CHECK OUT; NEWS AND TIPS : FREEBIE LEAFLET.

Byline: - Daily News Staff and Wire Services

You'll find kid-pleasing cookie ideas for lunch boxes and after-school snacking in a colorful new brochure, Cookies, Cookies, Cookies! from the Quaker Oats Co. Besides Quaker's Best Oatmeal Cookies, there are recipes for Chewy Fruit & Oatmeal Bars, Chocolate Raspberry Squares, Dinosaur Eggs and more. For a free copy, send your name and address to: Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!, P.O. Box 487, Department N, Chicago, Ill. 60690-0487. Allow four to six weeks for delivery.

Back to lunch

Summer's over when lunch bags start showing up. We liked the compact, zippered nylon-canvas bag from L.L. Bean. Mesh pockets are on the outside and inside for utensils and ice packs. The 10-inch-long bag has a nylon handle for easy toting. It comes in red, blue and black, and costs $10. To order, call [phone].

Grading school lunches

The September issue of Consumer Reports carries an analysis of the nutritional content of a week's worth of lunches at a dozen elementary and middle schools around the country - 1,300 meals in all. Here are some of the findings:

Averaged, the meals the magazine tested received 32 percent of the calories from fat, which is slightly above the federal goal of 30 percent.

Meals served to seventh and eighth graders tended not to have the required numer of calories, probably the result of an attempt to keep fat fairly low.

The girls in the survey ate less overall and drank less milk than the boys - at an age when they're especially in need of calcium.

Children don't eat their vegetables. Only a little more than one-quarter of kids who bought lunch at school chose a vegetable, and of those who did, only one-third ate it. The article also includes advice on feeding a finicky eater and a look at Oscar Mayer's Lunchables and fast food in lunchrooms.

Cookbook pick

Have you ever searched for the ``perfect'' recipe?

Pam Anderson, executive editor of Cook's Illustrated magazine, roasted more than 40 turkeys, baked more than 50 cobblers and cleaned and cooked more than 100 pounds of greens for her cookbook, ``The Perfect Recipe'' (Chapters/Houghton Mifflin; $27).

In the introduction, Anderson writes that before heading into the kitchen, she studied 50 to 70 recipes, ``a process that made me realize how many different ways a dish can be prepared. Then I would come up with a composite recipe, a place to begin to test the role of each ingredient as well as the best cooking method.'' Anderson says she spent more than $600 and six months of time in search of a consistently tender lobster.

The result is a cookbook filled with recipes for main dishes (turkey, lobster, prime rib), side dishes (potato salad, corn on the cob), breads (muffins, pancakes, cornbread) and desserts (brownies, fruit cobblers, pies and cookies).

Accompanying the 150 recipes are dozens of step-by-step illustrations of techniques, comparisons of products and useful tips. Get the book and try the Fudgy, Chewy, Cakey Brownie recipe - we've made it six times - and it's a winner - dense, fudgy and chewy!

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PHOTO (1--Color) no caption (Cover of book Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!)

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(3--Color) no caption (Cover of Consumer Reports)

(4--Color) no caption (Cover of book The Perfect Recipe)