Back to School

Back to School: Dinner tips for busy evenings

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 6:15PM

Whether you're running home from work, driving the carpool circuit or picking up one child at play rehearsal and the other across town at the end of their cross country run, the start of school means that there's less time to cook dinner than there was just a few short weeks ago. However, there are a few things you can do so that you can walk in the door and have dinner ready in no time.

Cook your grains ahead and freeze them. We all know that brown rice is a healthy way to go, but it takes nearly 40 minutes to cook, which tucks it neatly out of quick-dinner range. However, you can make a large pot of rice (quinoa, barley and millet also freeze nicely), pack it into freezer-safe containers and just microwave it for a few minutes just before you're ready to eat.

Use your slow cooker. Pull that old crock pot out of the closet, basement or wherever else you have it stashed and fire it up. You do a few minutes of prep and it will spend the rest of the day working for you. While soups, stews and chili are the classic slow cooker meals, you can also use them to roast whole chickens, braise cuts of meat or get a good simmer on your spaghetti sauce. Check out Flylady's slow cooker page for a whole bunch of recipes and tips.

Smaller pieces cook faster. If you are the type to do your dinner prep over the weekend or the night before, take a few more minutes and cut those pieces just a little smaller. I had a friend who would often cut chicken breast into small pieces when she brought it home from the store, pour marinade over it and freeze it. In the mornings before she left for work, she'd just remove the packet she wanted to cook that night, pop it into the fridge (in a bowl to catch any melt) and it would be ready to go when she got home.

Veggies don't have to be complex. Remember your basics. Steamed broccoli or cauliflower are easy. Just break apart the florets and toss them in a pot with a couple of inches of water at the bottom. Cook for 5-7 minutes until they are fork tender. If you want to get fancy, a quick sauce of mayo and lemon juice drizzled on top is easy to whip up.

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Filed under: Back to School, Ingredients, How To

Back to School: What not to send

COMMENTS 9

by Joanne Lutynec, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 5:29PM

Today we've been focusing on what to send for school lunches, what to send it in, and even what to do when the kids finally leave. (Bob, you are brilliant!) However, in my experience, there are certain food items that I've found are better served at home than sent to school. Feel free to agree, disagree, or add your own to the list.

Food that needs to be heated
Whether I was planning to send leftovers from dinner or products like canned food or Easy Mac, I was thrilled for all of about two days when I found out my daughter's school had a microwave. What I didn't bother to find out was that the kids only had 35 seconds each to use it. Obviously, this isn't enough time to heat most items, let alone cook something. Though this may vary slightly from school to school, even if they do have a microwave available, I suggest to avoid sending anything that needs to be heated or your child will spend half their lunch hour waiting in line just so they can eat something that is only slightly warmed up.

Filed under: Back to School, Ingredients

Back to School: Hey parents, let's drink!

COMMENTS 5

by Bob Sassone, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 4:44PM

Gin and Tonic Remember that commercial for Staples, the one where the parents are taking their kids shopping for school supplies and they're smiling and dancing to "The Most Wonderful Time of The Year?"

It's that time of year.

I have a good friend who has a young boy, and she's really happy he's back in school. This has nothing to do with a parent not loving their kids, it's just that when a child (baby, tween, or teen) is home, I'm sure it can just completely rule your life and not give you any breathing room (I'm not a parent, but I can imagine). I picture balloons falling from the ceiling and the liquor cabinet unlocked the moment the kids are on the bus.

So, parents, let's drink and celebrate!

Filed under: Back to School, Drink Recipes

Back to School: Workplace Dish Set

COMMENTS 5

by Sarah J. Gim, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 4:01PM

We're focusing on kids going back to school, but that doesn't mean we have to ignore the "big kids" who go back to work.

For those of us who opt to pack a lunch and eat at our desks rather than socializing with our co-workers over lunch at the cafe on the corner, Workplace is a convenient way to take your food and eat it too. The set is a personal plate, bowl, cup and utensils, all snugly wrapped together in a placemat that will protect your desk from whatever soup/sandwich you brought from home. Of course, keeping crumbs out of your keyboard is another story.

Available from Vessel for $29.

Source

Filed under: Back to School, New Products

Slashfood Ate (8): Worst school lunch items

COMMENTS 73

by Bob Sassone, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 2:47PM

mystery dinner Last year I picked the 8 best school lunch items I remember from my school days (admittedly, a long time ago). But what about the lunches that a lot of kids hate? Here are my choices:

1. Mystery meat: What exactly was this? I'm trying to go through my mental Rolodex and I can't remember. Was it meatloaf? Salisbury steak? I'm not sure, but it just seemed to be this mass-produced glob of grayness topped with lame gravy. The days I saw that this was the lunch were the days I just had something to drink and maybe a bag of chips.

