Wendy Ra­hamut

It's back to school time and for all you busy moms out there it's im­por­tant to re­mem­ber to pro­vide your chil­dren with whole­some and nour­ish­ing lunch­es. You need to plan your meals, if you are pack­ing lunch­es or snacks you can por­tion freeze them af­ter you have cooked them. The day that you need to use them sim­ply re­move the pack­ing, place the food in­to a food con­tain­er, warm up in the mi­crowave and by the time lunch time rolls around your child will en­joy good, whole­some food. Here are some good op­tions for you to start the term off with.

• OLD FASH­IONED MEAT LOAF

This meat­loaf is de­li­cious as a light sup­per dish, when re­frig­er­at­ed it makes great sand­wich­es the next day.

1 cup fine soft bread­crumbs

1/3 cup milk

2 eggs, light­ly beat­en

11/4 lbs ground beef, chick­en or turkey

4 ozs ched­dar cheese, cut in­to cubes

1 large green bell pep­per, cut in­to cubes

1 onion, fine­ly chopped

2 cloves gar­lic, minced

1/3 cup fine­ly chopped pars­ley

1 tsp salt

1 tsp fresh­ly ground black pep­per

1/4 cup ketchup

Pre­heat oven to 400?F

Stir to­geth­er bread crumbs and milk, let stand for five min­utes, then add eggs. In a large mix­ing bowl com­bine meat, cheese, pep­per, onion, gar­lic, pars­ley, salt pep­per and ketchup. Add bread­crumb mix­ture and stir gen­tly. Spoon mix­ture in­to a greased nine by five inch loaf tin. Bake for 55 to 60 min­utes un­til cooked through.

• BA­NANA STREUSEL CAKE

1/2 cup but­ter, un­salt­ed

1 cup brown sug­ar

2 eggs

2 cups all pur­pose flour

1 tbs bak­ing pow­der

1/2 cup milk

2 ba­nanas mashed

1 tsp vanil­la

For the streusel top­ping

1/2 cup chopped nuts

4 tbs brown sug­ar

2 tsp cin­na­mon

Grease and flour a nine-inch cake tin

Make cake:

Cream but­ter with sug­ar un­til light, add eggs one at a time, com­bine flour with bak­ing pow­der.

Com­bine milk with ba­nanas and vanil­la

Add flour al­ter­nate­ly with milk.

Spoon in­to a nine-inch pan.

Com­bine in­gre­di­ents for streusel, sprin­kle on top of cake.

Bake 350?F for 30 min­utes.

Makes 1 cake

• WHOLE WHEAT SALMON SAND­WICH­ES

1 whole wheat loaf, sliced

1 6 oz tin pink salmon

1/2 cup may­on­naise

1 tsp Di­jon mus­tard

1 tsp lime juice

1 tsp pep­per sauce

1/3 cup chopped red bell pep­per

1 tbs ca­pers, drained (op­tion­al)

6 stuffed olives, sliced

1/3 cup thin­ly sliced fresh chives

But­ter

In a small glass bowl com­bine salmon, may­on­naise, mus­tard, lime juice and pep­per sauce.

Add chives, stir and ad­just taste for salt stir in ca­pers, pep­pers and olives.

Spread salmon mix­ture on­to each piece of bread, do not spread too thick.

Cov­er with re­main­ing bread slices, cut in­to two.

Wrap in plas­tic and re­frig­er­ate un­til ready to serve.

Makes about 12 sand­wich­es.