Children’s weekend lunches

[parrotonmyshoulder]

Hi,
For reasons I can’t go into, I haven’t been feeding my children very well at the weekends. Don’t worry, they are adequately fed, but it is always the same (like school packed lunches) and very monotonous. As I said, there are reasons for this but it is something I really want to change.
So please give me some ideas for what you give your children to eat.
Fussy, but I’ll work around it.
7 & 10. Please don’t suggest I ask them or give them the same as me (difficult situation in the home - feeding is one thing I can improve for now)

Cheese on toast
Eggy bread & bacon
Houmous & crudities & breadsticks
Boiled eggs & soldiers
Homemade/tinned soup & bread or sandwich
Toasties

We tend to have easy oven food, pizza, bread crumbed chicken, chips type things. By the time you're getting to four people, it's simpler and more satisfying than mucking about with sandwiches.

For lunch at weekends we have sandwiches, sausage rolls, soup, beans on toast, omelettes, jacket potatoes, small bowl of left over pasta bake

Often do a plate in the middle with veg sticks, Doritos and houmous that always goes down well

At this time of year every now and then I'll get a few bits of the frozen party food and pop that in the middle for everyone to share - potato skins, onion rings, chicken strips

Thank. Funny how your (my!) brain stops working for the simple things when in crisis. I hadn’t even noticed.
Toasties are just nicer than sandwiches! Same stuff, shows a bit more effort and care - which we need. Same with cooking bacon.

Pasta
Beans/cheese/eggs on toast
Sandwiches - cheese, ham, tuna, jam, pb, marmite, salad, humus, beef, chicken etc
Noodles or ramen soup
Left overs

Similar to the above plus sometimes I make up a plate of 'eat ups' i.e. things that are left over and need eating. So raisins, ham, grated cheese, chopped tomatoes, cucumber, grated carrot.

I would love to come and live in your houses for the weekends. Thank you so much.

Our go to is a sandwich and fruit and crisps. Sometimes we have soup, or cocktail sausages. If DH is in charge it's normally cheese on toast or French toast

Quick lunches :
Jacket potatoes
2 egg omelette (cheese / turkey / spinach & tomatoes filling) and fruit on side
Fish fingers / chicken nuggets and chips with veg
Pizza and fruit on side
Macaroni cheese (I hide chicken and cauliflower in this - they don't notice)
Sausages, mash and veg

If time is not on your side, you can prep and freeze meals so when you get home easy to pop in the oven and go. I do this with...
Roasted veg
Mac'n'Cheese
Beef stroganoff
Spaghetti meat balls& sauce
Chicken pie
Lasagne

Saves heaps of time if you can pop in the fridge to start defrost in the morning too.

It's usually a variation on what he has for a school packed lunch but nicer. So a nice baguette with freshly boiled egg and mayo or a veggie sausage in it, a bowl of plain yoghurt with fruit and some crisps or crackers

My Dcs are about the same age as yours and one is very fussy. with additional sensory issues. I almost at my wits end so understand your post very well.

I do a fair bit of soup and toasted cheese sandwiches for mine. DS1 can only stomach tinned tomato soup so i have been gradually putting in hidden veg in very small quantities pureed. The cheese toasties I scrape a bit of avocado or hummus or baba ghanoush on instead of butter.

If you are worried about nutrients (as I am) then i do recommend a mulit vitamin and I use a powdered food supplement also which i mix in hot chocolate.

I also spent a lunch how this week writing down everything i could think of that my Dcs will eat. I pinned the list on our fridge and it gives me a bit of inspiration.

that was 'I spent a lunch hour' this week. Typos

We do pancakes almost every weekend. They have one with a savoury topping then one with a sweet topping. Very quick and satisfying!

I like the pancake idea very much. Both dcs will eat cheese and ham pancakes and honey pancakes! Great idea.

We often eat up leftovers, for example there's a couple of homemade cannelloni in the fridge from Thursday night so DD will have that, there's half a tin of nice baby tomatoes so I'll have that on toast.

