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School Lunch Iron Chef

Today the Child Nutrition Program invited some of the community members in the medical field to a "show and tell" lunch featuring some of the new menu items we’ve been developing, a demo of the new Robot-Coupe choppers the community donated and update the group on some of the awesome changes they have made on the menus.

We started bright and early with the high school managers and a demo from the Robot-Coupe company on how to operate the new machines, which are basically giant food processors!!

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Ready to chop:

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I gave it a whirl :mgreen:

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It’s amazing how much time these will save chopping!

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Everything was fine and dandy until the room filled with raw onion smell 👿

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So thankful for the person who brought in coffee for the group!

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After the demo, Amy and I started working on our My Pyramid display featuring all of the great foods they serve.

I must add, that while this school system is BY FAR way ahead of the game, everything on the menu isn’t healthy. I’ve browsed the ingredient lists of all of the items they serve and raised my eyebrows at quite a few, namely the items you’d expect (pizza, chicken nuggets, etc.) but also the meats, which gave me a new understanding of the phrase "all-beef patty." But the bottom line is that given the $2.65 cents – INCLUDING LABOR – they have per student to serve, their efforts are nothing but amazing.

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After set-up, we were all assigned a food to prepare for the luncheon

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The infamous TONY!

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The luncheon menu was all vegetarian and featured foods that are either ON the menu or in the development stage to be on upcoming menus. The spread was absolutely gorgeous!

Whole wheat rolls, fruit, black bean salsa, corn chips

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Whole baked sweet potatoes ( <3 ) and roasted squash and peppers

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Whole wheat penne pasta salad in a homemade dressing

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Roasted potatoes, carrots and sweet potatoes and vegetable barley soup

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A spinach salad (that I made!) with homemade ranch!! They are hoping to re-introduce homemade salad dressings to the menu. They are healthier, cheaper and taste so much better!

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I didn’t have enough slots to fill my tray!

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I had a taste of everything but the barley soup – because I knew I was having that for dinner! Half a sweet potato, a few chips and salsa, a roll, veggies, pasta salad and real salad. I don’t really like ranch dressing but Jim’s was fantastic!

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I went back for fruity dessert

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I spent last week making Iron Chef name tags for everyone who attended with a tagline and famous chef. I was Robin Miller 🙂

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Back to the office –> to a meeting –> hour commute =

4:00 snack time – a Probar Fruition bar in peach.

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I got home just in time with enough daylight left to bike to the gym.

Why I Love North Carolina: Balmy, 60* days in January (after a week in the ‘teens!) where I can bike without gloves or a coat and not be cold!

I had a great workout – 30 minutes on the ET and a quick weight session before coming home to….

Mushroom, Beef + Barley Soup!

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New acronym: TGFM [Thank God For Matt]

Not only did he take out the trash, unload the dishwasher and get us a NEW BATHROOM FLOOR!! (OK, I was in on that, but so glad he’s been coordinating it!) but he made me dinner.

I don’t have time to recount his whole recipe, but it contained:

  • Button mushrooms
  • Shitake mushrooms
  • 1 portabello mushroom
  • 1/2 a piece of grass-fed beef tenderloin from our freezer
  • Chicken stock
  • Garlic
  • Barley
  • Carrot + celery
  • Thyme, rosemary and pepper

I’m pretty sure you could find a comparable recipe online somewhere. He meant for it to have more broth, but I thought it was perfect. Although I requested sherry or red wine next time for a hint of alcohol flava!

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My hunk also baked and served me a hunk of Great Harvest Flax Oat Bran. Best. Bread. Ever!

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This One’s For The Girls

New Breathe post: Embrace The Cycle

"The Conventional Of The Future"

Love this video that was sent to me today. Organic needs our help!

I’ve got emails to answer> and then I’m off to get in bed before 9 because I’m getting up early for some OATMEAL!!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  3. That lunch looks way more delicious than anything I’ve EVER seen come out of a school cafeteria!!

    What are the vending machines like at that school? (Sorry if you’ve mentioned it previously!)

    Thanks!
    Megan (Virtual Intern, Mitzi Dulan, R.D.)

    Reply

    • I haven’t seen a vending machine yet – I don’t know if they have them. But they are supposed to be locked during school hours by law, I think.

