July 13, 2011 - Snack for lunch

I was really at a loss for lunch ideas today so I took inspiration from what Juju had for snack: peanut butter.

We went to a meeting for her new nursery school (I absolutely love the school we are currently enrolled in but for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with our current school we are switching next fall) and learned that we can not send any peanut products whatsoever to school next year.  There is some debate about whether something like almond butter is allowed; I will get some more details in August.  I assume I will be free to send sunflower seed butter as it is not a peanut nor a tree nut.  If you haven't heard of it, it's terrific and a great substitute to peanut butter (try it with jelly on a sandwich and see if you can tell the difference).

So, when Juju insisted I open the refrigerator for her (thank goodness she didn't open it by herself, the other night she figured out how to do that and there were strawberries all over the kitchen. . .) she grabbed for the first thing she could reach which was the peanut butter and insisted on adding it to her snack plate.  Since I have a few more weeks of sending peanut butter to school/camp, I decided to make these cute peanut butter and whole grain cracker sammies paired with some cheese, strawberries, grapes, and cucumbers.  I decided that the lunch looked a little light so I also gave Juju some leftover frittata from tonight's dinner (using a heart shaped cookie cutter of course).  This frittata was made with onions, leeks, spinach, broccoli, eggs and cheese.  I don't know if I have done that combination before but it was great.  I used a similar recipe to the one I blogged about here only I cooked it in a Le Creuset dish instead of muffin tins.

Although it's not in this lunch, I did want to put in a plug for the okra I made with dinner tonight.  I saw it at the Hollywood Farmer's Market this weekend and realized the only times I had had okra in recent memory it was fried and I wanted to try to really taste its flavors when they are not forced to compete with cornmeal and oil.  I'm so glad I did; the result was fantastic.  I set the oven to 500 degrees and placed small whole okra on a cookie sheet with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of oregano (I got the idea from the Gourmet Magazine cookbook - RIP Gourmet).  I mixed everything together and cooked it for 10 minutes, occasionally shaking the cookie sheet during cooking.  It was SO GOOD and further proves our theory that if you roast any vegetable mixed with olive oil, salt, and pepper at a high heat it is going to knock your socks off.  Juju enjoyed the "white balls" inside the okra though she didn't eat much because it was really hot.

I realize I skipped the blogging of two lunches; I've been really busy with Milkstars work but I will try to catch on those lunches soon as I did manage to take pictures.

I should also reveal that I am toying with the idea of signing up for some hot lunches next year.  They made the program sound really great today and the prospect of making a lunch (and blogging it!) every single day next year is a little daunting.