Lunch Box Treats - January 2012
January is a time of lazy summer days, sleeping in and unstructured days – very different to our everyday lives of alarm clocks, timetables (both school and public transport) and early morning traffic of the kitchen, bathroom and road variety.
As the end of January approaches, and the ‘Back to School’ commercials start playing on our screens in high rotation, it’s a good time to start preparing ourselves for the new school year.
One way of easing the transition back to school for children and working parents is to spend a day together in the kitchen in the week before school starts. Baking for school lunchboxes can be fun and really helps to ease the stress of returning to school for students and their parents.
A handful of tried and true recipes are all it takes: they should be easy to prepare, suitable for freezing where possible, and nutritious. The meat and dairy content should be used sparingly if at all, in order to minimise the risks associated with lack of refrigeration. The purchase of a small ice pack for the lunch box is a good investment too.
With the current prevalence of severe nut allergies, many schools are now nut-free and this applies not just to peanuts, but to pine nuts and walnuts (which are often found in small quantities in such things as pesto), so these ingredients should be avoided.
Above all, the lunchbox goodies should be delicious.
Below are two recipes my family has relied on over the years to get us through the Return-to-School rush. They can be adapted to suit your family’s tastes and available preparation time.
Muffins
1 ½ cups SR flour (add a little more for savoury muffins)
½ cup caster sugar (for sweet muffins)
1 egg
¾ cup milk
¾ cup light oil
Mix flour (unsifted) and sugar in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk the egg with the oil and milk then pour in with the dry ingredients and combine. Add the cup of extra ingredients and combine. Don’t overmix. Fill muffin trays, using paper muffin cases to line your muffin trays. It saves washing the tray and makes for easy packing. Muffins can be frozen and stored for future consumption.
These can be savoury or sweet – the basic ingredients remain the same, just add a cupful of what you fancy and omit the sugar for savoury muffins – choc bits, frozen raspberries, grated apple and cinnamon, stewed rhubarb, or cheese and fresh herbs, sundried tomatoes, roasted capsicum, olives….
Nut-free Pesto
1 bunch basil
2 Tbspns grated parmesan
2 cloves garlic
½ to ¾ cup light olive oil
Process all ingredients and stir pesto through cooked pasta or boiled new potatoes with a little mayo or salad dressing and some chopped capsicum, red onion and (for pasta salad) cherry tomatoes. Seal salads in an airtight container and don’t forget to pack a fork.
Freeze leftover pesto in an ice block container, and defrost ‘ice blocks’ as required for future lunches.
Thai Salad Dressing
½ bunch fresh coriander, washed and dried
3 Tbsns lime juice (approx 1 lime)
3 Tbspns soy sauce
3 – 5 Tbspns raw sugar
Thai sweet chilli sauce to taste (optional)
1 clove garlic (optional)
Pack separately with combinations of cos lettuce, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap or snow peas, sliced red or spring onions, blanched beans, capsicum, julienned carrot etc. This dressing freezes well, so you can use up the whole bunch of coriander and double the recipe for later use.
Interesting salads can be made up from a combination of fresh salad ingredients and leftover roasted vegetables. Add a small container of pesto mayonnaise, Thai salad dressing or good old Paul Newman’s classic salad dressing, and you’ve got yourself a healthy interesting school lunch.
Bon appétit!
Copyright Elizabeth Quinn 2012
