Recently, another news story warned of the bacteria that can be found when the lunches are out of the ice box  for too long. Most schools and daycares don’t offer refrigeration for lunches, which may sit out for hours before they are served. This could be a recipe for disaster if the lunches are loaded with meat or cheese because bacteria can grow, causing illness and sometimes even food poisoning.

My own five children always complain about lunches served at school and have called them “nasty”.  More often than not, those lunches consist of pizzas and fried foods, not fruits and salads. I always tell them to make good food choices, like the sandwich above.  This isn’t brain surgery. Children need mid day meals that are energy boosters and this doesn’t always mean meat.

They can sufficiently dine on sandwiches filled with sprouts, avocados, whole grained bread or just fruits, vegetables or granola bars. Young children especially like to dip foods like carrots or celery into dressings.  The choice is theirs. One thing is certain. Children never go hungry by choice. In fact sometimes, I feel that we give them too many choices when we shouldn’t.

When I was a child, my parents insisted that we ate whatever they served us and we learned to appreciate good, wholesome food that was always fresh. My mother never shopped in supermarkets, but rather farmer’s markets and at the butcher who gave us the highest quality food. As often as I can, even though it’s more expensive, I do this for my own family.

So, engage your children in preparing their food from a young age, which will broaden their taste buds. Expose them to nutritious, healthy foods that cover the full spectrum. Most important,  teach them the connection between eating well and feeling well.  In doing this,  you’ll help them to develop a healthy palate that  can encourage a better quality of life for them when they become adults.

Related posts:

1. Leftovers for lunch
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3. Feeding your children well

I am thrilled to be getting her all to myself. After all, since she has two other daughters and 13 grandchildren to worry about, it’s an honor to be able to get her full attention. Mom, who’s ever practical and knows that I’m on a strict budget, instructs me to make a simple meal. Even a vegetarian one will be fine, she says.

What should it be ? Quiche, soup or a wonderful salad? I wanted the meal to be comforting and something she can also freeze for later.

Still not sure what to make, I needed some fresh vegetables and fast. I knew I would base my menu around what I found on the stands of an organic market. On my way to a live remote radio broadcast of my radio program – The Real Deal on WURD 900 AM - I came across an organic farmer’s market, and bought some wonderful tomatoes and fresh basil. I already had organic ground turkey (so we”ll compromise on the vegetarian part) and plenty of black beans, carrots and pot herbs.  So I’m making chili.

Be sure to tune in to my show on Monday, May 9 from 10-11 a.m. and catch We Are Black Women owner Sherry Howard in a live stream as she talks about the WABW Tech Camp coming up on May 21.

Sunshine Chili

Ingredients

1 pound ground turkey

1 large onion

1/2 pound mushrooms

5 pounds ripe tomatoes

2 large can black beans

1 bag baby carrots

1/4  cup virgin olive oil

2  teaspoons sea salt

1/4 cup fresh chopped basil

1 tablespoon pot herbs

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon fresh oregano

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon spicy mustard

Directions

Bring two gallons of water to a rapid boil in a very large pot. Add tomatoes and cover.

Remove tomatoes from pot when skin splits and allow to cool before skinning. Empty all but two cups of water.

Saute ground turkey in half of the olive oil and set aside covered  in a separate container.

In the same pan,  saute onions and mushrooms, lower heat and cover.

Once tomatoes have been skinned, remove the core and put them back in the pot  with water and mash with a fork.

Add all of the ingredients to this pot and simmer on low for 45 minute, stirring occasionally. Serve over rice.

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Some mothers are even relieved when they don’t have to pack school lunches every day because their children qualify for free, federally funded meals, which by the way are usually horrible.

The other day I interviewed a young rapper who’s about to graduate from college on my radio show “The Real Deal With Fatimah Ali,” which is heard on 900 AM WURD in Philadelphia. He told me that he often eats jelly beans for breakfast. Although this young man loves to cook, eating junk food on the run has become a habit for him and he says he’d rather eat candy than nothing. Unfortunately,  like so many young people, he grew up with two working parents who fed him but didn’t always have the time to make good, nourishing food. And we are seeing this trend more and more.

