The Secret to Healthy School Lunches

Even though there are only 17 school days left in our house, it doesn’t mean I stop thinking about what to feed my 11 year old cutie for lunch.  That’s 17 more healthy and interesting lunches to make (we do cold lunch everday).  Sometimes I think I’m the only Foodie raising a Foodie who cares about making sure all our meals are healther AND interesting…I can’t be the only one, can I?  My hubby can’t understand why I spend the energy to think outside the PB&J box for our little cutie every day, but I just can’t help it!

So, in an effort to either inspire parents to create fun school lunches or help others “come out of the Foodie closet,” I’ll be blogging about our favorite kid-friendly meals.

The cutie’s favorite salad

1. Organic boston lettuce torn in small pieces
2. Organic sweet plum tomatoes cut in quarters or eighths
3. Fresh chives (the best come from our garden)
4. 3 or 4 small slices of Chicken Milanese (recipe below; I usually make sure there are leftovers from dinner the night before)
5. Plain ole’ Ranch dressing (in a separate containerof course so things don’t get soggy)
6. Other interesting add-ins she loves: croutons, shredded colby jack, thinly sliced red onion, organic baby spinach leaves, chopped boiled egg, chopped organic broccoli

Chicken Milanese -adapted from Cooking Light Magazine (It sounds fancier than it is)

1/8 tsp kosher salt

2 (6-oz) skinless, boneless chicken breasts

2 tblsp grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (or regular old parmesan cheese will do…freshly grated of course!)

2 tblsp all-purpose flour

1 egg white, lightly beaten

1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper

3 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1. Place chicken between 2 sheets of heavy duty plastic wrap; pount to 1/2 inch thickness using a meat mallet or small heavy skillet.

2.  Combine breadcrumbs and cheese in a shallow dish.  Place flour in a shallow dish.  Place egg white in a shallow dish.  Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.  Dredge chicken in flour; dip in egg white.  Dredge in breadcrumb mixture.  Place chicken on a wire rack;  let stand 5 minutes.

3. Heat 1 tblsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken cook 3 minutes.  Turn chicken over; cook 2 minutes or until browned and done.

Buen Provecho!

Michelle Obama likes to Garden too!

Hey Lovelies,  sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written.  Been busy with lots of different projects this Spring.

We’ve had some really amazing weather, which meant that I was able to play in my garden a lot earlier this year!  I spent a whole weekend beautifying  my front garden and I am really happy with how it looks…and it’s not even Memorial Day yet!

I’ve only started on the main front Flower Beds, but I will eventually get to the back garden where all the fun happens …the fruits, veggies & herbs!  I’ll save that for another post but I thought you might enjoy seeing what our fabulous First Lady has done with the First Garden she’s started at her new place!

So, here’s the play by play on all that I did to make my little garden Spring ready:

1. First, I had to be sure I had all the supplies and tools I needed on hand before I got started.  There’s nothing worse than taking a trip, or two, or three (can you tell I’m speaking from experience) to the garden store because you forgot something of extreme importance, like paper garden bags, or the weeder to get rid of the HUNDREDS of dandelions that have invaded the front yard.  I made sure I had the following on hand:

• Lots of really tall paper gardening bags
• A hand weeder
• My favorite gardening  tool of all time… the Martha Stewart wire hand rake (which is no longer available)
• Plenty of my favorite black mulch…it HAS to be BLACK…any thing else is so NOT cool
• Bags and bags of soil

2.  Second, I removed all the junk from the flower bed.  You will be amazed at how much garbage, dead leaves and other debris accumulates over just one winter!  I don’t always remove all the old mulch but this year I did, in order to replace it with a fresh layer…but I’ll get there in a sec.  Anyway, by the end of the day I had 3 huge yard bags full of junk from the front garden alone !

3.  Next, you’ll want to turn the soil ( I used a medium sized spade for this process), mix in some fresh soil and even it out with a rake.  Prior to mixing in soil, in a smaller strip of garden I have in the front next to the porch, I actually laid some weed blocker down (cutting open slits where the plants were already growing) because I had never done that before and last year the weeds were really outta control.  Then I added more soil on top of the weed blocker.

4.  The next thing to do is add the mulch in sections making sure each area is level.

5.  You’ll notice I didn’t plant anything new…it’s still too early here in Sconnie for that.  We actually just had frost this weekend and SNOW Up North!

Check out the results!