CBA with packed lunches any more

[GreyishDays]

Sometimes I just want to fling, rather than carefully crafting two or three different masterpieces.

What are your lazy products or cheats?

So far I’ve got string cheese and might try frubes or whatever those yoghurt are called.

I am prepared to make a roll and chop for fruit, just need a few more ‘bits’. Children will only eat a small roll or wrap and then get bored so the ‘bits’ need to be kind of half the lunch.

Thank you!

Oh god I feel your pain.

I hate making packed lunches. Luckily one DC has decided he likes the school meals for now, the other mostly makes her own. Beyond that I'd echo what other say - easy things in packets/fruit with its own skin -

Cheese strings
Yogurts
Granola bars
Bananas
Satsumas
Babybels
Smoothies (if allowed)
Cheddars/hula hoops (if allowed)
Oat cakes with spreads
Dried fruit packs

And yawn...

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@newnameforthis123

Would you be saying the same if making lunch for adult daughter?[/quote]
Yes. I purposefully said 'partners' instead of girlfriends or wives in the first part of my post about the specific situation.

The second bit i stand by as society does deem things like this to be more of a woman's role than a man's, which is ridiculous.

Malt loaf/banana loaf, Soreen do them individually wrapped for packed lunches.
Teacake/hot cross bun
Sausages
Cheese cubes

DD has:
Thermos with soup / pasta or jam / Marmite sandwich
Peppers, cucumber / carrots / celery pot, sometimes plus hummus or salsa
Grapes / chocolate cranberries / banana chips
Yogurt drink (high protein ones - drinks half at break time, half at lunch)
Crisps (low cal)
Protein cereal bar some days

I do the veg a couple of days at a time as I do dinner.
Dried fruit / grapes the whole pack or punnet at a time into 5 pots.
Sandwich / soup / reheat pasta in the morning.
Everything else is ready to go.

Had it up to here with packed lunches as well. Looking forward to October break and not getting up to make a packed lunch every day.

Interestingly, I checked whether DS wanted more frubes and he said he likes them but most of his year just chuck them uneaten. Might post this on the school Facebook group and save some parents a few quid.

When I did casual supply teaching I used to make up about 20 cobs at a time and freeze them. Ham, cheese & pickle (although it lost its crunch), smoked salmon and cream cheese and pesto and mozzerella. Very efficient as I got through all the packs rather than thinking I had ham and discoveting it curling up in the pack in the fridge after a couple of days. Much more efficient doing it in a batch than individually and I could grab and go and ut would be defrosted by lunch time.

I make mine have school dinners. By the time I've bought of whole load of various lunchbox items I'm sure the cost cant be that different!

Oh I’m not doing it to save money, I agree there isn’t much of a cost difference. Mine only have a crap roll at school for school lunches atm.

I pay for school dinners.

I'm a single working parent, making packed lunches is just another chore that I can't be arsed with. DS has one occasionally when he doesn't like what's on the dinner menu but not often.

@Waxonwaxoff0

I pay for school dinners.

I'm a single working parent, making packed lunches is just another chore that I can't be arsed with. DS has one occasionally when he doesn't like what's on the dinner menu but not often.

I hear you. I would love to be able to pay for school dinners but I'm in Ireland where fur some reason, no such thing exists

When it was an issue, I spent time over the weekend preparing. So I would make a pot of tuna or egg mayo, roast some chicken or mini sausages, chop a block of cheese into chunks or grate it, portion yoghurt into individual pots, chop melon, pineapple etc.

If it was a busy week I would buy BabyBel, yoghurt tubes etc to save time. Buy stuff like baby tomatoes, mini peppers etc that don't need prepping.

This means I only needed to assemble a wrap, grab a few pots and packets and fill a water bottle.

@motherofawhirlwind How do you stop the veg drying out, please?

I usually do just for tomorrow and the next day, leave them damp from rinsing and use pots with a rubber seal (Sistema, I think) which seems to work OK. If I'm doing 4 days worth, I do cherry tomatoes / mange tout / mini sweetcorn that need no slicing, or long chunks of celery, so if the end has gone a bit dry she can bite that off and discard. Peppers in big chunks seem to survive well for days 3 and 4 too.

Soup & bread
Quiche
Frittata
Mini pork pie

For 'extras' -
Babybels
Jelly (make up a sachet of jelly in little pots at start of week, much cheaper than the ready made pots)
Popcorn
Melon slices
Hummus pot & carrot sticks
Little sausages

Thank you!

Whole meal sandwich thins and a pack of Edam slices. Make the whole lot and freeze.

But this is for the child that has exactly the same sandwich for TWO years at preschool 😂