Peanut Butter & Jelly Rollups | Monkey Mix | Smokie Wraps | Cheese and Wiener Burritos | Lunch Box Tips
Peanut Butter & Jelly Rollups
8 Flour Tortillas
2 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup jelly or preserves
Peanut butter (smooth not crunchy)
Remove tortillas from refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature until soft & flexible (about 10 minutes).
In a small bowl combine cream cheese and jelly. Spread one tortilla with a thin layer of jelly mixture. Top with another tortilla. Spread top tortilla with peanut butter. Gently roll up tortilla. Wrap individually in plastic wrap. Refrigerate, if possible, at least one hour or overnight. To serve, slice rolls in half or into 1-inch bite-size pieces.
Makes 4 servings
Monkey Mix
1 C. banana chips
1 C. flaked coconut
1 C. chocolate chips
3 C. Cheerios
Mix all ingredients in a gallon sized plastic bag. Shake well.
Smokie Wraps
2 tubes of Pillsbury Crescent rolls
1 package of Hillshire Farms Little Beef Smokies
8 slices of Kraft Sliced cheese or little slices of cheese of your choice cut into 1 inch by 1/4 inch squares.
Open tubes of rolls, Little Smokies and Cheese.
Individually wrap each smokie with a piece of cheese in a small portion of the dough. (I usually just tear if off.)
Place on cookie sheet side by side and bake according to dough directions.
Serve with Ketchup and Mustard or BBQ sauce
Cheese and Wiener Burritos
8 flour tortillas
8 hot dogs/meat wieners
8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup ketchup or taco sauce
Heat wieners as directed on package. Heat tortillas. Place 1 hot wiener on lower third of each tortilla. Sprinkle each wiener with 1/4 cup of the cheese, and about 1 tablespoon ketchup or taco sauce. Fold in sides and roll up.
Lunch Box Tips
Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough are the authors of Cooking for Two (Morrow Cookbooks, 2004).
Vary the bread on your sandwiches. Try pumpernickel with turkey, oat bread with tuna, rye bread for a turkey BLT, and sourdough with roast beef.
Try a wrap instead of a traditional sandwich. Wrap a wheat tortilla around roasted veggies or a spinach tortilla around meatloaf, or spread a soft corn tortilla with peanut butter and jelly before rolling.
Bring containers of dips, such as hummus or baba ghanoush, and veggies like celery and carrots to dip into it.
Keep a large bag of salad greens at home and fill a plastic container with them each morning. Try a different addition each day such as kidney beans, chickpeas, tuna, shredded carrots, chopped hard boiled egg whites, raisins, chopped roasted beets, water chestnuts or cucumbers. The juice of a few lemon wedges will make a simple and snappy dressing.
Roast a chicken on Sunday and use it all week for lunch. Shred breast meat and toss with fat-free mayo, curry powder, chopped celery and radishes. Bring drumsticks along with fat-free salad dressing as a cool dip. Thigh meat is great in a corn tortilla with jarred salsa and shredded lettuce. And chopped leftover chicken can always be tossed with some frozen mixed vegetables. They'll defrost by the time you eat lunch and you'll have an instant chicken primavera salad. A little hot sauce makes a great dressing.
Make a pot of veggie chili over the weekend and bring it in a thermos for lunch. Top it with something new each day, such as fat-free shredded cheddar, chopped scallions, fat-free sour cream, shredded corn tortillas, chopped cilantro, chopped red onion, fat-free yogurt or a squeeze of lime juice.
A cored apple or pear stuffed with raisins and a little peanut butter or fat-free cream cheese makes a fabulous sandwich alternative.
Eat in season. Add a chopped peach to tabbouleh in the summer. Add fresh orange segments to a green salad in the winter.
Make new and exciting sandwich condiments. Blend jarred pimentos with fat-free mayo for a tasty spread. Mix curry powder into a little mango chutney for a condiment that goes with any meat. Make your own honey mustard without oil and just a little honey. And use sliced fruit, like plums, on sandwiches instead of sugary ketchup.