Nugget's Lunch - September 05, 2008

(clockwise from upperleft) Blue corn tortilla strips. Pinto beans tossed with black beans and two orange bell pepper stars. Steamed broccoli with Sysco ranch for dipping. Chicken and cheese quesadillas with more bell pepper stars.

Blue corn chips: When I bought these chips at TJ's, I didn't notice they were unsalted, but believe it or not they still taste good (I'm eating a few right now!). I wanted to point out that I actually placed these in a plastic sandwich bag which I then placed in the red container, but left them out of the bag just for the picture. They need to be in a bag because if left out with moist food such as the beans, broccoli and bell pepper, the chips absorb some moisture and are not nearly as fun to eat. I learned this when I packed salsa and chips one day and the chips were really not that crunchy.

Beans: The beans are just plain, out of the can and rinsed.

Bell pepper: I used a cookie cutter for these, and found the trick is to place the bell pepper upside-down, so the inner skin is the first thing the cookie cutter goes through, rather than the outer skin which is much more firm. It is better to have the outer firm side against the cutting board.

Broccoli, Sysco ranch: All of these are leftovers from dinner at one of my personal favorite family restaurants, Red Robin. The ranch dressing is the best in the world, and (shhhh! don't tell because they will never admit that it is just from Sysco! I know this because I do not like most ranch dressings but this one I can drink from a bucket) it is the same exact ranch dressing served at a little tavern in Kingstree, SC where they happily told me it was Sysco. Besides, who would be so naive to think that RR actually made their ranch from scratch? And why would they want to make it from scratch if they can just buy it this good?

Quesadillas: Lastly, the quesadillas which are also leftovers from last night will not be heated up for lunch, so we will have to see what Nugget thinks of them cold. He eats other cheese cold, and tortillas cold, and cooked chicken cold, but never all together cold in a quesadilla. Stay tuned!

(After-school Edit) The quesadillas fared just fine, and only one bite came back in the lunch box. He said they were pretty good. I also must retract my statement about needing to bag the chips! I am now wondering if the need to bag just depends on the particular chip. During lunch hour, Nugget dumped the blue corn chips into the red container (so it looks exactly like in the picture above). The chips he didn't eat, maybe seven or eight, came home that way - unbagged. His lunch is at 11:30am, and I opened the lunchbox to clean it at 4:30pm, which was five hours later and the same amount of time they would have spent unbagged from morning until his lunch hour. And they were still crispy. Hmmmm. More research needed into why the other chips of a previous lunch became un-crisp. I am wondering if it's because the chips that didn't stay crisp were not 100% corn chips; they had a veggie component.