Thursday, February 7, 2013

the salad days

Just this past week, my 7yo announced that he is at last tired of ham & cheese sandwiches. It only took two and a half years! I am thrilled because frankly, I am also tired of ham & cheese sandwiches - bored with making them, bored with sending them, bored with going through a large block of cheese every seven days.

So I needed to come up with an alternative.

Enter the salads - chicken, tuna, egg.

I know some kids do not like salad sandwiches, but happily all three of mine love them. As a make-ahead solution, they are brilliant, because you can make a large batch on Sunday night and use it for a couple of days.

It's also pretty easy to slip small amounts of vegetables into salad sandwiches. WIN.

Egg Salad

Half a dozen boiled eggs. Don't overboil them, or the yolks will get that weird greyish tint. It just makes the salad look muddy. My foolproof method is as follows:

- salt the water (keeps the shells from cracking)
- bring to a rolling boil, covered, on high heat
- as soon as steam escapes, slide the pot almost completely off the burner, and reduce the heat to low
- let simmer for 15 minutes
- drain and rinse well with cold water to stop the cooking process

Mince the boiled eggs up, salt & pepper to taste, mix with a couple tablespoons of mayo. My kids like theirs with minced red pepper and green onions. It looks really appealing and tastes great.

Tuna Salad

My kids prefer the chunk-style canned tuna rather than the flakes, and I quite agree. The flake tuna tends to turn out mushy. I mix mine with mayo, a little Dijon mustard, and a bit of relish. Then I add minced celery and red pepper. I make the sandwiches with baby spinach leaves, and that has been a hit.

Chicken Salad

If I have time, I'll roast a small chicken - one of those 3-pounders you can find every so often at a good price - or if not, I'll grab a roasted chicken from the deli counter at my grocery store. Strip the carcass and chop the white & dark meat together. Mix with mayo, salt & pepper, green onion, and celery. Again, made into a sandwich with baby spinach goes down well with my kids. They especially love chicken salad wraps, on a whole grain tortilla.

This week I was able to get some Greek yogurt on sale, so they've had yogurt, too. I baked some carrot-pineapple muffins as a treat, and blueberries were on for cheap this week, too, so the lunch situation has actually not been horribly painful this time around.



8 comments:

  1. It's funny how kids will eat the same thing for years and suddenly...they are done. It must be some developmental stage; the same stage that lets them happily watch the same movie 58 times without going insane.

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    1. Good point. That's how I have the dialogue to "Cars" memorized. Wish I could get *that* brain capacity back.

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  2. I can eat the same lunch day after day for years too. So I get it. Back in the day when I used to eat tuna, I would make it with a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pepper. I don't - obviously - eat it anymore but Mr still likes it that way.

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    1. Oooh, that sounds yummy. I'm going to try that.

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  3. Like Nicole, I eat my tuna with vinegar, too! But only once a week or so and I can't send it to school.

    We do chicken salad SOMETIMES. It's rare that I have enough leftover chicken to attempt it but when I do, it's G's favorite thing in the WORLD. I throw in some chopped grapes and curry powder because I'm very fancy that way.

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    1. I'm going to try that, too. Grapes and curry powder! I'll bet that is delicious.

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  4. Another thing about tuna salad! I always throw in diced red pepper and I use hummus instead of mayo on the bread to sneak a little bit of extra nutrition into my monsters.

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    1. I'm a jerk because I don't put any extra spread on the bread when I make salad sandwiches. They've never had it, so they don't miss it. Poor deprived children. ;)

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