Sup Veeky Forums i just landed a kitchen manager job at a chrter school...

sup Veeky Forums i just landed a kitchen manager job at a chrter school. i'm pretty in over my head and just applied despite not quite having the right experience.

i guess i did well on the interview and they actually hired me.

i have all summer to plan a menu, but i don't even know where to begin when it comes to making dishes for kids. it's especially pressuring because they want like, more creativity than just grilled cheese and hot dogs. they want like dope shit.

so what are foods kids would love?

Kids love fries, so learn how to make good fries. No offal/organs or strong tasting spices either. Frankly for serious advice I'd ask on a real forum like cheftalk.com or kitchenknifeforums.com, all you will get here a requests for loli shower pics.

i should mention they're pretty health conscious too, and they don't have a deep frier, which limits a lot of potential easy meals.

but thanks i'll check those sites out

I have always liked scrambled eggs with onions, ham/bacon and tomatoes, served with boiled potatoes.

Properly done fries (i.e. not soggy and soaked with fat) are lower on calories than people think,and arguably healthier than boiled potatoes too. Frying destroys solanine (the green stuff that can be found in potatoes) whereas boiling doesn't. Solanine is nothing to be joked with, esepcially for kids.

My mother makes a fantastic pasta salad with those spiral pasta, blanched zucchini batonets, diced red onions, dried tomatoes and roasted pine nuts and some mayo and vinegar. even kids love that.

>2003 + 14
>serving children nuts
Lol do u want OP to get sued by insanely overprotective parents?

Just browse through a bunch of successful restaurants online and check out their children menus.

Sites like Pinterest have a lot of ideas. Also, googlong other school's lunch menus will help too.
Personally, I wouldn't plan too far on advance. Your numbers on certain days will tell you very quickly what the kids like and don't like.

Ravioli would probably be a success

pasta in general is cheap and healthy

Quinoa salad with a cumin olive oil and lime dressing. Cherry tomato's garbanzos lots of cilanteo

The hardest thing is getting them to eat vegetables. Meat won't be a problem, but you'll have to be creative with vegie dishes.

You'll do better by finding an existing children's meal plan online and just copying it. Or at least use it as a starting point, if you feel creative.

bake it then

Try not to serve them onion.
Some kids don't like onion, but the ones who don't like it REALLY wont like it.
Use leek in place, or use exclusively red onions. White onions taste way too sharp for most kids.
Go easy on undisguised tomatoes.

Kids love things like baked potatoes, provided they're done well, stuffed eggs, you could probably make stuffed bell peppers and they would eat them.

MEATBALLS
COUSCOUS
CHICKEN SOUVLAKI
CHICKEN PARM
MEATLOAF

allergy is meme, just like gluten intolerance that spawn the glutenfree fad

Try slav cottage cheese pies, syrniki I think they're called. Healthy even if topped with jam or preserves or nutella, bland enough for kids.

GOULASH

Actual suggestion.
Also beef bourguignon

Going to echo fries, but try sweet potato fries? Slightly healthier, do it up with olive oil and some basic spices and it'd probably go over well.

Kids dont eat this shit, put this on the menu if you want to lose your job.

PAN
NICE AND HOT

Spend the entire years budget on one lunch.

This. You can make so much shit just from pasta and chicken breasts.

Do you know where you're getting your ingredients from?

If you could wrangle some "LOCAL" or "ORGANIC" stuff you could probably make pretty simple dishes (ie: Roasted veggies / chicken and pasta) and please the school admins.

Or just buy regular vegetables/meat for cheap write up some fake receipts for organic non GMO and pocket the difference

>Allergy is a meme
Laugh at this guy, everyone on this planet

Give those kids hot dogs. Hot dogs and cheese pizza.

No pork in case any of those little bastards are muslims

You literally have ALL summer..

Don't worry about those little shits liking the food, learn how to make it cheaply and tasty.

I used to do the same at a summer school type of thing. I'll share some easy things:

>plan every meal like this: starch, veggies, meat and sauce.

1) Starches:
-Oven roasted potatoes can be made in 1000 ways. Different cuts, spice blends etc. Just cut into shape, oil + spice it up and pop it in the oven
-rice is easy as fuck to make
-Pasta, buttered/oliveoiled on the side or with a meat + veggie sauce boom easy dish for the day


2) Veggies:
-pick shit you would see at a sunday dinner, the classic stuff that most people will like. Top of my head: carrots, onions, peas, peppers, tomatoes cut in 2 with olive oil + basil/oregano
-simple salads with fresh stuff + bacon/cheese.
-Shit like broccoli or cauliflower can be made in a cheese sauce, eliminating the need for extra sauce.

3)Meat
This is all about budget control. If you have time then this can be done cheaply.. but tasty.
-Beef, dont bother unless it's stewed or slowcooked, usually expensive due to hipster making shitty cuts more costly nowadays
-Chicken
Butcher whole chickens, cook different parts on different days as you wish, cheap as fuck. (aka wing days, breasts couple of days, legs couple of day)
-Pork: bacon, ribs, pulled in a taco etc. all good shit. Just dont make something with whole lean pork since it WILL dry out. Same as beef just stew or slowcook for best results.
-Fish, expensive as fuuuuuuuuck if you pick things kids will actually eat, even then half of them wont even bother. If you do this then then just go with fucking fish dicks
-Other meat will usually be a bit expensive or will scare off the kids if they don't know it.

4)Sauce:
Easy, fucking make either roux-based stuff, cream stuff you just reduce or shit out of packets. No use making complicated fine dinish stuff here.
Most commercial shit available tastes well enough.

Brown rice and chicken breasts.

Vegetarian option is to replace chicken breasts with pinto beans. Exactly how big is the school? Some of the suggestions in this thread are good, but would be impossible to do everyday at a campus with 2000 kids.

Add garlic and sugar to every single thing you make, kids will love the shit out of you

How old are the kids?

Just rip off whatever Jamie Oliver is doing.

thanks for all the tips and suggestions guys. still reading over it all, senpai. appreciate it

elementary school, pretty young

Elementary teacher here

Kids love things that are a change of pace. All you have to do is mix it up a little every other week and they will be happy. Plus kids don't complain about the food they get usually so it doesn't matter.

Simple baby omelettes could work. Just eggs, and turkey bacon (to keep with their stupid health kick), and maybe have whole grain pancakes.

Googlong? Is this like an extended version of googling? Love it.

Good luck, OP. They must have seen something in you if they hired you for it.

I'd suggest nothing too out of the ordinary or over the top. Maybe save the more eithnic foods for another time, or at least have one safe option to go with each interesting option.

Maybe you could look at some college menus to see what kinds of things they serve.

Peanut butter, nuts, seafood, shrimp, shellfish, gluten as substitute for meat, soy milk, and Origin of Species

Really funny post, I think I get satire now
>kys