Ace the Lunch Test

The first day of school is right around the corner -- Monday, to be exact -- and if your kid isn't eating a lunch served at his or her school, we can tell you something that's as good as a guarantee:

The kid is tired of PB&J.

Nothing against the venerable peanut butter and jelly, but unless Junior is new at this school lunch thing -- say, a first-grader or so -- then the prospect of turkey on white or ham on whole-wheat isn't too thrilling, either.

So what's a parent to do? Try to think outside the lunchbox. And if you're creative, you can save time and money while you're at it.

"In today's world, it's got to be something quick and easy," said Ward Daughters, chef/instructor at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Las Vegas. "Everybody works today, so they don't have time to make anything individually."

Daughters' solution: When you cook dinner the night before, make too much of it, and work it into lunch for the kids. Leftover roasted chicken, he said, can be turned into "a real chicken sandwich instead of that fake stuff they try to sell you in the delis." Leftover cooked pork and steak can be turned into sandwiches or salads.

Giovanni Mauro, chef/owner of Nora's Osteria and Wine Bar, remembers, as a child in Italy, his mother sending him off to school with some pretty creative lunches. A fritatta sandwich, for example.

"My brother wasn't really big on vegetables," Mauro said, "but Mom could always fold some vegetables into the frittata and we would eat it like there was no tomorrow."

Or she'd wrap crostini (breadsticks) with prosciutto or other cooked ham. Or use piadina, an Italian counterpart to the tortilla, and roll it up with cheese and ham, then cut it crosswise into several pieces.

"The kids would always go, 'Oooh, what's that?' because it had a rolled effect," he said.

After the family moved to the United States when Mauro was 13, his mother branched out. She'd buy Chinese-takeout boxes (Mauro said Smart & Final is one source) and fill them with pasta salads.

"She would always incorporate hard-boiled eggs to be sure we got our protein," he said. "It was cool because it was in that box."

Or she'd mix noodles with vegetables, eggs and a little Romano cheese and bake them in breadcrumb-lined muffin tins.

"They were great at room temperature," he said. "They were always a hit."

Michelle Vietmeier, a chef/instructor at the Art Institute of Las Vegas, also suggests pasta salads, which, she said, are "easy to do the night before and you can really cater to your child's food preferences. Pasta is a great complex carb. Add some meat and veggies and you have a complete meal."

She also endorses the idea of pinwheel sandwiches, suggesting a whole-wheat tortilla (for better nutrition) layered with low-fat cream cheese, a favorite lunchmeat, cheese and vegetables.

"These are fun to eat and can be made with just about any type of filling," she said.

Instead of the old standby tuna salad, Vietmeier suggests using canned salmon, "to boost your child's brain power."

And things we normally think of as snack foods can be turned into lunch, Vietmeier said. An example would be hummus with pita chips and vegetables, with a piece of fruit on the side.

If you haven't gone looking for them in the supermarket lately, you might be surprised by the extent and variety of single-serving products available. Diced peaches are available in syrup, light syrup or with no sugar added. You can get pears and mandarin oranges as well, and cherries and mixed fruit in cherry syrup. Plus there are combinations: peaches and "creme," apples and creme, pineapple in sugar-free strawberry gelatin, mandarins in orange gelatin, applesauce (including no-sugar added) in cinnamon and mixed-berry flavors.

Fruit Chillers are ready-to-freeze fruit sorbets. Lots of kids love yogurt and it's available with just about any kind of fruit imaginable, plus such flavors as lemon cream, key lime, white chocolate-strawberry and chocolate.

Single-serve puddings are available in a whole new world of flavors as well. Hunt's Snack Packs come in caramel cream, ice-cream sandwich, brownie mix, blueberry muffin and cinnamon roll, among others.

Then there are the old standbys, Oscar Mayer Lunchables. In addition to such classics as turkey and cheddar with crackers, varieties include Pizza with Pepperoni, which has three mini-crusts, pepperoni, mozzarella, pizza sauce, fruit juice and a candy snack. Or Nachos Cheese Dip & Salsa, with whole-grain tortilla chips, cheese dip, salsa, fruit punch and a candy snack. The sub-sandwich version comes with a little bottle of spring water, and a Kool-Aid single-serve packet if the child wants to flavor it.

Given a little time and creativity, you can save a lot of money and better control your child's nutritional intake by packing your own in reusable containers. While single-serve peaches were on sale last week for as low as 42 cents for one four-ounce serving, a can of raspberry-flavored sliced peaches was on sale for $1.29 (regular $1.50) for 15 ounces, or 35 cents per four-ounce serving. Bento-box-style lunch boxes, with their compartments and containers, make things more fun for kids and easier for parents.

Be sure to remember food safety; cold foods should be kept below 40 degrees, hot ones above 140 degrees, until the child is ready to eat them. Good vacuum bottles help keep hot foods hot, and freezing a bottle of water or other beverage and packing it in with the child's lunch helps keep cold foods cold.

And, of course, remember nutritional aspects.

"Kids need to get off of this white-food diet," Daughters said. "Food needs to have color. The greater the color, the more dense the nutrition."

Be sure to use whole-grain breads as well, he said. And don't be bullied by self-proclaimed picky eaters.

"Kids say, 'I don't like that, I don't want it,' " he said. "They simply say that because they haven't tried it. If that's all they get, that's what they're going to eat.

"What do most of them have? Little boxes of apples and things that are peeled and kept in chemicals so they don't oxidize. Why are you even cutting them up? Why not just give a piece of whole fruit? It's not just an apple, orange or banana anymore. There's papayas, mangos -- all kinds of foods out there that we need to get kids to eat."

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.