Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Layered Bean Dip

Some organic tortilla chips served with a layered dip of refried beans, salsa, avocado, more beans, vegan sour cream, and black olives. In the smaller containers are kiwi fruit, organic red grapes, baby carrots, and celery sticks. On the napkin you can see one little maple sugar candy I snuck in as a surprise treat.
Verdict: Ooh, this was a big hit -- it looks like he finished off the chips and ate the rest with his fingers! I was happy to discover a way to pack avocado without having it go brown. 5 stars.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

What brand of sour cream do you use? The only kind I've found was kind of gross. :[

and when you find a way to pack avocado without it browning, make sure to tell us!
-holly

Guinnah said...

that is one of my daughter's favorite lunches (and she is 16!). Great looking lunch!

Anonymous said...

YUM! One of my favorites too, but mine is not nearly as pretty!

Anonymous, I like Tofutti's Sour Supreme, and I think the way to keep the avocado from not browning is by having it be completely surrounded by beans and salsa!

Anonymous said...

Oh my, I've been jonesing for Mexican for about a week now. That looks soooo good. A great alternative to Nacho Supreme with all the ground beef and liquid cheese (although, one wonders if it even still is dairy at that point . . .:)) I've been reading your blog since about September, and it has inspired me to pack nicer lunches for myself (even though I'm in college). Congratulations on the PETA award--you deserve it.

Anonymous said...

Heya I'm anonymus - otherwise known as Kat. I recently discovered your blog and DAMN these are the lucnches I *wish* I had a school (it was usually a dried-up-by-luchtime peanut butter sndwich, an apple and raisins). However I'm all inspired to make better food for myself to take to university :).
Your son is very lucky - and congradualtions on the PETA award! :D

Anonymous said...

A smidge of lemon or lime juice (like about an fourth of a teaspoon on a large avacado) keeps it very well. I like to brush some lime onto my homemade chips after baking when I do the layered dip...delicious!

Jennifershmoo said...

You've got it, Caroline -- surrounding it with beans kept it green (and like Dee, I put in a squeeze of lemon juice, too).

We use Tofutti Sour Supreme. It's the only kind available around here so I can't compare it to anything else, but we really like it.

Anonymous said...

The chips look more like the treat, not that maple sugar candy! Looks great, did Shmoo place the olives on?

leila said...

yummmmmmmmmm. jennifer, your blog is mainly quite incredible and very much deserving of recognition. :) lunch today looks so attractive and delish!

does Little shmoo really eat all of the fresh veggies?

love from leila

SDGvegan said...

My kids love layer dip as well.

Anonymous said...

Wow! My husband works out of his truck (traveling all around Atlanta) and is vegan. This would be prefect for him!
How did you pack the avocado where it didn't go brown?

Deb said...

this all looks great. I am in Canada and so much want to buy the laptoplunch box, but with shipping it gets pretty pricey. But it looks like you get so much mileage out of it.
It is probably worth it right?
Carry on with these great lunches, so many ideas and so much to look at. I wish you were my mom.

Anonymous said...

Deb, I will take the liberty of
telling you it was definitely worth
the money for me to buy the lunchbox for my 6-yr.-old daughter.
At first I thought, oh no, she'll
lose it or the containers. Every-thing has been going very well since September. Just seeing all
the containers inspires you to fill
them with interesting and healthy
things. If I had an outside job
right now, I'd have one for myself
because I was always into bringing
a healthy lunch to work. And isn't
this site an inspiration?

leila said...

jennifer, i just read this, and thought about your concern when little shmoo said that it was making him sad to think of 'one less animal in the world': "Train your children from their earliest days to be infinitely tender and loving to animals." (from the Baha'i Writings)---the full passage is on my blog.

and basically i think it's great that your family is so compassionate.

love from leila

Anonymous said...

Congratulations again on a great lunch. You continue to be an ispiration to me (a non veggie who has been bringing more and more all veggie meals into my life).

I notice you use organic whenever possible. You are probably more informed about this than I am, but I read a recent article in Consumer Reports regarding organic labeling that was eye opening.

Basically, people are trying to pass laws that when an organic ingredient is very costly, a company can use regular instead AND still call it organic.

I think this is horrible and hopefully if enough people take a stand we can protect the meaning of the labeling. If not, how will we ever know what we are eating?

Anonymous said...

Oh I wil have to do this one for my kiddo, I hope he rates it finger licking good!!

Anonymous said...

You have to be really careful about organic labling. I forget the details, but a package can say something like organic ingredients and what that means is SOME organic ingredients. Also some of the smaller organic companies are now owned by big companies that are cruel to animals. The NYTimes had an article on that awhile back.

Anonymous said...

Here are two urls about that:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/business/01organic.html?ex=1137819600&en=c4502f1c46fb3023&ei=5070

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/dining/09milk.html?ei=5088&en=54f6d84cb3f51bcf&ex=1289192400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Harmonia said...

Mexican! My fave! How much do I owe you for shipping! LOL

Sunshine said...

I'm so excited to find this blog! I don't have any vegan friends to share recipes with. You've been added to my bloglines and my blog links! twodisciples.blogspot.com

Jennifershmoo said...

Thanks, leila! That quote is so sweet.

You asked if he really eats vegetables -- yes he does! Of course, I'm only packing the kinds of veggies that he likes to eat. For example, you will never see any green leafies, raw or cooked, in his lunch...or onions, peppers, or eggplant, and I've given up on sweet potatoes and winter squash for now (although he likes them in pie and muffins). So he does have his dislikes!

Anonymous said...

YUM!!! This lunch looks awesome. My kids would both love it!

Anonymous said...

I came across your website after the Proggy Award winners were posted and I must say I love your blog (the adoration you get must be exhausting!) and the ideas for lunch are wonderful. Keep up the good work! :o)

Kourtney said...

deb, I'm in Canada, too, and I ended up buying a Tupperware divided lunch container because I just couldn't see spending that much money on a laptop lunchbox. It has a medium compartment, a large compartment and 2 small compartments, so it's similar.

Anonymous said...

That looks so good!!!