Lunch Success

Sunny was very vocal about wanting me to pack him a lunch for day camp. I wasn't going to in the beginning, since I thought he'd just prefer the free cafeteria lunch. But he says it's "junk food" there and he likes my lunches better! He's always very honest and tells me if he eats the whole lunch or only part of it.

Here's what I cooked him yesterday: a loosely-Afghani-style pilaf dish.

Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup bhasmati rice
- one small carrot
- 1/3 zucchini
- a couple tablespoons of Gimme Lean soy sausage meat
- EarthBalance or butter for frying
- teaspoon of cumin seeds
- paprika
- salt and pepper
- raisins
- crushed nuts (such as cashew)

Directions:
- start rice in rice cooker. 1/3 cup rice to 2/3 cup water and a dash of olive oil works for me, but if you're making a larger amount of rice you need to reduce the water ratio.
- dice carrot and zucchini into tiny pieces. Since Sunny doesn't like zucchini, I disguised it by peeling it first.
- form very small balls with the sausage meat
- over medium-high heat fry up sausage balls, carrot and zucchini, with spices. At the end, throw in the cumin seeds, which only need to fry for half a minute (longer and they'll burn and lose some flavor).
- throw cooked rice into pan, mix together with fried ingredients, turn the heat off, mix with nuts and raisins, put into lunchbox.

He told us it was yummy and he ate all of it except for a little bit. The "little bit" was more like two rice grains. If I was eating this dish I would have flavored it more strongly, with garlic and onions and ancho chile powder, but I'm sticking with the spices and ingredients I know Sunny likes. He is crazy for paprika... go figure!

Today I made him some pasta, also with carrot and zucchini, and tomorrow I think I'll make him something quicker, like a meatball sub. We've been using a lot of the Gimme Lean. I'm not a vegetarian, but it's healthy, we all really like the taste, it cooks quickly and keeps in the fridge for a long time.