Carrot quesadilla wins school lunch contest

By Sally Holland
CNN

Washington (CNN) - Carrot quesadilla doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, nor does it conjure up images of traditional Tex-Mex fare.

But Chicago high school student Rafael Ruiz said he and his classmates came up with the contest-winning idea after thinking that a normal quesadilla didn't look too colorful.

"We're thinking, what if we add carrots. We had carrots, and we're like, lets try some carrots and add them and see how it tastes," Ruiz said.  "And it's also healthy so, let's try it. And we tried it and it tastes pretty good."

Ruiz and five of his friends from Chicago's Richard's Career Academy showed off their award winning school lunch meal in Washington Tuesday - first at a local community center and then for members of Congress on Capitol Hill.  The contest was sponsored by the Healthy Schools Campaign.

The school lunches prepared by the teenage cooking teams across the country had to meet high nutritional standards, as well as fit within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's nutrition standards.  They also had to be low in salt too.

In making their meals, the boys had to stick to ingredients that are normally found in school kitchens.

School lunches are expected to be a hot topic in Washington this year as the Child Nutrition Act, under which both the National School Breakfast Program and the National School Lunch Program fall, is expected to be reauthorized by Congress.

About 30 million students per day eat under the lunch program alone.

Nutrition standards for these programs were last set in 1995.  With the increase in Childhood obesity since that time, changes are expected in the guidelines.

As for the rest of the meal, Ruiz detailed the menu like a junior chef.
It included "stuffed bell pepper, with seasoning and all, with salsa. And then we had then brown rice, the cooked brown rice mixed in it," he said.  "And then we had the salad with cucumbers, apples, oranges, a little bit of orange juice, salt and pepper, and cilantro, and minced onions to give it a spice."

As part of their Washington visit, the boys got to meet White House Chef Sam Kass and tour the grounds.

Chef Kass had some recommendations for the future chefs.

"He just told us that if we just believe into what we're doing, we will eventually get there" said student Jose Tena.  "And that culinary will take us very far in our future so we should just continue with it and see where it takes us."