home uneaten, flaccid cucumber slices and warm baby carrots were EXCITED at the possibility of taking a full-on salad to school! We discussed how they'd be able to get some dressing from the fixings table at school, and we were set. After school, I opened the lunchboxes, and.......... SALADS WERE ALL GONE!
The next day, Maggie asked for another salad. We had had tacos the night before and my husband had chosen to make a big taco salad instead of downing a bunch of taco shells. So, Maggie went to school with lettuce, tomato, black beans, a little taco meat (ground turkey), and some shredded cheese. I sent her with a half of a leftover taco shell to crumble on top, and she was good to go. Another SCORE!
The problem with salads for lunch is that I have an irrational and intense dislike of washing lettuce. I like to grow lettuce in the garden. I like to eat lettuce. I do not like to wash lettuce. The dislike is so strong that I will often eat a plate of vegetables without lettuce just so I don't have to wash it. So, the thought of washing lettuce in the morning is not appealing. (The bags of lettuce at the store always seem so pale and dry, and the giant clamshells of organic baby greens invariably have moist, decaying red leaf lettuce in them which causes me to chuck the entire overpriced lot into the trash.) But, I've discovered that if I intentionally make too much salad at dinner, I can save the extras until the next morning and use it for lunches. Whew!
The salads I've sent to school so far have been sides to the daily PB&J, but they've been so successful, I've decided to replace the sandwich with a bigger salad and call it lunch. This week, much to my dismay as a student with a stack of case studies and an exam due by Sunday night, my kids were on half days all week because of parent conferences. Not only was my study time cut drastically, the kids also did not have to take lunch to school, so we improvised at home and created a salad that was just awesome (if I do say so myself). Here's the recipe and the nutritional information:
Senora O'Brien's Taco Salad (feeds one adult and 2 kids)
4 cups lettuce/fresh greens (In the picture above, Maggie is eating a mix of baby greens. If this was a day-after-taco-night salad, she'd probably be eating green leaf lettuce or it's poor relative iceberg)
1 medium tomato, diced
1/2 cup cooked ground turkey (with taco seasoning)
1/2 cup black beans, canned, rinsed
2 tablespoons mild salsa
1/4 cup loosely packed sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 taco shell to crumble on top
Warm up the beans and the taco meat for about 30 seconds each in the microwave. Load the salad greens into a bowl. Top with tomatoes. Top with warmed black beans and taco meat. Sprinkle with grated cheese, and add a generous dollop of mild salsa. Have the kids break up a taco shell to throw on top. Eat! (We didn't need any extra dressing with the flavor from the salsa and the spiciness from the taco meat.)
Prep work: Prep work is minimal, especially if there are leftovers from the night before. I would not make this recipe if, say, I had to cook the ground turkey first - that would be too much work. But, for a morning-after-taco-night lunch, this is great. Also, if there's avocado or olives hanging around the kitchen, or maybe some bell pepper or green onion, all would be welcome additions - but don't go out and buy them specially, or the prep work rating will go way down. Rating: 5 out of 5
Appearance: It looked pretty good, and Maggie was salivating just looking at it. Rating: 4 out of 5
Packability: If packing this as a main course in a lunchbox, there won't be room for much else, so the kids might need to buy some milk and secure some fruit to round out the meal. But, by packing the taco shell separately and letting the kids break it up in the cafeteria, it keeps the shell from getting soggy and adds to the overall fun factor. Rating: 4 out of 5
Nutrition: I was excited to put this into My Pyramid Tracker to see how it rated. Being the food dork that I am, I was disappointed that the site only listed "turkey, ground" - and not the lean kind. As a result, it's probable that my fat numbers are higher here than they really were. (And is anyone else frustrated that to find something simple like "tomatoes" or "black beans" you have to look through a long list of tomato-based products and/or the entire Taco Bell menu?) Just saying... Anyway, based on the numbers below, I'd give this menu a really high rating. Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Based on My Pyramid Tracker's recommendations for Maggie and Ellie, this meal had:
- 22% of the recommended kcal/day
- 101% of the recommended daily Vitamin A
- 116% of the recommended daily Vitamin C
- 56% of the recommended daily calcium
- 27% of the recommended daily iron
- 58% of the recommended daily fat (see note above about ground turkey in My Pyramid Tracker)
- 66% of the recommended daily saturated fat (again, see note above about ground turkey in My Pyramid Tracker)
Maggie's Rating: I loved it! I ate the whole plate that you gave me! My favorite parts were the cheese and the meat. I would eat it two days in a row! Rating: 5 out of 5
Ellie's rating: Can I just have a bowl of black beans right out of the can? Rating: 3 out of 5 (She is a girl of strange and simple tastes. She likes black beans because they are clearly cousins of kidney beans, and she thinks kidney beans are called "candy beans." Therefore, she loves her legumes because she thinks they're sweets.) She ate two bowls of black beans. Watch out.
Lunchbox Learning of the Week: Come to think of it, I understand why a single cut up vegetable would be a pretty boring thing to find in one's lunchbox. It's kind of like I was playing the lunch lady and fulfilling some sort of nutritional requirement instead of actually trying to think up something my kids would like to eat. I know very well that throwing together lunches while concurrently trying to get the kids dressed, backpacks filled, teeth brushed, and coats on is not going to result in the most creative lunchbox ideas. Maybe planning to make some extra food at dinner so we'll have leftovers will be a good way for us to make the most of our prep time while providing some more exciting options for lunches. We'll see!Links! Here is a link to a blog called Raise Healthy Eaters, which is written by a registered dietitian and mom. The post is called 8 Salads That Will Get Your Kids Hooked. (It looks like a great all-around blog to check out!) Also, there are all kinds of products designed to keep salads cold for lunch on the go, and definitely, keeping a salad cold is important for both food safety and taste reasons. With an insulated lunchbox and a frozen cold pack, a cold salad should stay cold until lunchtime.
