School Lunch

Eat Your Wheaties (or Wheat Berries)

May 21, 2015

Every week we take a peek inside the lunches of the luckiest kids in Brooklyn. Read on, suppress your jealousy, and get a little brown bag inspiration. 

I get on kicks, and right now it's wheat berries. I wasn't totally satisfied with my last wheat berry lunch, so I fiddled around with it and came up with a new combination this week: wheat berries with green beans, avocado, almonds, thyme, and a creamy dressing (vinaigrette with mayonnaise and sour cream whisked in). The salad was healthy and its flavor had its merits (the beans and dressing made great friends), but my takeaway from this wheat berry kick is that a little goes a long way.

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More: On a wheat berry kick yourself? Here are five meals to make with them.

If I were to take these salads to the next level, I'd cut back on the wheat berries and add greens and more vegetables in their place. These salads were preachy—I want a salad that's healthy but joyful. The beauty of making your kids' lunches is that there's plenty of time to iterate—hundreds of lunches per year! For dessert, I tucked in a few dried mango slices from Whole Foods and worked to clean out the remains of their Easter stash. 

What's in your lunch today? See some of the twins' past lunches.

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A New Way to Dinner, co-authored by Food52's founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, is an indispensable playbook for stress-free meal-planning (hint: cook foundational dishes on the weekend and mix and match ‘em through the week).

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Amanda Hesser

Written by: Amanda Hesser

Before starting Food52 with Merrill, I was a food writer and editor at the New York Times. I've written several books, including "Cooking for Mr. Latte" and "The Essential New York Times Cookbook." I played myself in "Julie & Julia" -- hope you didn't blink, or you may have missed the scene! I live in Brooklyn with my husband, Tad, and twins, Walker and Addison.

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