As one of the challenges of making school lunches for your child is beating the price of buying lunch at school, I’m going to post some recipes over the next few days that are cheap to make, healthy, and hopefully popular with the kids.
My focus will be on main dishes for lunch. Fresh fruits and vegetables work pretty nicely as side dishes. Figure out what your kids will eat and that don’t take too much preparation. Vegetables are usually chopped when you pack them for school lunches, but most fruits really don’t need that kind of preparation, although younger kids may need a start on peeling oranges or tangerines. Rice, especially brown rice if your kids will eat it, makes a good addition to a school lunch.
Sand and Shells
2 tbsp olive oil
1 diced onion
1 cup cracked wheat
1 egg, beaten
2 cups water
12 oz. seashell pasta, cooked according to package directions
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste
Heat oil in large frying pan. Saute onions, then remove and set onions aside.
Mix cracked wheat into beaten egg and mix until coated. Pour into frying pan and cook until egg is done. Pour in water, add onions, salt and pepper and allow to simmer on low heat.
When the water has been absorbed, add in the sea shell pasta and butter. Mix and serve.
Your cost here will vary by the quality of ingredients you buy. If I go cheap, I can get a bag of pasta for $0.25 – $0.33. If I want something better, say a whole grain pasta, it’s going to be more. Free range eggs from a store will cost more than regular eggs, but if you have backyard chickens, you may not consider the cost to be much at all, depending on how you calculate that cost. That said, this recipe comes up pretty cheap anyhow.
I won’t try to get all the nutrition facts, but 1/4 cup of cracked wheat has 5 grams of protein, which is only about 10% of the daily value. Obviously, this dish is high in carbohydrates, so don’t bother with any others.
This recipe makes a lot. I usually serve it for dinner one night, and have leftovers for 2-4 lunches, depending on appetites.
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