      Reply

  5. I am so, so impressed with the foods served at this school! Nothing that was ever made in my school cafeteria even remotely resembled that. I remember iceburg “salad” drenched in ranch, tater tots, frankenstein hotdogs and greasy pizza. That spread is lovely!

    Reply

  8. Just wanted to stop by and say THANK YOU for exposing me to Great Harvest.. they recently built one within 30 minutes from my house and I went there today.. had a veggie sandwich on Dakota bread and I have to say YUM! I also got a loaf of Dakota bread.. because you mentioned it the other day here. I also tried a muffin, but it was a chocolate one.. they were out of Pumpkin 🙁
    Thanks again 😉 I look forward to hearing about your progress with your store!

    Reply

    • Aw how fun!! You must go back for a fruity muffin like Carrot Raisin Walnut. See if they have website with their menu published.

      Reply

  12. Interesting article you wrote! I definitely can relate to those cycles. I haven’t quite figure out if there are certain months i feel firmer or fluffier but there probably are fluctuations. Great food for thought!

    Reply

  13. that school’s effort is such an inspiration! sure they’re not perfect, but those are HUGE improvements over traditional school lunch fare. how awesome that you get to be a part of that! and love your green top, and your name tag..go robin miller!

    Reply

  14. I hope more schools fall in these foot prints. While just a few items might have raised an eyebrow there, nearly all of the food served in the cafeteria here had me shocked. It’s not healthy!
    There are no 100% whole grain options. There are NO vegetarian/ vegan options and cost is always the luch program’s excuse.
    $2.65?! With these options?! That is truely amazing. 🙂

    Reply

  15. That lunch is stunning! I’m very impress with the options they have and how you are helping out! It really makes you think about cooking on a budget when you see how much they can spend. I agree TGFM! You’re lucky to have him 🙂

    Reply

  20. I just started following your blog a little bit ago and I love what you are doing at the school! So important and I love that that school is trying to improve.

    I’m also a fellow NC-er (Winston-Salem); this weather has been awesome! I moved here from Utah 1.5 years ago and I LOVE the “winters” here!

    Reply

  21. That soup looks GREAT! What a good guy.

    Major thumbs-up to the lunch buffet. It looks so amazing, and if any of those kids think they won’t eat the healthy stuff, I predict your hard work will go a long way toward turning them around!

    Reply

  24. Wow! So great that the kids are getting all those nutritious foods. And TGFM? So so sweet–love it! I’m totally with Sarah, too. I want a Robo-Chopper!

    Reply

  30. I really never would have imagined that any cafeterias in America were this up-to-date. The ones around here still serve pizzas and hotdogs in plastic wrappers. Yuck!

    Reply

  31. It is amazing what the schools can do for that amount of money. Thanks for showcasing their tremendous efforts, it’s opened my eyes a lot to school based nutrition.

    Reply

  35. Your system is definitely ahead of others but hopefully the fresh, homemade trend will catch on. I don’t have kids yet but remembering what they served when I was in school, I wouldn’t ever allow my kids to eat at the cafeteria with the kind of crap they used to dole out. My parents never let me either!

    Reply

  44. Wow, that “catered” food looks UNREAL! why can’t every event have such good-looking, healthy, and tasty food? And I’m also jealous of the mega-chopper – just think of how many stir fry’s you could make!

    Reply

  49. Good morning Kath! I hope you managed to have a good sleep last night 😉 I just wondered, after you were talking about the dubious pizzas/burgers/chicken nuggets and the very low cost of head budgets reminded me of Jamie Oliver’s campaign for better food in U.K. schools, and wondered if you might want to see his foundation website?
    http://www.jamieoliver.com/school-dinners
    Being green, I don’t know if you have heard of Jamie Oliver or not, probably much more than I realise (!!), but he is a really famous chef in the U.K. and a few years ago began the school dinners campaign, which has resulted in new guidelines for our schools (is also involved in promoting local, natural foodstuffs)- the website has tips on how to ‘healthify’ school menus from school kitchen managers etc so I wondered if it might be worth a peruse? Have a good day blazing the trail!

