Tuesday, February 7, 2023

DIG INto School Breakfast

National School Breakfast Week (NSBW) is coming soon -- March 6-10, 2023 -- with a construction theme of "DIG INto School Breakfast." How are you planning to celebrate school breakfast and its many important factors, such as providing energy for the day, controlling weight, and improving focus in the classroom? We would love to know how your plans are going and would appreciate it even more if you shared pictures and stories of your National School Breakfast Week celebrations. Please send any images or stories to Barb@aeapurchasing.org, and with your permission, we will share them on our social media platforms. 

If you are struggling to find ways to celebrate during NSBW, we have compiled a list of online resources below with many great opportunities to get kids, staff, and the community involved in your program.  Along with these resources, we have developed ten new and unique construction-themed "quantity" recipes meeting child nutrition meal patterns, and entirely ready for standardization within your program. 

Have you had the opportunity to learn about USDA's recipe standardization process? A new recipe standardization guide was published this past year by the Institute of Child Nutrition (ICN) in conjunction with USDA and Team Nutrition. It is a comprehensive guide to what it takes to standardize a recipe. Along with the guide, ICN hosted a webinar detailing the process, and you can view the webinar by clicking on this link. 

USDA defines a standardized recipe as the following, "one that has been tried, adapted, and retried at least three times and has been found to produce the same good results and yield every time when the exact procedures are used with the same type of equipment and the same quantity and quality of ingredients."

 A quantity recipe is defined as "any recipe that produces 25 servings or more. However, quantity recipes are not standardized until they have been prepared at least three times with consistent results."


National School Breakfast Week Resources
School Nutrition Association - offering many ways on how your school can celebrate NSBW, including high-quality marketing materials for purchase from the Jim Coleman Store. 

102 Ways to Celebrate NSBW - Buying School Food is a website created by Kristen Nauss, School Nutrition Director based out of Chattanooga, TN. She offers an amazing list of ideas that you will surely find can fit into your program's celebration.

Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) - are you looking for studies and facts about school breakfast to help you promote it throughout your community? Check out FRAC's wide array of school breakfast resources, including the history of school breakfast and research on the benefits of school breakfast. 

Action for Healthy Kids - a non-profit dedicated to connecting communities and schools all the while promoting healthy habits. Find great ideas on how to celebrate NSBW along with how to better connect with your community. 

Iowa Department of Education (IDOE) - take a look at the great Team Nutrition and USDA resources in the IDOE's latest news blog about NSBW. 

"DIG INto School Breakfast" Themed Recipes
NSBW is a week to go above and beyond in your breakfast offerings. Adding new or fun-named breakfast options this week is a great way to get kids and staff excited about breakfast.

  • The "Lumber Yard" Banana Split - using Dutch waffle sticks, build a lumber yard on the trays of your students, then top it with yogurt fluff, bananas, and fresh berries for an extra special treat. 
  • Deconstructed Mini Breakfast Tacos -  Yummy salsa poached eggs, bacon, and queso cheese sauce piled next to mini flatbreads for kids to "construct" their own mini tacos. Includes optional garnishes of avocado and cilantro. 
  • "Bulldozer" Tot Bowls - next time you are cooking up some tater tots, take a look at them, don't they look like little bulldozers? LOL, Ok, that may be a stretch, but watch your kids bulldoze through these tater tots covered in country sausage gravy, eggs, and cheddar cheese.
  • "Front Loader" Potato Skins - a play on "loaded" potato skins topped with USDA eggs, sausage links, melted cheese blend, and garnished with sour cream drizzle and sliced green onions. 
  • "Cement Mixers" is not a recipe but an idea to build your own Yogurt Parfait Bar. Call your yogurt choices "cement" and provide a wide array of "mixers" that kids can mix into and enjoy. The toppings can include homemade granola, cereals, graham cookies or crackers, crumbled muffins/donuts, and plenty of fresh or canned fruits. 
  • Egg in a Hole (Bagel) Breakfast Sandwich - This special dish was adapted from a recipe developed for and served to Iowa lawmakers for the School Nutrition Association of Iowa's Legislative Breakfast, held February 7, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol. Give it a special name like "Nailed It" or "Hit the Nail on the Head." You do not even need to rename this one, knowing it will soon become a student favorite with its layers of yumminess. 
We hope you have the opportunity to try out one or many of these new quantity recipes. If you are interested in standardizing these for your operation, need the meal pattern crediting adjusted, or want a different yield to fit your serving needs, please never hesitate to reach out. The AEA Purchasing Food team is always willing to help. 

Cheers to a yummy and successful National School Breakfast Week! 

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