School Lunchroom Recipes

[michaelman2]

Does anyone have a good Peanut Butter Bar recipe. I Googled and a jillion come up. I would trust one tried and true from here as opposed to a random one I would find on the internet. School lunchrooms used to make them and with a chocolate icing. I actually had a decent recipe a while back and cannot find or recreate it to save my life.

Help?

 

[vacbear58]

Peanut Butter bars

Michael

Check out the video below, this may be what you are looking for. Seems like Lori worked in a school kitchhen at some time and has posted a number of similar recipies.
Its an interesting channel well woth checking out

Al

 

[michaelman2]

Al, Thanks!

Perfection!...this is exactly what I wanted. Making today.

Mike

 

[vacbear58]

My pleasure, love to see the results and get your verdict on the recipe

 

[reactor]

School lunches?? Ugh

All of you must have gone to schools who served better lunches than mine. I wouldn't touch anything that was reminiscent of what I got served in school. Yuck.

For example: I went to Beavercreek Schools (Beavercreek is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio) so we had foods such as the "Beaver Pizza." This was their homemade concoction of a half of a hamburger bun, turned upside down, on it was played a layer of ketchup, then a layer of greasy ground hamburger, then sprinkled with cheese.

We also the memorable "Porcupine Balls" which was a hamburger shaped into a ball and then rolled in rice and baked in their ovens to a nice grease dripping finish..

I don't recall ever having a dessert served in 12 years, such as your peanut butter bars. Although, on Friday's only, were were allowed to buy a slab of ice cream, as an optional dessert, if we wished.

I think I would have thought I died and gone to heaven if we had a dessert such as your peanut butter bars!

 

[appnut]

Alistair, I'm glad you found this recipe for Michael. I subscribe to Miss Lori's YT channel. Love watching her and her husband. She's the real deal!!!

 

[appnut]

Actually, all her lunchlady/lunchroom recipes are quite good!!!

 

[petek]

None of the dozen or more elementary schools where I lived had cafeteria's. Everyone went home for lunch. All 5 of the the highschools did because I guess they were each drawing students from larger area's where walking home wasn't feasible, plus there's be rural kids bussed in. I seldom ate in the cafeteria and would walk with friends over to a diner or McD's . From what I recall the most popular cafeteria dish was fries with gravy and canned corn . The garbage cans scattered about the cafeteria were chock full of tossed out unopened home lunches. Food waste was astronomical.

 

[ea56]

I went to the same High School for all four years, a small country HS with just a little over 400 students. We had a cafeteria and the food always looked good and smelled good. But during that time my family was very poor and I never felt right about asking Mom for lunch money, so I took my lunch. The cafeteria had two lunch periods, and if you had the 2nd lunch period if there were leftover hamburgers or cheeseburgers they sold them for 2 for 20 cents so when that happened and I had the requisite 20 cents I’d get a couple and they were good, though rather plain, just the burger, cheese, mustard, ketchup and pickle.

The hot lunches looked good though, they had offerings like Lasagna, Meatloaf, Turkey, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Fruit Salad and of course lots of canned green beans and corn, plus many other rotating choices. And always nice fluffy homemade rolls. I believe the hot lunches cost 50 cents. I went to HS from ‘65 thru ‘69 and 50 cents then was like $5.00 now. For a widow with three kids that $1.50 a day for lunch money was a lot, especially when she only earned $325.00 a month, plus about another $350.00 a month Soc Sec Survivors benefits. I began working on weekends as a busboy when I was 15, but what little money I earned was spent on school clothes and other incidentals, plus I gave Mom money for the gas to drive me to and from work which was a 20 mile round trip each way.

Eddie

 

[sudsomatic]

Not actually Goulash


An old favorite school lunch of mine was called Goulash. It was a noodle, tomato sauce, and beef dish with a melted cheese topping that was baked long enough that the cheese was crisp and made a nice crust on top and at the edges. It was delicious, the ingredients came together in a unique flavorful way that you might not imagine from such an ordinary combination. The only place I ever ate it was in my Elementary School. My Jr. High and High School didn't serve it.

That taste just stuck with me. Years later I asked my Mom more than once to ask some of the women at her church if they remembered the recipe, as two of them were former lunch ladies at my grade school. Nothing ever came of it.

I never found much on the internet about it, every goulash recipe I found described a stew like meal (there's the traditional Hungarian version and an Americanized version, neither one correct) and what I had was a baked dish more like a casserole.

 

So eventually I realized it was only called Goulash, but obviously wasn't really that. Finally I found it by it's more authentic name; <span style="font-family: inherit;">Johnny Marzetti. There's a whole history of how it started as an affordable signature dish at an Italian restaurant in Ohio and eventually grew into a school lunch tradition throughout the Midwest.
</span>

 

<span style="font-family: inherit;">This site</span>

 

<span style="font-family: inherit;">http://ohiothoughtsblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/johnny-marzetti-recipe-and-history.html</span>

 

<span style="font-family: inherit;">Has a recipe and the history of it, it's a good read and a good recipe. The blog author 'enhanced' the original recipe to their tastes but the classic one is posted too (and is the delicious taste I remember) but depending on the palate of the person her version might be more to your liking.</span>

Johnny Marzetti Recipe and History

Original Johnny Marzetti recipe, history of the creator Teresa Marzetti and of the recipe, Ohio

ohiothoughtsblog.blogspot.com

 

[reactor]

School lunches

Thanks for sharing that with us, Eddie. As kids we often tended to take things for granted, such as our parents being able to buy us a school lunch.

You were a good son to help your mom out that way when you got a job.

GOD bless.

