Creative "Cold Lunch" Cuisine

If you're a parent of school-age kids, you're probably no stranger to brown bananas and smashed sandwiches aging in the bottom of your child's backpack. By the end of the school year, most kids are tired of eating the same bag lunches day after day at school. Even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can grow old.

These lunchbox ideas are based on four key elements:

Include more whole foods and less processed foods. Choose lunch items with higher amounts of fiber and nutrients children need (like calcium, protein, and vitamin C). Include fewer processed foods such as cookies, chips, and snack cakes, which have higher sodium, added sugar, and saturated fat.
Be creative. Think outside the lunchbox. Does your child enjoy spanakopita triangles, Chinese chicken salad, or veggie/soy corn dogs at home? With a little forethought and a reusable cold pack, you can probably pack them for lunch, too.
Keep it cold. For safety's sake, pack lunch with a reusable ice pack. Better yet, freeze a small water bottle or box of 100% juice. Your child will have a slushy drink to enjoy at lunch and won't have to worry about bringing an ice pack home.
Keep it fun. Include items that kids can stack or mix up to their taste when they eat. Remember that kids like to dunk, and include healthy dips with vegetables or other items. Cut foods into fun shapes with cookie cutters.

Cool cold lunch recipes:

• Pasta Lover's Lunch Salad. Pack a cold pasta salad and a plastic fork, and your pasta lover will love you, too! Make the salad with turkey, pepperoni, ham, or low-fat cheese (so it has some protein), lots of vegetables to boost fiber and nutrition, and whole wheat or whole-grain pasta. Toss everything together with a light bottled vinaigrette made with extra virgin olive oil or canola oil.

• Mediterranean Pita Pocket. Fill a pita pocket with feta, veggies, falafel balls, and some homemade or store-bought hummus. Some falafel balls come cooked and ready to add.

• PB Pocket.  Fill a whole grain pita pocket with peanut better, jelly, bananas, apples, raisins or all the above.  Hearty, fun, fabulous sandwich that will make the other school kids jealous.

• Everything's better on a bagel.  Provide a mini cream cheese to spread on the bagel or make a sandwich like you usually would, but with bagel instead of bread.  Turkey, cheese, ham, peanut butter and jelly, lettuce, tomato, etc.

• It's a Wrap! Wraps are a nice change of pace from the usual sandwich. Use a high-fiber multigrain flour tortilla, available in most supermarkets. Spread on mustard, hummus, light salad dressing, or green or sundried tomato pesto. Then fill 'er up with chicken Caesar salad or assorted lean meats, cheese, tomato, sliced onion, and shredded Romaine lettuce. Just roll it up and wrap in foil. Kids can eat it like a burrito -- by unwrapping it on one end and working their way down.

• Noodle Soup Cups. Many schools offer a hot water dispenser so older kids (or young kids with assistance) can add hot water to packaged noodle soup cups.  Some brands are lower in sodium and fat, and higher in fiber, than others.

• Veggie Sushi. Not all kids will go for this, but some children really like seaweed-wrapped sushi rolls. You can now buy pre-made sushi at many supermarkets. Choose sushi that is filled with veggies (such as avocado and cucumber) so there's no chance that it will get a little "fishy" in your child's backpack.

• Fun Fried Rice. When made with eggs, tofu or chopped lean meat, and lots of veggies, cold fried rice can be a satisfying noontime treat. Make your own using brown rice. Or set some aside for the next day when you get take-out Chinese food for dinner.

• BBQ Chicken Sandwich. Your child can assemble a yummy BBQ grilled chicken sandwich fresh at lunchtime. Just pack a grilled, boneless, skinless chicken breast with some lettuce and sliced tomato in one baggie and a whole-wheat bun in another. Add a packet of BBQ sauce and it's good to go.

• Fruit Sandwich.  Layer whole wheat bread with, cottage cheese, soft cream cheese, pineapple slices (or mix pineapple bits into cream cheese, chopped dried fruits, apple slices, shredded Swiss cheese.

• Ravioli.  Fill your child's thermos with HOT ravioli.  They should stay reasonably warm.

• Cheese tortellini.  Cook the tortellini.  Cool.  Mix in with vegetables and shredded mozzarella or Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil, vinaigrette or zesty Italian dressing and salt and pepper.  Put in a  thermos or tight tupperware container.

Tasty Side Dishes:

Add some of these to round out your child’s lunch:

Fruit cups (with no sugar added)

Applesauce in flavors such as pomegranate or cranberry-raspberry (also with no sugar added)

Nuts or seeds in a shell (if age and allergy appropriate), such as walnuts, pistachios, peanuts, or sunflower seeds

Raw veggies (ready to pack) such as carrot sticks, sugar snap peas, celery, or jicama sticks

Cheese sticks -- available in 2% sharp cheddar, part skim-milk mozzarella, pepper jack, and more

Healthy snack bars (individually wrapped) with 3 or more grams of fiber, less than 10 grams sugar, and no more than 1 gram saturated fat.

