Last year when I asked Mira whether she would like to have hot lunch at school once a week, she immediately shot back a question:

“Mama, do they treat their animals well?”

While she is certainly not a vegetarian (yet), she does care, has learned to care about from where her meat, her eggs, and her dairy come.

My heart leapt up.  There are these moments.  They are moments that are sandwiched in between many, many other kinds of frustrating, hair pulling, heartbreaking moments in which you are positive that your child does not listen to a word you say.  She breaks out with a question like this one, and it is all worth it: the four years of cooking class you have taught to small people, the choices you make to cook at home when you could be just swinging by McDonald’s for the ease of it, the times your children look at what you make and outright refuse to eat it.

“No, Mira, they do not treat their animals well,” I informed her.  She replied, then, that she would not be eating hot lunch, even on pizza days.

What gets served in school lunches these days, I realize, is a socially nuanced and very loaded issue.  While I know that we are outright fortunate (and very, very grateful) to be able to send Mira to school each day with a good lunch from home, I know that we can do so much better than we have been doing in our school cafeterias in this country.  In honor of imagining a healthier version of hot lunch, here is our recipe for sloppy joes.

They are yummy served with pickles or a little salad made of raisins, a tablespoon of Greek yogurt, shredded carrots, and a tiny slosh of apple cider vinegar.  For me, Sloppies are the ultimate in cafeteria food, and these, will transform a dish that may be connected with not-so-delicious memories of your own school cafeteria days into something warm, comforting, and healthful.

Healthy Sloppy Joes

Serves 4-6

• 1 T. olive oil
• a medium red onion or a few shallots, peeled and shredded
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 1 c. summer squash, zucchini, pumpkin, or butternut squash (in season), shredded
• 1/2 c. green, yellow, or red bell pepper, seeded and shredded
• 2 cloves garlic, shredded or minced
• a bay leaf
• 1 t. dried oregano (or 2 t. fresh)
• 1 t. dried thyme (or 2 t. fresh)
• 1 pound of dark meat ground turkey
• 1 T. tomato paste
• 2 c. crushed tomatoes (or pureed tomatoes)
• 2 c. vegetable or chicken stock, or water
• 2 c. cooked pinto, red, or black beans, etc.
• Slider or hamburger buns, preferably whole grain

1. Shred all the veggies (onion, carrot, squash, bell pepper, and garlic) at once in your food processor.  With your mini-chef, and an UN-Plugged machine, get your veggies ready.  If your machine has a safety feature, then let your mini-chef add the veggies little by little till everything is shredded.  Unplug the food processor.
2. Big Person: heat the oil over medium-low in a large, heavy bottomed stockpot or dutch oven.
3. Stir in the veggies and the bay leaf and cook, stirring every once in a while, till the onions are translucent.
4. Stir in the herbs and the tomato paste and cook for another couple of minutes.
5. Add the turkey meat, stirring and mashing the meat with a wooden spoon to break it up into bits.  Cook all the way through so that there is absolutely no pink meat.
6. Add the crushed tomatoes, the stock (or water), and the beans, and bring the mixture up to a boil.
7. Turn down the heat and simmer till most of the liquid has been cooked off.  The mixture should still be sloppy but not watery at all.  If you like, you can mush up the beans with the back of your spoon.  Some mini-chefs are very aware of texture or might need the beans to be integral but not visible.
8. Remove the bay leaf and discard.
9. Lightly toast your buns under the broiler.
10. With your mini-chef, scoop a spoonful or two of the sloppy mixture onto the bottom bun.  Place the top bun on, and enjoy warm!