Buttermilk Quick Bread and Lunch Ideas for School Kids

Buttermilk Quick Bread

As I often do after making a recipe calling for buttermilk, I had some leftover. I made a white chicken chili last night and found a recipe for Buttermilk Quick Bread in my The Everything Low-Fat High Flavor Cookbook to go with it. This bread took me about five minutes to throw together - that is pretty darn handy when you're scrambling for dinner like I was last night.

As you can see, it's not a huge loaf. It's more like a flat bread.

Dip a chunk of this baby in extra virgin olive oil and pepper....yum.....

Buttermilk Quickbread

1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbl olive oil
1 cup buttermilk
2-3 tbl fresh chives (optional)

Preheat oven to 425. Spray a nonstick baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.

In a bowl, stir together then flours, baking powder and salt. In another smaller bowl, stir together the oil and buttermilk (I also added the chives here). Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix well to form a stiff dough. Turn out onto a floured board (I used my countertop!) and knead until smooth. Shape into a flat, round loaf on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake 40-45 minutes. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before slicing.

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Topic #2. A friend asked me for lunch ideas for her school aged children. Since I am not yet in that boat, I decided to ask for some help. My older sister, with 3 school aged-kids, had a few suggestions:

frozen gogurts
pasta salad
ramen/soup in thermos
veggies/travel size dip
tuna cups-crackers
wraps (bbq-ham-cheese-red onion heated, wrapped in foil), (cream cheese and taco seasoning), (cream cheese and jelly), (cream cheese, ham, pickle slice)
apple slices and container of peanut butter
popcorn
trail mix
cold pizza

I found a few sites online that may have some helpful and/or new suggestions to0:

Healthy Child - website gives quick reference lunch ideas and some creative ideas

Family Fun - has "lunchbox solutions" and "sandwich central"

Disney Family Food - super sandwich ideas and "make-the-night-before" lunches

Amazing Moms - dip ideas and lunches that can be made in fun shapes

More than one of these sites suggested cutting foods into fun shapes. Are kids really more likely to eat something if it's shaped like a star than a square? I don't know...apparently I'd be well-served to go buy some fun cookie cutters and try. I'm also curious, from those of you needing to pack kids-lunches, if these are realistic.

Let me know!