Filed under: Lists, Fall Flavors, Slashfood Ate, Back to School

Back to School: Battle of the Peanut Butters

COMMENTS 64

by Sarah J. Gim, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 2:16PM

Even with all the media surrounding peanut allergies in kids, peanut butter still remains tops when it comes to sandwiches. Newsday put the eternal question to the test with 11 kids and got the answer to "What is the best peanut butter?" They tested 16 brands of peanut butter including store brands like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and also controlled for crunchy and creamy preferences by testing them separately.

So who won out? As much as parents would love to have kids prefer natural peanut butters, national brand Skippy took first place in both creamy and crunchy categories, followed closely by Peter Pan and then Jif. For the full results, and more information about peanut butter in general, check out the Newsday article.

Filed under: Cooking With Kids, Raves & Reviews, Lists, Back to School, Ingredients

Back to School: Various stages of brown-bag hell

COMMENTS 6

by Joanne Lutynec, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 1:31PM

I think there is a certain sense of relief parents feel when their children return to school in September. No more worrying about how the kids are going to fill their days, no more dealing with babysitters or shuttling them to and from summer camps. Life simply returns to normal. However, it seems that somewhere over the long, hot summer months we tend to forget the day-to-day dilemmas of our kids being back in school, and for me that always means once again dealing with what to send for lunches.

When my daughter was in kindergarten or elementary school it was easy - I packed pretty little sandwiches, a piece of fruit, a juice box and a small treat. She never questioned or complained about what I sent. To be honest, she probably gave it very little thought - she was fed, and that was all that mattered. In junior high / middle school though, that all changed.

Over the past few years we went through what I like to call the various stages of brown-bag hell, and though not every one of the items below specifically happened to my family, these are all true stories from either my daughter, her friends, or from my own personal experience. I'm sure at least some of these will sound familiar to the parents out there, and if you have younger kids, this is what you may have to look forward to in the coming years:

Filed under: Back to School

Back to School: Pasta bake for the whole crew

COMMENTS 6

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 12:46PM

a pan of pasta mixed with sauce and spinach, waiting for a cover of cheese

While I don't have kids or a family yet, I do have lots of friends and on occasion I've found myself needing to feed a crowd. When that happens, I almost always turn to the pasta bake. Easier than lasagna but with similar appeal, I've yet to have anyone turn down this medley of pasta, cheese, tomato sauce and spinach (although the vegans, lactose intolerant and gluten-free folks would have to take a pass). I always make it without meat in case a vegetarian turns up, but you could easily stir some browned beef or sausage into the sauce. This is perfect if your kids have friends coming over to spend the night or you want to make something that will provide leftovers. It's also a hit at potlucks.

Filed under: Back to School

Back to School: Carrying your lunch in style

COMMENTS 2

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 11:58AM

The packed lunch has come a long way since the days of the simple brown paper bag and a sandwich wrapped up in waxed paper. There were the metal lunchboxes of my childhood that are now collectibles (I still have my Strawberry Shortcake one). Then came the reusable canvas bags that were designed to look like the paper bags of yore. The insulated lunchbags arrived next and recently bag constructed from neoprene entered the scene. Here are a few places to check out as you look for something to pack your child's (or your own) lunch into.

Laptop Lunches makes a really cool bento-style lunch boxes with the dimensions of American food in mind (i.e. they are designed to hold a sandwich, something that other bento boxes don't do as well). Their website also has a page of helpful lunch suggestions .

Lunchboxes.com sells lunchboxes for school, work and play. Despite the fact that these days I don't have much use for a lunch transportation devise (as I spent most of my days within ten feet of my kitchen) I am currently coveting their Chinese takeout lunch bag.

Lunch in a Box, the very cool website on which new, gorgeous pictures of creatively made bento box lunches are posted nearly every day, has an Amazon store on which you can buy many of the cute containers she uses to build her toddler's lunch.

Reusablebags.com devotes a sizable section of their website to lunch bags. Additionally, they carry lots of small, reusable water bottles that are terrific to send to school with your kids in place of disposable plastic ones.

Filed under: Food Gadgets, Back to School

Back to School: Brown bag* lunches for the high school set

COMMENTS 1

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Sep 6th 2007 @ 10:50AM

By the time I got to high school, I was totally responsible for my own lunch. I got $20 a week for allowance and any movies, outings with friends, cafeteria lunches and after school treats had to come from that twenty. I brought my lunch a lot to save my pennies for the other, more fun, activities. Because I didn't want to eat the same thing, day after day, I learned to think creatively when it came to packing my lunch. Here were some of my favorites.

We almost always had tortillas in the fridge. I'd squirt a strip of honey mustard down the center and lay down a couple of slices of turkey and a lettuce leaf. Rolled up and cut in half, it made a quick sandwich that was tasty and fairly squish-resistant.

I'd throw together an assortment of baby carrots, sliced cucumber and cherry tomatoes to dip into a container of hummus (we typically had the large container from Trader Joe's in the fridge, and I'd put some in a smaller tupperware to take along).

Filed under: Back to School, Ingredients, How To