GOOD magazine asked readers to submit a healthy, delicious school lunch. Having just put together a grown-ups playground lunch for my sister-in-law’s baby shower, I took inspiration from a recipe my mother-in-law found.

My rendition of the ideal school lunch plays on the classic favorite – PB&J.

The sandwich is made of: whole grain bread, crunchy peanut butter, honey, jumbo raisin medley, sunflower seeds, shredded carrots and broccoli sprouts. The raisins and broccoli sprouts could be replaced with dried blueberries or cranberries and alfalfa sprouts or microgreens, respectively.

This is a great way to “hide” vegetables into a school lunch because the sprouts and shredded carrots easily get lost in the flavors of the peanut butter and honey. The honey and raisin medley together give a “jelly” flavor without all of the artificial sugars. I like the sunflower seeds for the bit of extra crunch.

To follow, is a parfait made of Fage greek yogurt, sliced local strawberries, and cranberry maple nut gluten-free granola. I like to think that if a meal looks visually appealing, it tastes that much better… so, I combined the dairy, fruit and grains into the parfait.

I chose an organic 100% grape juice to finish off the lunch. I think it would be nice for kids to have a choice of drinks including various fruit juices and a variety of milks (chocolate, soy, etc.).

Bon appetit!

I’ll be sure to share the contest’s winning lunch menu here.

@Padrepablo tweeted about my rendition of Amatriciana yesterday, so I thought I’d share the recipe here.

We had this pasta several places around Italy.  We like it because it was simple and light for a pasta dish.  I prefer using bucatini, but since regular marts don’t carry the hollow noodles, we usually make it with spaghetti or farfalle (bowtie).

Ingredients

• Choice pasta
• 5 slices pancetta (or 5 strips bacon), chopped
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes

And really simple directions:

1. Cook pasta in lightly salted water.
2. Cook bacon, drain.
3. In a sauce pan, sautée onion in olive oil
4. Add tomatoes, red pepper flake, bacon.  Reduce sauce until it coats a wooden spoon.
5. Toss with pasta.  Garnish with shaved Parmesan.

Simple. Quick. And we always have these ingredients on hands.

One of my favorite meals to enjoy out on the patio is the niçoise salad. I like it best with a few slices of seared ahi, but grilled salmon is just as great. The warm of the Santa Ana’s of last week left me craving a cold niçoise.

This recipe yields 4 servings:

• Mixed Greens
• 8 oz. Sushi-Grade Ahi Steak
• 4 Roma Tomatoes, quartered
• 4 Red Potatoes
• 20 French Green Beans
• 8 Deviled eggs (4 whole eggs)
• 12 Greek Olives
• Salt and Pepper, to taste
• 2 Tbsp. Chopped Parsley (or 2 tsp. dried parsley)
• Champagne Vinaigrette

Salads are pretty self-explanatory, but here are some tips:

1. Boil red potatoes in lightly salted water until fork tender.  Mash roughly with a dash of salt, pepper and parsley.
2. Wash greens and dry thoroughly. Toss lightly with vinaigrette.
3. Season ahi with salt and white pepper on both sides. Sear on high heat for one minute on each side. Depending on the thickness of the steak, you will have to adjust searing time. Be careful not to cook completely through.
4. Cut Ahi into slices. If using salmon, I lay it whole.
5. Serve immediately after plating.

Note: If you use salmon, be sure to cook it completely through. I’ve had salmon a bit undercooked and suffered scromboid poisoning!

• 8 eggs
• ¼ c. mayonnaise
• 2 Tnsp. Whole-grain mustard
• 1/8 c. Pickle relish
• Salt and white pepper, to taste
• Paprika

The filling is pretty self-explanatory given the list of ingredients, but here’s some egg-boiling tips too:

1. Place eggs in pan until just covered with cold water.
2. Let water come to a gentle boil on medium heat and leave for 15 minutes.
3. After boiling for 15 minutes, transfer eggs to a cold ice bath to cool.
4. When egss are cool enough to the touch, peel and cut in half.
5. Mix cooked yolks with mayonnaise, mustard, relish, salt and peper.
6. Scoop deviled mixture into a plastic sandwich bag and cut a small tip on one corner. Squeeze into egg whites.
7. Sprinkle with paprika for a little kick and color.

I also like to garnish the tops with a little cut chives or parsley… whatever happens to look good in the herb garden.

When I make these for just ourselves, I skip the chocolate chips. (I’m allergic to chocolate!)  But when I recently made them as favors at our holiday party, I included the choco chips and they were a big hit.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Ingredients

• 2-1/4 c. flour
• 1tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 c. butter
• 2/3 c. sugar
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2-1/2 c. oats
• 1-1/3 c. dried cranberries
• 1-1/3 c. chocolate chips

Directions

1. Combine flour, baking soda and salt into a small bowl.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugar and brown sugar.
3. Beat in eggs and vanilla into butter-sugar mixture until fluffy.
4. Mix in flour mixture until blended.
5. Fold in oats, cranberries and chocolate chips.
6. Scoop dough into ~1 inch balls onto a greased (I prefer silpat) cookie sheet
7. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes.

I’ve officially retired my first attempt at a blog, ladykeli.com.  You can read my final entry here or below.

That’s not to say that I’m done blogging about food, recipes, restaurants, photographs, etc.  Everything has been migrated to this site (now renamed to Lost in Mastication), under the same categories.  In fact there are three restaurant reviews that are still in draft mode that I’ll publish officially here (The Brentwood, Café R&D, and Roscoe’s).  POW’s have migrated here too!

I’m officially retiring ladykeli.com.  Albeit I enjoy food, dining, entertaining and the likes still, I’ve decided that this iteration of Intrigue (v5) is done.  Part of it is because I’m done with being “ladykeli” – a nickname that came from being a part of “krews” and the import showoff scene in the 90s.

Lost in Mastication began after my travels to Italy with @Padrepablo and our friends, the Mucciaros.  I realized I had so much to say that I couldn’t quickly communicate to friends and family alike via Facebook, MySpace or Flickr back then.  In fact, the title was @Padrepablo’s idea, inspired of course from one of our favorite movies, Lost in Translation.

Through this effort I’ve learned a lot about new media, how to write for the Web, and even made some connections with old and new friends alike.

This isn’t to say I’m leaving the blogosphere!  If anything, I’m still here in full force at sherrymain.com (aka Intrigue v6.0), and blog about all things food, photo, social media, policy, and whatever else tickles my fancy.   In fact, I’ve imported all of my posts from here to over to the new blog.  And I can be followed regularly on Twitter @sherrymain.

Adieu.

I got a lot of requests to share the Carrot Soufflé recipe from our holiday party, so here it is.  It’s a recipe from my sister-in-law’s Eugene Ballet friend.  I think it was originally her grandmother’s recipe from Alabama.

People often mistake it for sweet potatoes or yams… but it’s really the other orange root vegetable.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ lbs. Sliced carrots (or canned)
• ½ cup butter
• 3 large eggs
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 ½ tea spoon baking powder
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• ¼ tea spoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Steam (or boil) carrots until fork-tender (unless using canned)
2. Mix carrots and all other ingredients
3. Pour into 3 quart baking dish
4. Cook at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until set in the middle (usually until a skewer inserted comes out clean).