I keep a pack of those part baked baguettes in the cupboard, 10 mins in the oven and you've got a nice crusty baguette to have with whatever cheese or ham is in the fridge.

Pancakes - yes! My DM makes up a huge batch of crepes and freezes them for us. Just take a couple out, into a frying pan, heat for a couple of mins and they're perfect!

My 9yo DD loves doing that herself.

I often serve up a load of bits which can all select from. Similar stuff as above. Some kind of bread - maybe a French stick, crumpets or soda bread so it’s a bit different. Ham, cheese, hummus, carrot sticks, tomatoes, olives or whatever we have, if there are leftovers they can go here. Especially any leftover pizza which we often have on Fridays!

My two actually love beans on cheese on toast as well, which is great cos it’s cheap and nutricious.

Also just made a bit batch of soup cos it’s freezing now! Used the slow cooker which was really easy.

@parrotonmyshoulder Do you mean weekend lunches as packed lunches or to eat at home?

If it’s the former, some quick and easy packed lunch ideas:
Sandwich squares - You can just the bread up in squares and have different fillings for each (cheese, egg salad, chicken salad, Nutella, peanut butter and jam, banana and honey etc)
Sausage medallions on toothpicks
Pasta salad
Pesto pasta
Cheesy pasta - even leftover pasta bake
Couscous with some veg - You can mix with ketchup if they prefer that
Crudités with hummus or cream cheese
Pita pockets - stuffed with whatever you fancy
Fruit on skewers
Pinwheels/ roll ups - using tortilla and filling of your choice and then roll up and cut into pin wheels.
Quesadillas
Pizza sandwiches
Breakfast for lunch - e.g. French toast, mini pancakes, fruit, sausages, hash browns, beans etc

Quick lunches for home:

• Brunch
• Chilli con carne
• Enchiladas
• Shepherd’s pie
• Sloppy joes and potato salad with corn on the cob
• Spaghetti bolognese
• Egg fried rice
• Stir fry noodles
• Tray bake
• Pasta bake
• Grilled chicken and roasted veg
• Roast chicken with Yorkshire pudding, steamed veg and gravy (can make your own Yorkies or get frozen and also instant gravy granules)
• Fish and chips
• Vegetable curry - can be made with frozen veg
• Saag alloo
• Lentil soup
• Chickpea and potato curry
• Chickpea and spinach curry
• Cabbage baazi
• Egg bhuna

Today will be:

Breakfast: Toasted crumpets with butter
Lunch: mushrooms on toast
Dinner: pork chops with veg

Regular weekend lunches include

• stuff on toast - scrambled/fried/poached eggs, beans, mushrooms, tinned tomatoes, spaghetti hoops
• toasties
• sandwiches

-soup

• cold cuts and veg

Sometimes I do mini-afternoon teas which the DCs love and think a bit special.

It has to be white bread, but I do cucumber sandwiches and tomato sandwiches and then scone with jam.

They both get weak tea as well. That seems to work fairly well if DC1 is not eating anything else.

Fish finger sandwiches
A quick home made soup
Bacon and egg macmuffin (see YouTube videos)
Bacon sandwich
Frozen pain aux raisen/chocolate
Toasted paninis

Bake a cake and sit together at the table with the cake and a pit of tea - 15 minutes of togetherness and then away they go again. Still works with teenagers

Pot, obvs

We usually eat out one of the days with MIL and FIL. The other days, it's something like jacket potatoes, soup & toast, toasties, picnic (so a selection of ie cocktail sausages, cucumber, crackers, cheese, grapes, cold cuts, boiled egg, tomatoes, fruit), crumpets, frozen pizza, beans on toast, cheese on toast, sandwiches etc.

Lunch is really quite functional and quick in our house at the weekend. Toast and cheese, chicken wrap, fish finger sandwich etc. I occasionally want to make it a bit more interesting, but there's usually too much to do at the weekends.