Still, I was shocked as well as outraged to read a recent news story about a Chicago school forbidding  children from bringing their own lunches from home. According to the principal, the school’s lunches were much healthier than the foods kids were bringing in. Although I seriously understand the reasons for taking these drastic measures, I also felt strongly that this was a missed opportunity to educate children and their parents about making positive lifestyle decisions.

Most of us remember the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

When I was growing up in the ’60 and ’70s that apple was a symbol of good health, along with the cartoon character Popeye’s can of spinach, which appeared on billboards all over town. Along with having good manners, eating good food with lots of fruit and vegetables was the standard for every meal. In my parents’ house, as in most of my friends’ homes, we weren’t allowed to have dessert until our plates were clean. And there was no discussion about it. We ate whatever our mother put in front of us and her food was always delicious as well as healthy.

I’ve said this kazillion times: Children actually welcome the opportunity to eat healthy food, particularly when you educate them from a very young age about the need for good nutrition to build strong bodies. So if you have children or grandchildren who are toddlers, start educating them today about the correlation between good food, healthy minds and strong bodies.

You’ll be amazed at how interested they are in eating well and participating in their own growth and development.

Quick and easy lunch rules

Kids love to dip, so invest in tiny plastic containers and/or ziplock bags.

Put their favorite salad dressing and some leftover plain pasta in a plastic container

Chop up broccoli, carrots, celery, apples and any other snack-like foods that they like and pack it in ziplocks

Find a good vegetable chip or make popcorn seasoned with garlic powder and olive oil for snacks

Allow children to help pack their own lunches and choose what they pack

Remember, the more they help, the better they’ll love the food. And next thing you know, their friends will want them to bring healthy lunches for them as well.

Related posts:

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The other day she learned a hard lesson about her foolish food choices, which often consist of snack foods at school because she hates the school lunches.

Her stomach hurt so badly that she was doubled over in pain. I called the doctor who was worried that it could be appendicitis. She didn’t have a fever, one tell-tale sign when combined with a severe stomachache. Eventually, her symptons subsided but it certainly was a wake-up call for her. She is now fully aware that she must fully participate in her own well-being.

A public school food worker had warned me about school lunches years ago, but unfortunately I really didn’t really heed her warning.

The Food Trust here in Philadelphia is trying to address the nutritional issue by getting healthy food into poor neighborhoods. The nonprofit also has a team that goes out to teach school children about the benefits of eating healthily.

These days, I’m focused on getting our children to eat healthy meals and snacks at home, and to pack their own lunches. Children who participate in meal preparation are more likely to enjoy them. So these days when I cook dinner, I get the kids to help plan our meals and shopping so that leftovers can be used for their next day’s lunch.

What I’ve discovered is that they like these lunches far more and their friends are envious. And sometimes we even pack enough for them to share.

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These days she’s as recalcitrant as ever and uses food as a weapon, refusing to eat  rather than give into my idea of a good, healthy meal.  So we battle daily and ultimately I find myself compromising because I honestly do believe that she’d just continue on the junk path.  So,  the only way she can get what she wants to eat,  is to eat twice the amount of healthy food in exchange for one of her choices.

She’d eat chicken tenders every day if I let her and for snacks she usually craves the worst kind of junk like: chips,  caramel corn and soda. In fact,  she prefers to snack all day instead of eating large meals,  so my challenge is to make those snacks be healthy.

And apparently she’s hearing me because,  today  she surprised me when I asked her for a week-end shopping list which had to include at  least three healthy choices. Baby girl chose  clementines,   other fruits  and juice, which is  not at all bad for a girl who normally only wants to eat junk.

Now I just have to get her to love a wide variety of fruits as well as vegetables, which she loathes.  My rule is to put the foods they don’t like right next to the ones they   do like, so I’ve  decided to push  crudite’s  with broccoli,  carrots, dressings and hummus to go along side her chicken.

Clemmentines  by Ktylerconk

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Soups are also great because you can get so many healthy nutrients into one bowl. Nourishing food that our grandmothers taught us sticks to our ribs and always make us feel better - no matter what the ailment.

