School lunches: a new paradigm for the modern family

This is the year! Change has come, and change is good - this is our manifesto!

No more shall school lunches consist of a PB&J, carrot sticks, fruit, and a granola bar of some sort! We eschew those things! This is the year of exciting lunches - power-packed with nutrients and low in the stuff that's bad for you (even when it tastes so, so good). The girls have let it be known that change would be appreciated, and here change comes...

Lunches weren't always as described above. There were a few different things in the fairly regular rotation, but it was pretty routine stuff: quesadillas, sandwiches, and the very rare wrap. There was always a piece of fruit, some veggies, and the bar. Oh, how they tired of the various granola bars - which always surprised me...

As I've mentioned before, Emily's a vegetarian, so that further complicates things. I've been looking at options and bookmarking intriguing things for a month or so now. School starts back up tomorrow (yay!), and so I've spent the last couple of hours in the kitchen.

So here's how it's going to work:

• I prepare some options
• The girls pack up what they want the night before
• Everybody's happy

For example, today I made a black bean & brown rice salad, a whole wheat pasta salad with edamame, a fruit salad with cantaloupe, fuji apple, peach, orange and jicama, and blueberry bran muffins. The girls can pick which salad they want, grab some of the fruit and a muffin and they're off. And so am I, for that matter - I made stuff in quantity, yo!

But it's not going to be all about the salads this year. We've got cool wraps, soups, chili, and other yummy stuff coming up.

And soon, I won't be the only one doing all this prep (but don't tell them yet!). I'll be having them pick out a recipe to fix and that's going to be one of the options for the week. I think this is going to be fun - a lot of work on a Sunday afternoon, but it'll sure make things easier later on in the week...

So what's your favorite lunch option for taking to work? Do you have any great recipes that might work for a plastic container snuggled up to an icepack? Let me know - I'd love to get some fresh new ideas!

Oh, and before I forget, I know I'm not the best photographer out there - I'm just a guy with a digital camera and cruddy lighting. But I'll keep working on it and hopefully my picture quality will get better over time!

-TFD