You’ll have to take my word for it, as none of the pieces have yet to be published, but I’ve been writing quite extensively about the deep culinary ditch I currently find myself lying semi-unconsciously in when it comes to school lunches…and after school snacks…and dinners.
Frankly, I’m not exactly crushing it in the morning either. “Who’s up for another bowl of cereal!?”
I’m a creative type with an embarrassing amount of time on my hands, an amateur foodie AND no jury of their peers could ever convict my girls of being ‘picky eaters’, so the food purchasing, prep and planning piece of my life’s puzzle shouldn’t be this hard. Yet since the dawn of the new school year, breakfast is usually a hurried bowl of cereal or maybe a smattering of eggy dippy doodles (that’s what we call a sunny side up egg ’round here) on one of the two days each week we don’t have to be at school 30 minutes earlier than usual for A.M. band and orchestra rehearsals. Lunches, christ, lunches have been a steady diet of PB&Js and cheese sandwiches. Those are white bread sandwiches with cheese on them. Just cheese. American cheese. I’m fairly certain Daniel Boulud doesn’t offer that particular haute cuisine gem on any of his menus.
Dinners, well, “Who’s up for another bowl of cereal!?”
I’m a sheep wandering alone in the dark and my shepherd is drunk with a belly full of cheese. American cheese.
And then something new happened. Late last week, my Mouse said, apropos of nothing as she is wont to do, “when I’m older can I pick what I want?” As Bob Dylan once sang, “May you staaaaaay fooooorever young…random and vague.” I had no idea what she was talking about as we were not exactly talking about anything. When asked for clarification before I’d give my reply, she became helpfully more pointed in her question, “Can I tell you what I want for lunch?” Tell me? You can make your own lunch, kid. And when you’re older? How’s about starting right now. And so she does or did, once (we’ll see how long this lasts), last night on her favorite variety of Flatout Flatbread, Light Original. Bear got in on the act too, with an Everything Foldit Flatout Flatbread. Funny how it’s only copy-catting when her lil’ sis imitates her. Hmmm.
The impetus was two fold (pun intended): I’m being paid to write about delicious Flatout Flatbread, so there’s that, AND yesterday afternoon I put out a massive late-lunch spread for my family and a friend’s as a post-apple picking feast. With so many choices freed from the fridge and laid out before us, my girls and I each saw new possibilities, kinda like rolling a 6 in Jumanji and seeing a stampede of jungle animals tear through your home. Okay, not exactly like that. But you get my point, maybe.
With so much out of the refrigerator, nothing was lurking behind the giant bottle of ketchup and mayo on the fridge door, no meats or cheeses gone missing in the back of the deli drawer, and accoutrements like roasted red peppers, fresh slices avocado and tomato, shredded lettuce, corn and cranberry sauce (yeah, I raided the back of the pantry too…even checked for expiration dates — it was a special afternoon) were presented as plausible choices to dress up lunch. And I thought, queue the harps, why not for school lunches and after school snacks too!? It was a bit of a revelation: Just get the crap out of the fridge and see, really SEE, what’s possible to be wrapped and folded with one of the many Flatouts crammed into our bread box, like the insanely good Rosemary & Olive Oil Foldits (seriously, they are unreal!) or the ProteinUP Red Pepper Hummus flatbread (which has more protein than carbs, kinda ‘mazing, especially for my little vegetarian).
After their late-lunch on Sunday they made their school lunches for Monday. Here’s what the Mouse wrapped and the Bear folded:
Mouse’s Early Thanksgiving Dinner Wrap Recipe
- 1 Light Original Flatout Flatbread
- 2 oz. Plainville Farms All-Natural No Salt Added Roasted Turkey Breast (the stuff tastes EXACTLY like leftover Thanksgiving turkey)
- 1 thick slice of canned jellied Cranberry Sauce (don’t judge us), cut and spread around as you’d like
- Frozen corn, cooked, and distributed as you see fit
- A smear of good Mayonnaise (we use Spectrum Organic, or as I call it, ‘liquid gold’)
Of course, most sane people would add stuffing to a Thanksgiving Dinner Wrap but this is Mouse we’re dealing with so…
The Bear’s Something Slightly More Than A Simple Cheese Sandwich Recipe
- 1 Everything Flatout Foldit
- 2 thin slices of American cheese
- 1 thin slice of lacy Swiss cheese
- 2 slices of tomato
- A small handful of shredded lettuce
- A few slices of fresh avocado
- A smear of good Mayonnaise
With the blank canvas that is a Flatout Flatbread and with a visible array of culinary ‘paints’ with which to use, my daughters took ownership of their own school lunches and created a pair of tasty mini-masterpieces. Here’s to hoping their school lunches and after school snacking will never be the same.
To find a store near you that carries Flatout, visit the store locator and, as if seeing those school lunch masterpieces above isn’t enough, print off a $.50 off coupon to make trying Flatout that much more tempting.
*OWTK was compensated for this post with a metric ton of Flatout Flatbreads and some cold hard cash. All opinions expressed above are honest and unbiased, as always. You should really give Flatout a try, not only because they are delicious bread alternatives that allow kids to get creative with their own school lunch masterpieces and after school snacks, but because they believe in and are supporting OWTK. Which, obviously, is pretty rad.
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