Frittata with Sundried Tomatoes recipe

Frittatas are a fast and simple way to create a breakfast, brunch or dinner option. This frittata recipe was born out of a last-minute need to come up with an idea for a meatless dish for our Monday work lunches.

Frittata with Sundried Tomatoes
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 bunch green onions, whites sliced
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped
3/4 cup fresh parsley
8 large eggs, beaten
salt and pepper

Instructions

Heat olive oil in cast-iron skillet. Add onions and cook on medium-low for about 10 minutes. Stir in sundried tomatoes and parsley; season with salt and pepper.

Heat broiler to high. Pour eggs over the vegetables in the skillet. Stir to mix.

Cook eggs on low, scraping bottom of pan towards middle as it sets and letting uncooked egg run underneath. Continue until bottom is firm but top is still moist (about 10 minutes).

Place frittata under the broiler and cook for five minutes, or until frittata is cooked throughout and golden on top.

Serve in skillet warm or at room temperature. Garnish with parsley.

Serving ideas: Pair the frittata with crusty bread or salad.

Green and healthy lunch box ideas

Packing a healthy school lunch is tough enough, but when everything seems to be out of season, it feels far more challenging to pull together something fresh and healthy.

Still, you're not reduced to serving "fruit" snacks or bleached baby carrots as your only options. Here are some fast solutions for fixing school lunches that are as easy to pack as to manage at school.

Main dishes
The main event doesn't have to be a boring peanut butter on plain bread sandwich. With a little flexibility you can easily shake up your "sandwich" into something more creative.

• Choose homemade breads, flat breads or crackers.


• Even serve almond butter on banana or applesauce bread for something different.


• Go 'round by creating wraps.


• Slice cooked chicken or cheeses into strips.


• Serve chicken or ham chunks, cheese and small veggie chunks as as "kabobs" on toothpicks.


• Don't forget your thermos. Just a few hot meals packed in a thermos, and you'll come out ahead of hot lunches. My daughter has enjoyed spaghetti made with homemade - and homegrown - pasta sauce, and lo mein and other dishes are easily packed for a fun menu choice.

Winter veggies and fruits
It takes mere minutes to slice carrots into coin shapes or sticks, yet it's a far better alternative than bleached baby carrots. And if you can get some locally grown carrots - yes, even in January - you're in for a better treat!

If you have a salad lover, grab some winter lettuces; just pack your salad separate from the dressing, or your child could have a soggy mess by mealtime.

For an easy dip, drop the bottled ranch dressing and substitute dressing mix mixed with plain Greek yogurt.

And dont forget your seasonal fruits, which are suprisingly hardy (good for those of us whose children routinely whip those lunchboxes around!). Think apples, oranges, tangerines, tangelos, and pears. You could even add some homemade honey-yogurt dip for a fun option. Dried fruits tossed with nuts help meet that sweet tooth too.

What other options do you like for an easy - and healthy - school lunch alternative?

This post is part of the Healthy Child Network carnival on green and healthy lunch ideas.

Lunchbox Love: Chocolate-covered banana chips

Chocolate-covered banana chips were one of those happy accidents, and an easy treat for my daughter's lunchbox. Not the fanciest, nor possibly the prettiest dish, but a great addition for her to munch on!

We had purchased some banana chips from a natural food vendor, which didn't fare so well for my children. These weren't the usual fried and salted variety, so they were a bit bland for their liking.

Instead, we shook things up by melting some chocolate chips in the microwave and letting them dip the banana chips into it. (An easy enough task that even my 3 year old could happily help.) We let them cool overnight before packing. It's the fastest those banana chips have ever been eaten!

Sew what? Stuffy and the Sandwich Bags

Last weekend I was excited to have scored both a "grown-up" and a kids book on sewing at our local library's Friends sale. To which my very own mother retorted, "Will your daughter learn to sew first or will you?"

First off, I can sew. And my sewing machine? It's been lovingly packed in its box since I got it...11 Christmases ago. (Of course, I was in graduate school and working full-time, then in the middle of a move, then became a parent...blah blah blah.)

Last year, I decided my first dive into actually using it as a sewing machine instead of a potential first step for my son in his closet would be making reusable sandwich bags for school lunches. I had the chance to review a few last fall, and realized that they are fairly simple contraptions...if you have the time to make them!

So with the best of intentions, I picked up nylon scraps and velcro at a fabric store...last fall. Summer passed, and I realized that I really could use a few more sandwich or snack bags, but was hesitant to pay for more cloth wraps (or for their plastic counterparts).

So this weekend, armed with $4 worth of materials, the fabric from my beloved pink wrinkle-free Coldwater Creek shirt that ripped after four years, and a hovering six year old, I went to work. Without a pattern. Or reading the instructions for the sewing machine!

My daughter, to her credit, made felt finger puppets patterned (loosely) after those in her kids sewing projects book. And that's when I learned a few things:

1. My daughter doesn't like directions any more than I do.
2. Imperfect is OK too.

For a few hours' of work, four dollars and minimal swearing, we wound up with two sandwich bags, two snack-size bags (great for crackers or the dried mango she loves), and Stuffy and Floofy (her names) finger puppets.

For two girls who don't listen, I don't think we did bad work! And, thankfully, I have up to another year to convert my other ripped wrinkle-free shirt into blue baggies for full-day pre-K. (Oh, and mom, I guess you could say it's a tie. And I could use a few more Coldwater Creek wrinkle-free shirts for my birthday.)

Talking school lunches

Coupons littered my living room floor this weekend, spurred on by my husband's insistence that we actually do something with them rather than just collect them from the Sunday paper.

Trying to enlist my soon-to-be first-grader to help me sort just brought on new challenges as she created her own shopping list.

Sponge Bob yogurt.
Dora yogurt.
Granola bars.
Disney princess fruit chews (though the fruit part is questionable.)

I could have simply said no. Instead, we spent a good part of the afternoon having a conversation about what makes a healthy lunch for school. We talked about the need to add fruit or vegetable. To drink milk (hopefully the white variety). To enjoy things like chocolate pudding cups in moderation. That there are healthy foods and sometimes foods.

After last year's concern with not eating enough, I've been hesitant to put on too much pressure when it comes to what she eats - quantity, that is. But she certainly can be enlisted to make healthy choices along the way.

I'm thrilled that she wants to take on packing her own lunch each day, though I wonder how long that will in fact last. She'll be happy to make peanut butter sandwiches...but for how long? Just to prepare, I'm expanding her options by buying a stainless steel thermos (hot pink trim, of course) for her to pack hot lunches on cold winter days and stocking up on a few more reusable containers for her to pack berries in.

Needless to say, I'm still on the lookout for some fun, easy-to-assemble ideas for making lunches. Have a great idea? Share them below!

Squishy food

Packing school lunches is an interesting task for us. The good news is my daughter loves a lot of food.


The bad news are 1) I think her classmates' habits are rubbing off on her and 2) she's lost a front tooth. Which means along with it, she's lost her confidence.


Gone are the baby carrots we bought the first week of school. Gone are the shiny, red apples. Gone are crackers, or anything else with a crunch.


In the hopes of packing any kind of produce in her lunch, I've been reduced to the "fruit-only" bars and prepacked containers of applesauce.

Any other suggestions to make a meal?