My best soups are the ones that I make up as I go along, which is basically how I usually cook anyway, except for baking. That’s not my best thing because it’s more scientific and has less room for error.

I like to cook from the heart, and even if I do make a mistake with the soup, it’s usually correctable. I’m such a huge soup fan for a myriad of reasons. For one, soups work on any budget. They can be blended for babies and old folks, and they’re portable in the right containers. Soups are also good after a few days and some can even be frozen.

A snowy day is perfect for a hearty been soup
like this one,  captured by  Sierravalleygirl.

I do just a little planning and map out a basic sketch of  flavors for my soup, and then I just add things as I go along. Often, I just look to see what’s left over in the refrigerator and blend a soup from there. More often than not, I cook  meals with a soup in mind. But tonight, I didn’t  have leftovers, not even  pot-liquor, which I usually keep stored in the freezer to add flavor and extra  nutrients. 

Everyone in my house has been sniffling and seems to have the winter blues so I wanted to make a happy soup – one that’s sunshine-rich in vitamins, particularly A and C. This soup is best cooked in a crock pot on low heat all day because split  peas have a tendency to scorch unless you stir them constantly. But my crock pot seems to have gone missing, so today’s soup is being made on top of the stove, which means constant stirring with a wooden spoon.

I started with yellow lentils and vine-ripe tomatoes as a base, and added vegetables tossed with garlic, olive  oil and cilantro, and let it simmer for a few hours (stirring constantly).

Yellow Split Pea/Tomatoes with vegetables

Ingredients

3 cups yellow lentils, soaked for 3 hours and thoroughly rinsed

1/2  gallon spring or filtered water

12 vine-ripe tomatoes, skinned, seeded  and quartered

1/4 cup fresh cilantro finely, chopped

1/4 cup fresh parsley

1 head of garlic, coarsely chopped (however, more is better if you can tolerate it)

3 large red onions,  finely diced

2 red peppers, diced

3 yellow peppers, roasted and cut into wedges

3 zucchini, diced in one-inch pieces

2 yellow squash, diced in one-inch pieces

5 sweet potatoes, skinned and cut into wedges

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

Tamari  sauce to taste

a dash of cayenne pepper if you’re brave enough

1/2 cup virgin olive oil

1 very large jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce

1 cup of vegetable broth

Directions

Rinse tomatoes and submerge in boiling water until skin lifts. Set aside to cool.

Add split peas to boiling spring water, and after 15 minutes, turn heat to low and cover.

In a wok, saute garlic and onions on high heat, then turn to low and cook three minutes until golden brown.

Add all of the remaining ingredients to the wok, starting with the fresh herbs and stir constantly until blended.

Add vegetable broth and  cover on low for 1/2 hour.

Skin tomatoes and remove seeds, then quarter and add to pea soup along with spaghetti sauce.

Add vegetables and fresh herbs from wok to pea soup.

Add the rest of the vegetables and cook on very low heat for  3  hours.

Take 1/4 of the soup, blend it and return it to the pot.

Turn off heat and allow soup to rest for 15 minutes before serving with your choice of bread.

Related posts:

1. Good and hearty vegetable soup
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3. Yellow split pea soup

We’ re at the bottom of the turkey, which, of course, means it’s time for me to make soup. But before we got there, I served several days of different fare from the original dinner.

The day-after, most of us are way too tired to cook, and with plenty of turkey left on the bone, sandwiches are in order. The turkey is still fresh and if  it was cooked correctly, it’s also very tender. One of our favorite turkey sandwiches uses almost the entire meal, and it’s simple. Just set the food out, and let everyone make their own.

Cranberry sauce, salad and stuffing are included in our whopper turkey sandwich that’s so thick you can barely get your mouth around it.

Whopper Turkey Sandwich

Directions

Slice a very good bakery bread the way you like it.

Slather bread with honey mustard, salad dressing or mayonnaise.

Neatly layer stuffing, cranberry sauce and sliced turkey.

Wrap it foil and warm it in the oven at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

Remove it from oven, add salad, and slice and eat.

Or omit the salad, and add arugula or a heartier green, and grill the sandwich as a panini.

