[CottageWitch]

If you cook alot from home and are not so cool with processed/packaged over starched foods, what do you send in your kiddies lunchboxes? I want to practice over the holidays.

This post has been edited by CottageWitch: 31/03/2012, 07:12 PM

[*LucyE*]

My freezer currently has:

- butterfly cupcakes with lemon curd
- weetbix slice
- mini chocolate cupcakes
- cheesy bacon and onion corn muffins
- cheesy scones
- raspberry and white chocolate muffins (for some reason the kids don't like this)
- bread rolls
- pizza/calzones
- cinnamon rolls

I'll probably do some more baking once school goes back but with a stash in the freezer, it is easy to give them a variety of home made goodies with minimal effort.

I just add some protein (left over roast meats, ham, steak slices, frenched lamb cutlets etc), some fruit and some veggies (as a mini side salad or sticks for dipping).

[niggles]

My DD has only just started this term but I have a sealing sectioned lunchbox so haven't been inclined to send packaged food. I figured it was best to start as I intend to go on.

Sandwiches - switch between ham and salad or tuna and salad.
Wrap - with that same fillings as above, though sometimes cooked as a pizza and rolled while still soft.
Carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, cheese, olives
Cut fruit with lemon juice (she's keen to go play so the quicker she can eat the better)
Small amount of dried fruit
Mini quiches with ham, mushroom, leek or Corn fritters (I make these in bulk and keep them in the freezer).
Occasionally left over pasta if we've had penne or ravioli.
Her lunchbox has a built in bottle so I can send a smoothie or milk from time to time but usually just freeze water to keep things cold.

I come from a family where my lunchbox varied very little for my entire schooling life (vegemite sandwich, fruit, cheese, juice). I remember being absolutely fine with that and so I don't worry too much about putting in the same few things on rotation. My daughter will get a lot more variety than I did but I also don't think I'm depriving her if she doesn't.

[CottageWitch]

*LucyE* Does your school provide a fridge for things like the meats? We live in a cold climate area and lunch is at 10.45 at our school but in the summer I dont know what the deal is with refridgerating the lunches. My daughter is in prep and they dont have a fridge like they did in kinder.

niggles

she's keen to go play so the quicker she can eat the better

Yep same here!

I come from a family where my lunchbox varied very little for my entire schooling life

and again I used to open my lunch, look inside, see the same tired apple and vegemite sanga and toss the lot in the bin and starve for the day. It was better than that same lunch on repeat!

Thanks guys. I guess its just that I look in her lunchbox at the moment and its sandwich, crackers, fruit and yoghurt and it just could be better you know?

[Anonemy]

gawd it's sad how I love topics like this...

I have gone off baking of late so dd has been getting mini muffins/ scones from the supermarket as her morning tea with a choc milk box

her fruit snack is sliced up orange in a separate plastic box (so that she can easily store it in her chair bag)

and her lunch is a Vegemite sandwich with old fashioned thick brown bread and grapes/sultanas, slice of cheese, a few pretzels/popcorn/brown rice crackers, mini tubs of yoghurt/custard and sometimes a few cherry tomatoes (that never get touched)

I think I am doing pretty good on the disposable waste front because the only container that is disposable is the milk box and the sultana box (and the latter comes back home frequently). Everything goes into my brilliant sistema lunch boxes with separate compartments - the lunch cube (Tuck-R Box?) is brilliant as is the sandwich keeper, and the single and dual snack carriers.

Now my heart's desire, if dd would only eat these things, is to send along veggie slices, pasta salads, pizza rolls, wraps with tuna/egg mayonnaise fillings or even god help me, a lunch order for sushi rolls! I would also love it she would eat carrot/capsicum sticks with hommus. These are the lunches I dream of and yearn to make for my child.

but alas not to be

This post has been edited by luibee: 30/03/2012, 04:31 PM

[librablonde]

I look in her lunchbox at the moment and its sandwich, crackers, fruit and yoghurt and it just could be better you know?

For a prep kid I think that's already a good lunchbox menu I think we mum's get too worried about providing awesome varieties of lunchbox foods for our kids and forget that usually the kid just wants to go and play most of the time. I do make some homebaked foods for my kids too, but on the weeks that I don't, I don't feel fretful about it. It just means the kids actually appreciate it when I do send them to school with those extra's in their lunchboxes.

[*LucyE*]

No, no fridges provided at school. We're in QLD and it gets HOT for most of the year. I use those freezer block things (sometimes 2 when it's really hot) as well as freezing things like poppers (they are an occassional treat). The cupcakes, muffins etc go into the lunch box frozen and are nicely defrosted by the time they go to eat it. I freeze yoghurt in little tubs to keep them cool too. If there is anything particularly sensitive (like cakes decorated with cream), I suggest they eat it at first break.

[dogged]

I've been having success recently with zucchini slice - a couple of smallish squares of it, and a little fork to eat it with (that comes home again).

As well as muffins etc as previously mentioned.

Chicken drumsticks, or leftover sausages from the previous night's dinner, also go down well occasionally.

[shelbysmum]

There are some amazing blogs about Bento style lunch boxes for kids to give you ideas, such as:

http://happylittlebento.blogspot.com.au/

http://lunchinabox.net/faq/

[Pearson]

DS chipped me a little while ago about lack of variety in his lunch boxes.

We mixed it up, and he has a thermos funtainer that we put leftovers or noodles in, warm the thermos first, and heat up/cook the food, put it in, seal it well and off they go.

I also bake once a week, just enough for the week. I also make puff pastry scrolls - pizza, nutella, fig, vegemite to name a few, and cheerios in blankets. These get frozen. They are there for snacks for DS & DH, and another option for morning tea.
DS then makes himself a sandwich, and has vegemite or peanut butter (they dont have a no nut policy at his school) or cheese, or ham etc. He has a popper, fruit, sanga, snacks most days, and the thermos more often in Winter. In cooler months, we will also make up chicken wingettes and or drumettes.

I have just started reading this blog, and she has some excellent lunchbox ideas, which we will be trying next school term, but highly recommend her milo muffins