Lunch Roundup #12

This week's lunch Whole Spelt Pretzels, cheese stick,

hard boiled egg, snap peas, pineapple, chocolate 

Daughter # 2 wanted pretzels this week, so I took it as an opportunity to try them with Whole Spelt Flour. Spelt is not gluten-free but has much lower amounts  of it. It works well in some recipes but not so well in others as the lower gluten content changes the composition. 

I used the same pretzel recipe as before and just replaced the whole wheat flour with whole spelt flour. They turned out good, but a bit breadier or puffier than the whole wheat ones - a bit closer to pretzel bread rather than pretzel. I actually made both and the family seemed to like the spelt ones better as the bag emptied first. 

Whole Spelt Pretzels

3 cups whole spelt flour (more if needed)
1 package fast rise yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup very warm water (125 to 130 degrees F)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon honey

4 tbs baking soda

1 egg yolk, slightly beaten
coarse salt 

1. In a stand mixer or food processor combine 2 cups flour, package of yeat, and salt. Mix and set aside. 

2. In a medium bowl add warmed water, and oil. 

3. Pour liquid into the flour mixture, plus add the honey. Mix well. 

4. Add remaining flour to turn into a dough - you may need to add more if sticky.

5. On a lightly floured surface, knead dough for 5 minutes. 

6. Let sit in a large oiled bowl, covered,  for 10 minutes to rise. 

Boiling

7. In a large pot or large skillet fill with 3 inches water plus baking soda. Bring to a boil.

Rolling.

8. Punch down the dough and divide into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a long snake (coil) about 10-12  inches long and wrap into a pretzel shape. Press the ends into the dough. 

9. Plop each pretzel into the boiling soda water for 30 seconds. Remove with a large slotted spoon and place on a well greased cookie sheet. 

10. Combine an egg white with a tbs of water and whip. 

11. Brush pretzels with egg yolk and sprinkle with salt. 

12. Bake at 400 degrees until Dark brown (like a pretzel). 

Make sure you let them cool all the way before storing. 

Lunch Roundup #11

This week's lunch: Concha Roll, Grilled Chicken, Snap Peas, Strawberries and Pineapple. 

Okay this might not be the most nutritious lunch. I made Mexican Concha rolls for my art class for Cinco de Mayo so I had to make them for my kids as well. Conchas are a sweet bread roll (like Portuguese bread) but topped with a sugar/flour/butter mixture. When we used to go to Mexico when I was younger, (& lived in Arizona) these rolls were in all the bakeries we went to. The bread is light and fluffy and the topping sugary and crumbly. They are called conchas because the designs bakers put on them resemble seashells. They use a metal stamp to stamp the design into the dough. I of course did not have one of these tools so I ended up using an apple slicer/corer which made more of a sun design on top of the rolls. The crumbly dough should have covered the whole roll, but the recipe I used did not make enough, so I had to skimp on each one. Oh well. 

Here's a tiny history of the conchas rolls also called Pan Dulce. Apparently the tradition of baking sweet breads was kept from the French Conquerors who were the very ones fought in the Battle on May 5th 1862. 

This is the recipe I used. http://www.food.com/recipe/conchas-mexican-sweet-topped-buns-119586 

from food.com. I followed it exactly, but I would make extra of the topping. I ran out and it is better to have too much than too little. It calls for scalded milk which I had never needed before so I looked it up and you just have to heat up your milk right to the tip of boiling on med/med high heat while stirring constantly. The recipe says to let it cool which I took as just a couple of minutes in the fridge to get the high heat out of it. It was still warm when I used it. The recipe takes 3 hours total but it is not hard: the rolls just need to rise twice. 

I also watched some videos including this one that really showed the texture needed on the cookie topping. It also shows the stamps they use for the designs, but like I said, I used an apple slicer and it worked pretty well! 

I would have like to add some tortillas into their lunch to eat the chicken in, but I felt like the extra large sweet bread roll took up the whole grain percentage (and then some) of the meal. 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Lunch Roundup #10

Pretzel-dog carrots, string cheese, strawberries and watermelon. 

Lunch Roundup # 10! For people new to our blog, and especially our new Paleo followers, this blog is written by my sister Melissa and I. Melissa is the Paleo poster, and while I try to not eat to eat too many grains in a week/day, my family and I don't follow Paleo. I will often make Paleo like meals and gluten-free ones mainly because I think the American diet has too many excuses to eat breads and grains, but my school lunch roundup usually has some sort of whole grain in it. 

I had to try my hand at making real pretzels (instead of breadsticks that resemble pretzels like last time). The difference is just boiling them for 30 seconds in water and baking soda, which seemed scarier than it ended up being. For the lunches I wrapped the dough around chicken sausage to make pretzel-dogs and with the rest of the dough I experimented with different shapes and sizes of pretzels. 