    Reply

    • Thanks Laura! I love Jamie – and his accent 🙂 I watched a video of his where he presented broccoli and all the kids said “ewww” and then he fed them broccoli brownies (or some similar experiment) and they all said “mmmm”. That drives me crazy! I’m thinking about doing something similar if I can squeeze it into the next 2 weeks.

      Reply

      • Thats probably one of the nicer ‘experiments’ he did- did you see the one where he showed the students how chicken nuggets are made- complete with separated chicken skin and solidified animal fat if I remember correctly- definitely 90% put me off turkey drumsticks… yes, one of the myriad of different regional accents, my Grampy had a similar one to Jamie’s Essex one- his was East/”Saurf’ (South) Londonish- I couldn’t understand all of his cockney slang, you can buy whole books translating them. I’ll stop nattering now, and get back to some real work 😉

        Reply

  52. hey Kath, your internship looks so interesting! I’m astonished to see how healthy the school lunches are (i don’t remember my school being that good/healthy…i guess its been awhile though…eekk), I was wondering the food you served here, was that for your meeting or do that serve this to the kids as well (fresh salads, roasted veggies)…gosh, you have me dying to find out if schools in this area are that healthy. Is this a public school you are at or private? I’m not trying to be nosy i’m just really curious about it and if schools from state to state are trying to make more of an effort.

    Reply

    • It’s a public school system in the middle of NC with some great inspiring leadership 🙂 All of the food you saw is either already served or being tested for serving in the actual cafeteria. It looks pretty impressive all at once, but remember that there are also tater tots, pizza and other “traditional” foods served alongside the healthy vegetables. Last year they focused a lot on sides – this year’s plan is to tackle some of the entrees and research more environmentally friendly serving trays.

      Reply

  53. I think it is fantastic what ya’ll are doing for the lunches for these schools! SO many kids aren’t getting a single bite of healthy food at home – if we can give them one wholesome meal a day, that can make a huge difference. I wonder if anyone is doing anything about school lunches here in NY – I saw a lady put PEPSI in her infants bottle the other day on the subway. SODA for a BABY. I could have cried.

    Reply

  55. Hi Kath, first I saw the photo with the raw onions on it, and I said to myself: “I’m wondering when Kath is going to mention them” and there… it was :-)). I share the same distaste as you, I HATE onions and their smell. I’m so glad that your recipes are ONION-free!! 🙂

    Reply

  56. That’s an amazing lunch spread — oh yes, I remember back when my school cafeteria proudly displayed “grade D but edible” boxes in the cafeteria…joy. You’ve got such a good hubby and that barley looks awesome!

    Reply

  57. I am so completely jealous of the meals that these kids get to eat in their high school cafeteria. i often resorted to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in high school because they seemed to be the safest thing to eat in the cafeteria.

    Reply

  58. Hi Kath,

    I’m the one who asked for the ingredients for the Costco Cranberry Cinnamon goat cheese a couple weeks ago. I ended up making it using the ingredients you gave — OH MY. We are loving it. We’ve had it on apple slices, on salad, on crackers…SO YUMMY! My almost-11 yo daughter has really taken an interest in knowing what goes into what she eats, and she was impressed. 🙂

    I’m good friends with the “lunch lady” at our school, and forwarded your blog site on to her. This post is great and will give her some good ideas! (And I’m sure she’ll salivate over the chopper!)

    Kara

    Reply

  59. What does “:mgreen:” mean?? I have been a blog reader for quite a while now but have never been able to figure it out….it is really bugging me!! Thanks!

    Reply

  61. Whoaaa…those school lunches don’t look ANYTHING like the crap they used to serve at my school!! We’d have like nachos w/ fake cheese sauce and chicken nuggets and pizza dipped in ranch…ewww

    Reply

  64. Ok, I’m going to sound like such an old mom (which I’m not even a mom-just a worry wort), but be careful with driving+eating+taking pictures. Somehow I noticed the speedometer in that pic with the fruition bar. We don’t want anything to happen to one of our favorite bloggers (or anyone else!) Ok mom schpeal over 😉

    Reply

  66. HAHA i never noticed that but ur speedometer totally reads 90mph…. lol be careful kath!! 😀 but we appreciate ur hard work 😉

    Reply

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