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?

Slackarse. I am also a prepper, we have tinned food coming out of ears (and no panic buying involved) as well as long life fruit juices and milk and lots of frozen stuff. But fresh food is bought weekly and our frozen stuff is either batch cook or chicken nugget type stuff. I suspect there would be raised eyebrows if I sent in cold nuggets, as much as the kids would love it.

Only just but would have very little thought going into it:

Pasta with veg and ham
Cucumber, apple
Fruit bake
Jacobs cheeslets trees from Xmas

Not bad actually tbh

@ShirleyPhallus

We could do it here but that’s only cos the food shop arrived today

Slight aside but I’ve always called it a “packed lunch” rather than “pack lunch”. Is this a regional thing? I’ve never heard it called a pack lunch before!

Of course it's a packed lunch. It's a lunch that has been packed!!

Yes because I do my food shopping on a Sunday evening.

I’ve got lots of part baked baguettes in the cupboard, so one of those with tuna, or ham, or Brie, or cold chicken. And a packed of crisps and a penguin or a small Kitkat. And some grapes. BUT I only have most of those things because my DC are not in school so I need easy lunches. In normal term time no way could I manage it without a dash to the Coop.

Cheese sandwich, apple and a bottle of water. I don't go in for all this whipping up of stuff.

Depending on what he wanted
Wraps or sand with ham/chicken/tuna/sal Tec

Gherkins, tomatoes, strawberries, mango or pineapples

Hummus/ pasta / rice/ couscous

freezer left overs Lasange/ shepherds pie/ curry/ sausage casserole/ etc

Erm, DC is having a handful of grapes and cherry tomatoes. Some leftover roast chicken and a sandwich thin tomorrow. Maybe with some oreos if they haven’t been snaffled.

No sliced bread but frozen rolls, so a cheese roll, yoghurt, raisins, carrot sticks and black currant squash would do until I go shopping tomorrow evening.

We have a good stock of non-perishables and all sorts of tins too. But all our meat comes frozen from the farm shop and we only shop monthly with one top up if essential. I could alternatively have done pasta with tuna and veg, though. We don’t have any snack or treat foods in as I’m low carbing and my DH is looking after his health as well after Christmas indulgences.

I’m glad the days of school lunches are long behind me.

Probably go to the shop in the morning on the way to school.

Yes
Wrap with ham or a sausage roll
Cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks
Apple
Crisps
Biscuit or a chocolate pot

Ok for a sandwich ham or philly or cheese of some sort, tupperware tinned fruit, small pot of yoghurt , cheese cubes, crackers, have a few grapes as well also could have carrot sticks. We are due a shop Wednesday

No problem at all, we always have various types of bread (sliced, wraps, pitta, naan) and fruit, cheese, marmite, yogurts, tinned tuna, cucumber etc in.

TheYearOfSmallThings

And if you didn't have bread or sufficient amounts of cheese as is the case in our house? You'd just send them with an apple?

We have bread, ham, luncheon, cheese, peanut butter and jam, frubes, carrot sticks, oranges, apples and bananas. So a lunch would be no problem, if only there was school to send them to!

Oh and the reason I don’t have much variety of veg is that our regular veg delivery was smaller than usual last week, due to covid.

We often run out of bread (like today!) but always have stuff in to make a tuna pasta sandwich so I'd have to pack that!

Yes but it would be mediocre (though the kids would love it).
Dc1 - peanut butter sarnie, Apple, a cheese string and water
Dc2 - cold pesto pasta, Apple, a pepperami stick and water

Oh and we usually have the odd biscuit lying around in a box at the back of a cupboard so one each if available.

Mumbum2011

That was option 2 if I hadn't been able to whip something up. DH is extremely glad as I'm on an early shift so he'd have had to wrestle 4 DC around a shop at 8am.

I would make bread. I’d also make soup.
We always have tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, salad leaves, radishes etc in the fridge
Also pasta, rice, eggs,

I’m American and have no young children in my family, but I take my own lunch to work. I always have oranges, grapes and bananas, and little cups of applesauce. We keep canned/tinned tuna, chicken and turkey on the shelf, and sliced turkey in the fridge. I have a package of jicama sticks, too, and packets of single serve popcorn. While I don’t have any small children in the family, I have two lovely boys in my extended “family” of friends, who are here often. We have a drink here that comes in boxes, called yoo-hoo. It’s chocolate flavored but has vitamins and some nutritious value and the boys love it, so we keep it on hand. Oh- and now that it’s just DH and me, we can’t use milk fast enough to keep it from spoiling, so I buy the little one-cup shelf stable cartons, and use those when we need milk. If you don’t have bread, we usually have buns, tortillas or wraps on hand. In a pinch you can wrap sliced meats and cheese into a lettuce leaf and make a low carb wrap? Or cheese or peanut butter with what we call crackers? I think you call them water biscuits. Maybe add a hard cooked egg?

We're a nut free school BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz one of the DC in the year above has a severe allergy (her mum is my work colleague) and they are in the same bubble as my 2. It means peanut butter or Nutella sandwiches are out.

Yes.

It would be a grated cheese and cucumber on a wholemeal seeded sandwich.

1 yogurt

A packet of Pom poms

1 apple & some diced watermelon

Packet of chocolate mini fingers.

I’d also make soup. Cold soup? I could knock up soup with the frozen veg we have but they wouldn't eat it cold and we aren't allowed to send in a hot flask or such (at least not normally, the message today was very brief!). It would be a good idea if we could.