There are so many recipes on the web for pretzels to choose from. I used this recipe  from cdkitchen  that uses half whole wheat flour, and a bit of honey and they turned out great. 

For the dogs I used the recipe above (because I wanted a whole wheat recipe) but followed the directions on Joy The Baker for how to wrap the sausages. I started with cutting my sausage in half and rolling a long snake of dough around the sausage making sure that the seams get pressed closed. Take a look at Joy the Baker's post to see how that is done.  Getting it water tight is important because after you put the dough on them, they will need to be boiled for 30 seconds in a bath of water and baking soda. I used a large skillet filled with water as high as it could go without spilling when boiled, and added 4 tbs baking soda. Then I put the wrapped dog in the boiling water for 30 seconds on each side since it was not fully immersed. 

After boiling them, place them on a greased cookie sheet and brush them with egg yolk and water. Sprinkle with salt. Bake at 400 until they get a nice dark pretzel color. You will be tempted to take them out early - but don't! Wait until they LOOK like a pretzel! Believe me I took way too many out too soon including the one in the photo. The ones where I forgot about them in the oven (oops) turned out the best!

The pretzel dogs have about 200 calories, 2 g fiber,3 g fat from my estimation on Livestrong.com 

We did make plain pretzels too for a snack and I will be doing them again soon with some spelt flour expeiments!

Lunch Roundup #9

Lunch #9 actually has too much food for my kiddo, so I knew some would end up coming back. This week there is cold WW spaghetti, Garden Veggie Chicken Sausage, carrots, Pea pods, mixed fruit, and faux Nutrigrain bars (Oatmeal Squares).

The reason why I started making these bento box lunches is because of my youngest. I would buy one box of "treats" from the store for her lunches which was usually boxed Little Debbies. They started to become a huge issue however. She would eat them one right after the other early in the week at home so there would be none left for her lunches. I would inevitably go buy more so she would have her one sweet thing at school like her friends. The more she ate the crankier and more bossy she would become. It became a vicious cycle. 

Since I have been making the lunches and snacks homemade, she has been much more pleasant to be around although there was a week of hell to contend with when we started. Now, she isn't eating one sugary treat after another and I only have to go midweek grocery shopping for more fruit. The recipe below is supposed an alternative to Strawberry Nutrigrain bars. My oldest preferred them with jam and my youngest without. You can actually add anything into them you want like mini chocolate chips or dried fruit. 

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

1/2 cup Granulated Splenda

2 large Egg White

2 tbsp , 1% (Average)

2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

1 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (100% Stone Ground)

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Cinammon, Ground

1/2 tsp Salt

3 cups Oats - Rolled

1 cup Lowfat Plain Yogurt

2 tbsp Canola Oil

1. Heat oven to 350

2. In a large bowl combine: sugars, yogurt, egg whites, oil, milk, and vanilla. Mix well. 

3. in medium bowl mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add to the large bowl and mix well.

4. Add in oats and mix well. 

5. Spread into a 9 x 13" pan and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until the edges are a little brown. 

6. Remove from oven and cool completely. Cut into 24 square bars.

6. If you would like to add jam: slice each bar into 2 layers. Spread jam int he middle. 

Servings 2 suares: 218 calories, 4g fat, 4g fiber

Egg (&Tuna) Salad Yummy Yummy

More leftovers from Easter! We made 24 colored eggs the day before Easter so we must use them all up. I made sure to put the right in the fridge right after dyeing so they would be safe to eat.

I have to admit that this is not hubby's favorite type of food and the kids won't go near it, so this is all mine! I had some right away and will be eating it for lunch for a couple of days.

-- Nicole

Egg & Tuna Salad

Ingredients

• 3 hard boiled eggs
• 3 hard boiled eggs without yolks (optional yolk removal here)
• 5 oz foil packed tuna drained
• 1 tbs jarred chopped pimentos
• 1/2 tsp Coleman's Mustard
• 1/3 cup red onion chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 5 tbs of your favorite plain yogurt

Instructions

1. Peel, chop and rinse your hard boiled eggs. Chope your red onions pretty small but not minced
2. Add all your ingredients into a medium sized bowl and gently mix. Season with salt and pepper. 

Eat it on some homemade spelt quickbread sliced thin.

(Spelt has very low levels of gluten)

or with finely chopped eggs as a dip with some carrot chips.

(Which are just bagged raw carrots sliced into the shape of carrots)

Now if I can figure out what to do with all of those leftover glow-in-the-dark Easter eggs!