Yogurt in individual containers (keep it cold by packing them with a reusable ice pack or a small water bottle that has been frozen.)

Daring Drinks

• Bug Juice.  Mix green HiC cooler, dash of sprite, key lime yogurt.  Blend together and pour into thermos. Freeze overnight so it stays cold in child's lunch bag.
• Flavored lemonade.  Mix instant lemonade with a T. of your favorite koolaid - cherry, berry, orange, etc. Freeze overnight so it stays cold in child's lunch bag.
• Orange Julius.  1/2 of a 6 ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup whole milk, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 5 or 6 ice cubes.  Blend up. Pour into child's thermos.   Freeze overnight so it stays cold in child's lunch bag.

Chef Todd Fisher's Divine Deviled Eggs

We were so pleased to interview Chef Todd Fisher on "The Dish" on URL Radio.  Stand side-by-side with Fisher and you will see a creative giant in red shoes with a practical approach to cooking amazing food. That is exactly the experience he wants you to have when you are with him. Hugs and smiles and good laughs typically surround him while he crafts bold American cuisine with special surprises only Chef Todd can serve. More than 20 years as a culinary veteran, restaurateur and food consultant, Chef Todd is a leader in the culinary world through education, entertainment and tantalizing taste bud combinations. Chef Todd can be found in "The Kitchen" – his restaurant in Sand City, California.

As a life-long restaurateur, Chef Todd's passion for palate pleasers had him questing for the best bacon, burgers, and steaks at not just eateries, but meat temples, across the nation in Destination America's new original series UNITED STATES OF FOOD. Fisher is living our culinary dream and we get to live it vicariously through him.

During our interview, he gave us an impromtu recipe that has now become one of his favorites.  It's a new twist on deviled eggs you may want to try for your next dinner party or brunch.


Chef Todd Fisher's Divine Deviled Eggs

• 1 dozen eggs
• 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1 Tbsp minced onion or shallot
• 1/4 teaspoon tabasco
• Dash paprika
• Smoked salmon, 1 filet
• 1 raw jalapeno, seeds removed, chopped fine
• Palmful chopped chives
• Dash olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1 First hard boil the eggs. Start with cold water, add 1/3 c. baking soda to raise the pH of the water (eggs peel easier).  Boil 8 min. Then cool. 
2 Peel the eggs. Using a sharp knife, slice each egg in half, lengthwise. Gently remove the yolk halves and place in a small mixing bowl. Arrange the egg white halves on a serving platter.

3 Using a fork, mash up the yolks and add mustard, mayonnaise, onion, tabasco, paprika, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Spoon egg yolk mixture into the egg white halves.
4 Top with chopped bits of smoked salmon, chives, jalapeno and a drizzle of olive oil.

Yield: Makes 2 dozen deviled eggs.

Meat Norm's

Norm's Burgers is in a very convenient location, half a block away from URL Radio.  Nice for me, not my pocketbook.  He always ruins my good intentions of just having a salad for lunch.  The smell of his burgers and rubs are intoxicating!  Damn you Norm!

You can find Norm's at Urban Harvest in Downtown Bismarck, when it's going on.  One of his future goals is to start up a burger joint in Mandan, but until then if you miss him at Urban Harvest you can always call him about catering.

Norm's serves regular burgers, pizza burgers, jalapeno burgers, brats and chips.  He uses a premade, precooked patty which I usually turn my nose up on, but honestly until he told me and showed me, I had no idea.  His patty is one of the best burger patties I've ever eaten.  And it's huge!  It's COOKED weight is 1/4lb.  Not precooked, but after it's cooked.  That's a big juicy burger.

Let's talk about the pizza burger, one of Norm's best sellers.  The combination of the seasoning, sweet sauce, creamy mozzarella, and crisp toasted bun is ridiculous! A burger isn't an extravagant thing that people think would require a lot of skill, but when you get a good one, you know it's different and special.

Here's the video as Norm breaks it down for us and shows us why he does what he does and how he does what he does.  Check it out, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I2U4EoVeFc&feature=g-all-u.

You can reach Norm at 701-391-4339.

Fire Roasted Pizzaz

Available every Friday on Main Street in Mandan and most Thursdays in July and August, Fireflour Pizza should have a z at the end for pizzaz, but for boring or sleepy.  Great fresh ingredients, made and then cooked as you order them.  They are not like most of the greasy, heavy pizzas we're used to in middle america.  The fresh ingredients make us smell the ocean air and lightness of California or Tuscany. 

Alright, maybe that's a little over zealous, but they are good.  Kenny made the Iowa for us which was simple ingredients of fresh dough, tomatoes, fresh pulled mozzarella, and then after it's cooked they add arugula (spinach like quality if you're not familiar) and prosciutto (like a smoked ham if you're not familiar) and some olive oil. 

Trust us.  This is a don't miss!

Watch right here how they make them - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BZgjg-xWO4&feature=g-all-u then check out their website too http://www.fireflourpizza.com/