Barry

 

[circlew]

While I've never made Johnny Marzetti, I have eaten it a good number of times. My former neighbor Thelma worked in the school kitchen for several years, and made it often for her family. My sister's sister-in-law Connie brings it frequently when my sister has a get-together, and hers is very good.

 

I remember eating in Marzetti's Restaurant a couple of times when in Columbus. Even though it's been over 50 years, I removed getting a salad, spaghetti, and garlic bread. I buy their salad and slaw dressings occasionally.

 

[polkanut]

I went to a Lutheran parochial school where just about everything on the menu each day was scratch made.  I can still smell the baking loaves of french bread that were made everyday.  The head cook's last name was McDonald so we always joked that we got to eat at McDonald's each day.  The cooks names were Valeria McDonald, Marianne Henkelman, and Doris Weinke.  Eighth grade students could work in the kitchen as helpers serving food,  washing dishes, and helping clean the lunch room.  During the weeks you worked your lunch was free.

 

[jamiel]

I always enjoyed the Johnny Marzetti...they used green pepper in it which, since my dad and brother disliked it, never was used by my mom in anything.

 

[hobbyapocalypse]

At a small parochial school mid 1960s to early 1970s

Before going to a large high school that had a cafeteria, I survived for 8 years on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with milk. The milk was delivered to the side porch by the little milk truck from the local dairy just before lunch, and a couple 8th grade boys would go down and carry the bottles in their crates to each classroom. The 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade classrooms were upstairs, and the 4th grade classroom was on the other side of the playground, so it was a chore. And of course we had to carry the empty bottles back. All that got thrown out was the little paper disk and cellophane wrapper on top of each bottle.

 

A 1/2 pint bottle of regular milk was 5¢ and chocolate was 7¢ and we'd order it by the month. Sometimes on Friday we'd have pizza, and I remember one time in 6th grade I knocked our tray off the radiator where it was balanced to keep warm til lunch time. I probably smashed a crate of milk at some time but I don't remember for sure.

 

[circlew]

Very surprised you had glass bottles for school milk that late. The elementary school I went to (early-mid 60's) sold both white and chocolate milk in little square paper cartons. At first they had flat tops with a corner that lifted to insert a straw, or pour. Later ones were the "gable" style like currently used.

 

[ea56]

I went to Catholic School from 2nd thru 6th grades from the fall in ‘58 thru the spring in ‘63. My Dad was still alive until the summer of ‘62 so money wasn’t an issue for the family then. They had a cafeteria in the basement and hot lunches were 35 cents a day, or you could buy a lunch card for the month and they punched it out every time it was used. Mom thought that this would be a real treat for me, I was the first of the three of us kids to become enrolled there. Well those hot lunches were wretched and I don’t mean maybe! Just revolting! The smell alone was disgusting. There were steam table trays filled with unrecognizable foods swimming in vile liquids. The pork chops were their pride and joy. They looked like they’d been dipped in pancake batter, fried and then left to sit in their juice.

The nuns made a circuit of the cafeteria to be sure that every tray was empty before it was returned. I was a fat little boy who usually would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down, but that crap was a no go for little Eddie. After about the first two weeks I told Mom that I couldn’t stand the cafeteria food, so she packed my lunches for me after that, and paid for my daily milk by the month. It was 5 cents a day, no chocolate milk only whole milk and it came in the old fashioned wax covered cardboard containers with the round stopper in the corner of the top.
<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">
</span>

<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">The sisters were really down on wasting food, there were children in China starving don’t ya know. Well Mom packed Tuna Sandwiches a lot of the time and my lunch sat in the cloak room unrefrigerated and the tuna soaked thru the white bread. Sometimes I just couldn’t eat it so I’d stuff it in my empty milk container. One day Sister Irene Marie heard my milk carton hit the garbage can with a thud and she immediately grabbed me by the collar telling me that there were children in China that would love to have that sandwich. I unadvisedly told her, “Then send it to them”, bigga mistake! She fished that milk carton out of the galvanized garbage can and stood over me while I ate very bit that smashed up tuna and Wonder bread mess. I was more careful after that. </span>

<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">
</span></span>We did have Hot Dog Day though once a month that the Mothers Club prepared and it was real treat! For 15 cents you got 1 hot dog, a small bag of chips and 2 oatmeal cookies or a cupcake(that the mothers baked) and of course your milk that you’d already paid for by the month. An extra hot dog could be ordered for an additional 10 cents, so for 25 cents you could have a nice Hot Dog lunch.

When we moved to the country in ‘64 and I entered the 8th grade at Fort Ross Elementary school Mom joined the Mothers Club and introduced Hot Dog Day there too. The kids loved it! They had never before had Hot Dog Day at school and it was a big hit.

 

Eddie

 

[wayupnorth]

I went to Catholic school starting in 1959 in Kindergarten. You did get milk every day but I could not ever stomache white milk. Sister Jerome said the first day that nobody could go out for recess until everyone drank their milk. I tried and immediately threw up, so we had an extra recess while the janitor cleaned it up. Hot lunch was horrid there. I transferred to public school finally and in high school they had an a'la carte line which was great or a regular hot line. I would easily spend $1 every day for the good food. No wonder everyone skipped the hot line and picked and choose what they wanted.

 

[norgeway]

Lower Creek Elementary school

In Lenoir NC in the 70s had food as good as any restaurant, the absolute very best rolls i ever tasted, my Dads first cousin made them, EVERYTHING that was served was good and it was old fashioned country cooking, stew beef, goulash, pinto beans, cornbread rolls roast , great pizza, Miss Loris recipes are really great.