Thursday, June 30, 2011

school lunch memories

Do you have memories of your school lunches?

I do. They were good ones too. I think lunch was my favorite time of the day, 2nd was recess.

For lunch we'd have main dishes like shoyu chicken, meatloaf, spanish rice.

One of my favorites was a side dish, it was a cole slaw but not the creamy type.

No, this one was refreshing, puckery even...

I recently re-created this one for our dinner the other night and it was amazingly really easy.

Japanese Cole Slaw
adapted from "Hilo High School 100th Anniversary Cookbook"

Slaw:
1/4 head cabbage
1 scrawny carrot
1/2 teaspoon salt

Dressing:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
grinds of pepper

Using your food processor*, whizz the cabbage using the "thin slice" blade.
Peel your carrot and whizz using the "coarse grate" blade.
Rinse cabbage and carrot mix in cold water and drain well.
Add salt, massage and let sit for about 5 minutes.
In the meantime, mix sugar and vinegar until sugar is melted.
After the 5 minutes, using your hands, squeeze out all the water from the cabbage and carrot.
Toss with dressing and grind some pepper.
Chill and serve.

*if you don't have a food processor, thinly slice your cabbage and carrot like you would for cole slaw.

NOTES: the flavor was just as I had remembered and the crunch from the cabbage and carrots was so good! I'm definitely making this again.

It's the end of the month, hope your June was a good one!

18 comments:

Su-Lin said...

We didn't have school lunch - we always packed our own. And my husband hated his school lunches!

Anonymous said...

I'm an ex military brat and back in the day Hawaii's school lunches were the stuff of legend. It's amazing that those lunch ladies could make such yummy food in such huge industrial size portions! Oh! The gravy!

Kris said...

Sounds great! I will try it.

K and S said...

interesting to hear how others had their lunches Su-Lin!

indeed Anon!

Hope you like it Kris!

Take care everyone.
Kat

Anonymous said...

I love all sorts of slaw! I love your take on this one, sweet, sour, nommers! School lunches, hmm this might gross you out (it was also the year I gained 10 lbs in jr. high school) we would eat a cheesesteak sub, smothered in mayo with FF In between. It wasn't a philly steak but what I'm sure looked like a "steak m" but I loved biting into and getting all sorts of mess with my gf until my cheer leading coach told me to switch to tuna salad because my bum was getting to heavy for them to lift.

Japan Australia said...

We didn't have achool lunches in Australia, so no fond memories there, but I do have some great memories of my school lunches in Japan. The curry rice and yakisoba with fruits yoghurt set were two of my favourites and I can still picture and almost smell them now.

Japan Australia

Rowena said...

If you're meaning elementary school, I only remember looking forward the box of real milk, as my mom gave us imitation or reconsituted powdered milk at home. High school was another thing....bring on those sloppy joes.

kay said...

I grew up in Hilo, and one thing I remember about school lunch was some kind of peanut butter swirl roll. Kelly Boys (Hilo company) has a version that comes pretty close. I think I need to run down to KTA to get some.

Liz That Skinny Chick Can Bake said...

Oh, this sounds wonderful! I love cole slaw with mayo, but I think I like the vinegar based slaws even better :)

Kathy YL Chan said...

Ahh I love school lunches! The cafeteria made the best shoyu chicken, extra rice so that it would soak up "sauce." Mac salad on the side too, ohuhuhuh ^_^

KirkK said...

Hi Kat - I actually have terrible memories of school lunch! But of course, it could be that my generation was waaaaay before you. ;o)

K and S said...

Philly style steak sandwiches sound delish, Elle Marie!

Nice J-A!

ooh yeah, sloppy joes Rowena!

man, that PB swirl must be legendary in Hilo, Kay, my mom said when she went to school it was her fave!

Thanks Lizzy, if you try this, I hope you'll like it :)

we never had mac salad, Kathy, but yeah it would totally go with shoyu chicken :)

it could be Kirk, it could be ;)

Take care everyone.
Kat

K said...

Thank you for sharing this recipe! I love non-mayo based cole slaws.

K and S said...

I hope you like this K!

Take care.
Kat

Jenny said...

How interesting, I'll try that. In South Africa, it was sandwiches. I still love them.

K and S said...

Interesting Jenny! I hope you like this slaw :)

Take care.
Kat

Rinshinomori said...

This will be great topping for any fried meat sandwiches like chicken or pork katsu. Enjoy your blog!

K and S said...

hope you like it Rinshinomori :)

Take care.
Kat