Lunch from Home: Pasta "al Fredo"

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Here's one of daughter's favorite meals: spaghetti al fredo. It's not easy to keep pasta warm for lunch when it's packed in the morning. But we created the illusion of warm pasta by putting it on a warm plate and wrapping it in foil.

She's also got a slice of her favorite Robusto cheese, some carrot sticks and a container of strawberry-flavored apple sauce.

Daughter probably likes her pasta too much. When all else fails, it's her go-to food, and it's not always whole grain. In the not too distant future, if new USDA meal guidelines are approved, all pasta served in school will have to be "whole grain-rich," meaning at least 51 percent whole grain flour.

Even school food geniuses like Ann Cooper are having a tough time getting kids to like whole grain pasta. One day at my daughter's school, I noticed the kids lining for seconds on their spaghetti and meatballs. They'd wolfed down the meatballs and were asking for more, but they rejected the whole grain spaghetti. It all went into the trash.

On the other hand, if you mix a meat sauce into the pasta the kids will eat it--even though they say they really don't like the noodles.