Move over old school lunches, here comes locally-made pesto pasta

The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District is stepping up their school lunch game.

The St. Patrick’s Day menu will feature a homemade pesto pasta made from local spinach and basil and fresh pasta from Bigoli in Sand City.

The holiday isn’t the reason behind this new menu, but rather a bigger movement called California Thursdays. According to the website, California Thursdays “is a collaboration between the Center for Ecoliteracy and a network of public school districts to serve healthy, freshly prepared school meals made from California-grown food.”

Santa Cruz is already on board, and now MPUSD is joining in.

KION’s Mariana Hicks will bring us the delicious, healthy meals right to our screen tonight. Catch her report during our special newscast airing at 9 p.m. tonight due to March Madness. Following that, we’ll have our regular 10 and 11 p.m. newscasts.