So my excellent friend Stepper asked me a question recently -
what do you do for lunch?
I recall asking the exact same question a while back. Back then, we did rice and beans for lunch. A whole lot.
Now, we have PB&J at least once a week - grilled cheese at least twice - mac and cheese - hot dogs - chicken nuggets - fish sticks - quesadillas - and sometimes I forcefeed them leftovers. I've kind of resolved myself to boring regularity when it comes to lunch. As for me, I eat a lot of wraps, stir-frys, and salads.
(I'm on a diet.)
But for the kids, maybe it's time for a revamp?
So - what do you do?
10 comments:
Packed lunches for my 6 year old are pretty easy. Lots of chopped fruit and veg, crackers and cheese and meat, etc...
My 5 year old lives on PB&J and wrinkles her nose at everything else.
I saw a neat idea once where you use a small mini-muffin tin and fill each cup with something different (and healthy). Apparently the novelty gets kids to try foods they otherwise wouldn't.
Example: http://www.makeandtakes.com/muffin-tin-mealtime
I used the muffin tin idea for a couple of days then I lost interest... I wish I hadn't it was such a good idea and Isabel is DEFINITELY a grazer. She absolutely HATES having to sit down and eat an entire meal. She eats the entire day.
So mostly I let her go to the fridge and get herself something. Leftovers, hot dogs, cheese, precooked rice, etc. If I made lunch for her I would be making second lunch and third lunch just an hour later. It drives me crazy.
Sorry I'm no help with being more creative.
we love pb and honey, a finger fruit (grapes or strawberries or any fresh fruit) a veggie (like baby carrots or celery or cucmbers... whatever) my kids almost never tire of this. but sometimes we do leftovers, or make our own version of "lunchables" (they really love this one:) i also have these cute plastic reusable toothpicks with characters or a themed thing on them (does this make sense?) and let them eat their lunches with these.
oh and no :( we didn't get the ring... :(
So usually we get in the car to pick the twins up from kindergarten at 2:15 and Mason goes, "Uh, Mommy, aren't we going to have lunch today?!?"
And I go, "What about all that stuff you've been eating all morning? Cheese and crackers? Cinnamon sandwich? (That's his absolutely endearing name for cinnamon toast.) Yogurt and pretzels?"
And he goes, "But I'm still hungry!"
Dude, the kid eats me under the table. Four years old, and taller than most of the kids in kindergarten . . . he's a giant, and he's, one day, going to pack quite a wallop. Good thing he's so even-tempered.
Back to the story. We eat all day long. Sometimes with plates. But usually not. When we do, actually, do lunch, we love what my kids call a "picnic" lunch, but I call eating biblically: one big plate in the center of the table with cheese, crackers or pieces of pita, toasted almonds (or cocoa roast if I'm in a sharing mood), sliced apples and oranges, grapes, carrots, celery, cucumber, ranch dip, and a tootsie roll to punctuate for everyone. The tootsie rolls are not so much biblical, and, come to think of it, neither is the ranch, but, hey. It's my party.
Are we barbarians? Yes. Yes, I think we are. But we're happy barbarians.
I've got to get my own blog or something -- the way I've hijacked here, you'd think I never have any adult conversations . . . or something!
That Girl, you are brilliance.
Will be checking back for more comments - thanks for helping a girl out! :D
Holy moly, is that muffin tin thing ever cute! As soon as we get to our new house, we'll be instituting muffin tin Mondays :)
Lunch
Sunday- fruit, cheese, crackers, and juice
Monday- tuna sandwiches
Tuesday- soup and milk
Wednesday- bagels and cream cheese or bagels and peanut butter with milk, or cut up veggies and ranch dressing
Thursday- tuna sandwiches or tuna melts
Friday- peanut butter & honey or jam, milk
Saturday- soup, milk
Soup days are usually Campbells chicken noodle soup with canned green beans and canned carrots mixed in or a hearty Progresso soup.
If we're really lucky and I'm prepared, I have soups from the freezer: Taco Soup, Chili, White Chili, Cabbage Patch Stew, Homemade Chicken Soup, Cheesy Broccoli Soup.
My daughter won't drink milk (because she was allergic to it for the first two and a half years of her life) and grew to prefer soy milk. Only once in a blue moon will I buy it though. She has the option of drinking water when I'm serving milk sa the meal drink. But I do make sure she gets her calcium. But I won't ramble on any more. ;)
I can't wait to read more ideas from other comments.
I am so content with leftovers. But Ender is definitely not...he's pretty picky (though not unusually so as far as kids go). I know a list of foods he likes, so when lunch time comes, I pull something from a number of food groups off his list (a mental list), and I give him small amounts of each thing.
So his lunches look funny. He'll have a cut up hot dog, slices of cheese, yogurt or cut up banana, buttered toast, etc... they never look like real meals to me.
I let him be sort of picky at lunchtime because dinner is not changeable--it's what I make, and that's that. He eats breakfast really well, so that's no problem.
But he's a snacker, too!
Boy, I'm rambling! What it comes down to is I am not creative either, and leftovers are seriously my thing.
I can't really comment on what I may for my child(ren) since my child is currently incubating and has to eat what I eat.
But when I was little one of my favorite things was when my dad made "plate of surprises." Once a week or once a month or so - my dad would declare it "plate of suprises" for lunch. And we would have to stay in the living room and wait for our lunch.
It was always a hodge podge of different things. Cheese cut up in shapes. Cheese rolled in lunch meat. A handful of marshmallows. Fruit. Carrots with ranch dip. Pudding. Bread cut up in shapes or fried or toasted. Eggs in a basket.
We never knew what we were going to get - but we knew it was going to be good!
It was a fun tradition to break up the lunch 'usuals' and get a surprise. It's definitely something I hope to do with my daughter and her siblings.
I'm surprised no one has said noodles, because that's my kids favorite lunch - I buy the whole wheat macaroni or rotini, cook it, and sprinkle cheese on top. They eat it up! They will also eat sandwiches or cheese tortillas a lot better if I use cookie cutters to make shapes out of them.
As for me? Leftovers are fine, or I like plain top ramen noodles (cook them and drain all the water) over noodles with Kraft asian dressing and chinese noodles. Over a tortilla. Delicious!
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