If you had to make a pack lunch right now, could you?

[Updatemate]

As in at 8pm on Sunday night, for a 5yo for school tomorrow? What would be in it?

Because that's what I'm having to do!

We got a text at 6pm saying the kitchen staff are isolating so all kids need a pack lunch this week. Typically the online delivery is coming tomorrow and all the shops are now shut.

So I've russled up a home made pizza (flour and greek yogurt base) with a defrosted portion of hidden veg sauce and the last dregs of the block of cheese, a slightly bruised apple and a couple of Jaffa cakes from a pack I forgot i bought at Christmas!

Thankfully school are the pack lunch police even in normal times but I think given the extremely short notice they'll say nothing at all!

The alternatives were a batch cooked portion of beef stew, frozen sausages or fish fingers.

So what would be in your pack lunch?

If no fresh bread/rolls:
Pasta with tuna and corn
Pasta with chopped up ham/peas/corn
Rice with any of the above
After that I think I’d be stuck!

Quit4me

We don't have any bread in, it's not part of our normal shop. And the cheese we had left over wouldn't have been enough for 2 sandwiches anyway. We don't have any tuna but I could have defrosted a chicken breast.

We don't generally have snack foods or biscuits in the house beyond fruit and that's low the day before the shop.

DS would get a lovely packed lunch on a usual Monday. We had roast gammon today so he could have a nice roll with the left over gammon tomorrow and chutney. Plus we do our big food shop on a Saturday so there's still the nice fruit (eg berrys and plums) and snacks left.

If I got a text on a Thursday evening for Friday though he'd get a very dull packed lunch. No bread left (so pasta salad, or cheese and bread sticks) carrot sticks and an apple or pear.

Could do a cheese sandwich, got some tangerines and some mango pieces in the fridge so fruit covered and a pack of crisps and a penguin
Kids have got plastic water bottles so fill one of them with water
No foil or sandwich bags to wrap anything in though

I hadn't considered cous cous, we do have that. We have spaghetti and lasgna sheets, but that wouldn't make the best pasta salad!

The kids will be happy with their mini pizzas though.

I could put something together ok - but mine are teens so I generally aim to stay ahead and always have fall-back food available. As it happens I've got about half a loaf of bread but also some of those part- baked rolls and probably some crackers around. Cheese would do for one but not the other; but I keep tinned salmon, tuna and sardines in which can be mashed into a sandwich filling easily enough (mayo or vinegar respectively!!). I stocked up on salad a few days ago; but then made soup yesterday so the salad will probably last a bit longer ...

Yes. Bread, cheese portion, fruit, yogurt, Twiglets, sweet biscuit and small carton of orange juice.
Only because dd has ASD and problems with cooking and eating. So I keep a nice variety I know she will choose from.

When I had small dc, no problem , as every so often I get a sliced loaf, turn it into cheese sarnies with grated leftover cheese & freeze it, for just such eventualities. I'd add the contents of the fruit bowl, a yoghurt, & expect ravenous children on return which would be fine.

However, in the last few years teenage dc got wise to the Emergency Frozen Cheese Butties & took to raiding them for midnight toasties, so yeah, they'd starve if it was tomorrow.

Yes we always have our shopping delivered on Sunday evening so we have the packed lunch things. So Sunday night is actually the night the cupboards fridge and freezer are full to bursting.

A bit off point, by why haven't they got cover staff??

Last lockdown that's what I ended up doing instead of furlough, bouncing around schools with lack of kitchen staff.

As I am WFH, my (fictional) DC could even have their sandwich, apple and yoghurt in a proper lunchbox because the one I take to work has been sitting unused for the last 10 months! Plenty of foil to wrap the sandwich in, too.

I’d have to do Jacob’s ciabatta crackers with cheese, or a cheese or tuna mayo sandwich (in granary bread from the freezer). Plus a boiled egg, and an apple, a tub of carrot and cucumber sticks and some cherry tomatoes.

@ShirleyPhallus

It's not regional, it's just people calling it the wrong thing. It is a packed lunch. Some people call it a pack lunch because they type as they speak. Same as people writing seen as instead of seeing as.

Ah i see, really wasn’t being a prick about that, legit thought it was something I hadn’t heard of before

Oh I know you weren't don't worry. Regional variation fascinates me so I'd have asked if I didn't know too!

Wrong!!!! In Scotland it’s a pack lunch. Not that it matters. What’s wrong with people 🙄

I could probably always manage a cheese sandwich and an apple. Not the most inspiring of lunches though.

A bit off point, by why haven't they got cover staff??

No idea. I assume that Sunday afternoon is a bit late to organise it and better to tell us now and have staff than fail to get them and have to ask for a packed lunch at 7am!

I think I'll buy an emergency loaf for the freezer!

I’m a long-time prepper, it’s absolutely fine.🙂 Not in the UK, lunches are free here.

Pack lunch is definitely an acceptable regional variation.

I'd struggle to make it meet the school rules. I'm sure DS would be delighted! Supermarket shop tomorrow. I'm already wondering if I can push homeschool and working hours back enough to get in a new shop before lunch!

Crisps, lump of cheese (would be ignored) pepper and cucumber, orange, biscuits. Bottle of water.

Yep. And food shopping isn't here until tomorrow.

I did a mid week shop too as I couldn't get delivery for the usual day (so tomorrow's delivery is 10 days after the last). We have bread and sandwich fillings (beef, chicken, ham, cheese, salad stuff). Fruit and snacks are a bit sparse but i'd have enough for both of mine (one would have berries and the other a banana and both would have a yogurt and some breadsticks)

Tomorrow's shop will keep us going for the next week.

We have appropriate containers and they take water bottles with them any way as standard so no issues there!

If I'd had to feed them at home it wouldn't have been an issue, it's just the portable and cold nature of it that's the issue!

We do normally have crackers in, but they were eaten yesterday.

Wrong!!!! In Scotland it’s a pack lunch. Not that it matters. What’s wrong with people

Not in my part of Scotland it isn’t, packed lunch all the way here.

Yes, there's paté and pork pie in the fridge, two cheeses, tomatoes, cucumber, crisps, fresh bread,. Pears, satsumas and plums.

And some carrot cake.

I'd have to put the bread machine on but yes have a tub of Philadelphia and a cucumber, apples, satsumas and could whip up some muffins or some sultana and oat biscuits or something.

Bread, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, banana and a mini egg cake,
Pretty much what DD will be eating at home

Packed lunch in my part of Scotland too.

Anyway yes I could, but Im a bit of a food hoarder.