ST. ELMO - The menu for St. Elmo Junior/Senior High School reads like something your grandma would cook for you - for good reason. The head cook is a grandma who attended St. Elmo schools herself.

For example, on March 18, students had sausage links and hash browns for breakfast and lasagna rolls with garlic toast for lunch. Head cook Penny Koontz said she wasn't sure they'd like lasagna roll, but she likes to try things the kids haven't had before. Another day, breakfast was waffles and syrup, followed by sliced ham, mashed potatoes and gravy and strawberry shortcake for lunch.

St. Elmo, unlike schools in larger districts, employs its own cooks - Koontz and Nancy Arnold run the junior/senior high cafeteria - and meals have that home-cooked touch, even if Koontz and Arnold have to make mass quantities to feed the 229 students in grades six to 12. And Koontz, who loves to cook, never gets tired of it, especially when her family wants something good to eat.

"(My grandson) will call me up in the afternoon and say, 'Grandma, come and get me,' " she said with a laugh.

St. Elmo Superintendent Deborah Philpot said it's just as economical for a small district to have its own cooks as it would be to hire a food service company.

"I think you'll find a lot of smaller districts have always hired their own personnel, and the hometown cook approach," she said. "As long as you can do it and make it economically feasible, it's a good thing to do."

The district gets food from government commodities and suppliers who work with St. Elmo and surrounding districts so the schools can buy in bulk. That means Koontz, who plans menus with Philpot's approval and in accordance with federal nutritional guidelines, has to figure out how to be creative with what's available that month.

"We've always used local people, and as long as you can break even doing that, it's a good thing," Philpot said. "Cafeterias aren't a real profitable thing. You basically hope to cover your expenses, and we do that here."

Koontz worked at St. Elmo's elementary school for several years before, as she jokingly put it, Philpot "dragged" her to the junior/senior high school. She wasn't sure she'd like working with teenagers, but it's turned out fine, and many of them remember her from their elementary days, too.

Koontz and Arnold take turns preparing breakfast and lunch. But it usually takes both to get lunch ready, too. About 85 percent to 90 percent of the students buy lunch, and it's a closed campus - students can't leave.

District bookkeeper and Philpot's "right hand" Marcia Heckert said junk food isn't available in vending machines on campus in an effort to encourage students to eat healthy food.

That's Koontz's hope, too. She hopes her menus will broaden kids' culinary horizons. And the students aren't a bit shy about telling her what they like and what they don't. Refried beans aren't popular. Pizza is. And surprising to Koontz, her family's style of serving corn with salt and pepper added proved to be not only new to the students but pleasing. She makes sure vegetables are available and puts them on the trays even if the students protest.

"They might try it," she said. "And they might eat it."

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@herald-review.com or 421-7982.

Apple Crisp

2 cans apple slices (not apple pie filling - just apples)

¼ cup sugar

3 tablespoons cinnamon

Put the apples in a sheet cake pan and sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon on top.

Topping

½ cup (1 stick) butter

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ oatmeal

3 to 4 cups flour

Mix together and sprinkle on top of apples.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Koontz also provided the same recipe sized for a school lunch crowd exceeding 200, in case you're planning a very large party. This will make six sheet cake pans, with the finished product cut into 35 pieces per pan:

1 No. 10 can sliced apples per pan

1 cup sugar and ¼ cup cinnamon per pan

Topping:

4 pounds butter

2 (2-pound) packages brown sugar

1 (32-ounce) package oatmeal

12 cups flour

Mix together and sprinkle on top of apples.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Homemade croutons

Koontz saves leftover hamburger and hot dog buns and keeps them in the freezer. When she plans a salad bar for school lunch, she cuts the bread into cubes, covers them with butter and garlic and bakes until crisp.