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Had anyone told me when I was a child that soup would become one of my favorite meals, I would have laughed them to the moon. Growing up, childhood soups were limited to cans of Campbell’s, and the variety of flavors was very limited in our house. That’s because my mother made most of our daily meals fresh and from scratch, so there was no need to open a can of anything very often. 

But every once and awhile, she’d add soup along with our lunchtime sandwiches, either Cream of Tomato, Chicken Noodle or Cream of Shrimp. 

Today, while on a budget that is way more meager than my mom’s, I’ve incorporated soup into my meals as a mainstay instead of an addition. The big difference is that my soups are made from scratch and usually take me hours to prepare. The upside is that more often than not, my soups are hearty enough to be considered a meal. Very often, I freeze them for later. 

For me, the key is to make the soups as fresh as possible. 

Fatimah’s  Garden Vegetable Soup 

One huge soup pot 

3 large zucchinis, quartered and sliced 

3 large yellow squash, quartered and sliced 

1 large red onion, finely chopped 

2 yellow peppers, diced 

1 red pepper, diced 

1/2 pound string beans, halved 

5 sweet potatoes, quartered and cut into wedges 

3 large Yukon gold potatoes, cubed 

2 jars large jars of vegetarian spaghetti sauce 

1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced 

3 lbs vine-ripe tomatoes, peeled and diced 

1/4 cup light olive oil 

1 head fresh garlic, finely diced 

1/4 cup of fresh parsley, finely diced 

1/8 cup fresh cilantro, finely diced 

2 cups pot liquor or vegetable broth 

1 small bag of baby carrots 

Directions 

Heat light olive oil on medium heat and saute onions, peppers, garlic until soft. 

Add mushrooms and then the rest of the vegetables, adding the tomatoes and then the fresh herbs last. 

Cover and simmer on low heat, while stirring now and then, until the vegetables cook down (about 1 1/2 hours). 

Add vegetable broth and continue simmering on low heat until all of the vegetables are soft. 

Turn off heat and allow pot to rest for 15 minutes. 

Serve with cornbread, muffins or garlic bread. 

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Crudites are not only healthy for your kids, but will also help you keep the pounds off. Anyone who’s ever thrown a good party knows about crudites, the  French array of assorted fresh vegetables that are either blanched or served raw on a platter, and surrounded with dips, ranch dressing or hummus.

Crudites are almost always standard fare at banquettes, cocktail parties and dinner parties. But they are also a fabulous snack and are great for ready-to-serve  lunches for school or work.

Simply take broccoli, carrots, peppers, asparagus, mushrooms or any other vegetables – either raw or blanched with a little seasoning in boiling water (for a minute), seal them in ziplock bags for freshness and pack them with dips of your choosing.

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These days, my 13-year-old daughter hates taking my carefully made lunches with her to school. The bigger problem is that she also hates the school lunches, which are so horrible. I wouldn’t feed them to my dog. Every once in awhile we let her get those prepackaged “pizza lunchables,” but again they are very unhealthy.

It wasn’t always this way, and I finally figured out that she hates our lunches because she’s at the age that she gets embarrassed eating sandwiches in front of boys. (Go figure). She prefers snack-type foods. But there’s just no way that I’m going to pack her a lunch of chips and pretzels, which are rarely found in my house in the first place. And she’s trying her best to rebel against our healthy regime. So now, I’m looking to other cultures for some inspiration.

One of my favorite restaurants is a Japanese one that offers ”Bento Boxes,” a combination of small portions of different foods. They do a $9 special for lunch. It’s a diverse menu that includes sushi, salad, fish, rice and Miso soup, all in individual tiny portions. The meal is perfectly balanced and beautifully presented, and I’m always well satisfied after eating one. This photo of a Bento-Box meal posted by Lorenia looks divine.

You can purchase the boxes themselves from $11-$350 online, and they come in various sizes and shapes. They can be made from lacquer, plastic or metal, or you can make your own using small containers, which is my preference.

Pack them with traditional Japanese food or make up your own combinations with veggie slices, dips and dressings, fruits or cheese, or leftovers from the night before. Your kids can help choose the menu. They can be diverse as you want them to be and most important, the children won’t get bored. They’ll be the envy of all of their friends.

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