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?

I reckon i could do it tonight.

It would be tuna or leftover roast chicken or cheese sandwich
French fries or Pom bears (don’t judge I have teens now and spotted them in home bargains and fancied them)
Dairylea dunker or baby bel
Grapes or a banana or strawberries
Chocolate wafer biscuit
I’d struggle with a drink. I’ve got pure orange and flavoured water in but nothing non spill to put it in

@Tianatiers

Yes it would be fine here, we always have bread in the freezer and things like eggs, tuna or cheese to go in a sandwich. Then veg sticks (carrot, peppers, cucumber, tomatoes) and fruit to go with and a yoghurt.

I could always come up with something. Always have crackers and 90% of time cheese. Always have pasta, tuna, sweetcorn and mayo for a pasta salad. Always pita bread or wraps in the freezer. 80% chance I’ll have eggs. Always tuna. Even if we’re out of everything there’s always carrots and apples. There’s normally some for of biscuit in the tin. Definitely never run out of salt and vinegar rice cakes! Ditto pickled gherkins but I would win no points if they made an appearance in anyone but my own lunch box. So not the most exciting lunch but they wouldn’t starve!

If sorry Tianatiers didn’t mean to quote you!

Yes.

Sandwiches (cheese, chicken or various spreads)
Fruit - apples, satsumas, bananas.
Cherry yoghurts.
Cocktail sausages.
Crisps.
We even have crackers and also mini chocolate bars!

It would be pasta in a food jar, my supermarket delivery slot is tomorrow morning, so no fresh stuff or bread left tonight!

I could rustle up some. Cold tuna and sweetcorn pasta for Ds2 and the ubiquitous ham sandwich for ds1 (that's all he'll choose). An apple, some grapes, carrot sticks, sugar snap peas and I think there's some malt loaf left for one boy. The other hates dried fruit so he can have

Um....

Some oldish flapjack? Or, or or some blueberry wheats in a pot?

Hmm. Ds2 wouldn't like me for not adding something nice at the end. Oh dear.

I had a fruit and veg box delivered Friday hence why the choice of fruit. We also have apples, cherry tomatoes and pears in but my kids won’t eat them.

Oh! But my kids are home school and I have no ban on peanut butter or chocolate so freddos and pb toast it is for us tomorrow

@Pascha

I could rustle up some. Cold tuna and sweetcorn pasta for Ds2 and the ubiquitous ham sandwich for ds1 (that's all he'll choose). An apple, some grapes, carrot sticks, sugar snap peas and I think there's some malt loaf left for one boy. The other hates dried fruit so he can have

Um....

Some oldish flapjack? Or, or or some blueberry wheats in a pot?

Hmm. Ds2 wouldn't like me for not adding something nice at the end. Oh dear.

Ds used to take handfuls of chocolate weetos to school as a snack!

Yes, food only came Friday so quite a lot of choice right now.
Even without that shop though I’d have had a few options.
I’m lucky that I can afford to keep a decent buffer of food in the house.

We nearly always have sandwich stuff in . Some type of fruit ,yogurts and crisps.

If no bread was available pasta or omelette are also options.

We could do a cheese and Marmite, sandwich, celery, cherry toms, plus grapes, apple or satsuma. If we didn’t have bread I’d send crackers instead.

My proudest was when (before I had kids) a friend dropped in unexpectedly for lunch with her two-year-old and I was able to rustle up crackers, cucumber, Babybel, cut-up grapes, and a party ring biscuit. I have the tastes of a toddler, clearly.

Can always, always, always knock up soda bread, cheese scones, muffins, flapjack, fairy cakes etc on demand (might have to set the alarm an hour early to cook and cool. Or tuna pasta salad or cold sausages. If no fruit in..., cucumber, baby plum tomatoes, carrot sticks or raisins/dried apricots from baking cupboard. Dig around in bags and rucksacks for any squished cartons of juice with missing straws and reunite with random straw collection languishing in kitchen drawer.

No lunchbox police at secondary school....in normal times they flog them three types of pizza a day, so haven't a leg to stand on.

Yes, cheese or ham sandwich, apple, mixed salad - 3-4 different veg, cheese portions, apple juice.

The same packed lunch that my dd has had every school day for the last ten years in fact.

Yes, shop not here until tomorrow so no ham, wraps or rolls but could do a basic cheese, tuna mayo or egg mayo sandwich. Have cucumber and peppers in the fridge. Apples in the fruit bowl. Crisps, mini satay sticks, babybel, peperami, mini rolls all available. Only water or squash to drink, no juice cartons.

Yes. She eats the same thing school or home for lunch. Always!

Crackers with flora light, a packet of crisps, black olives, cucumber sticks, cheese of some description (that she never eats but I always supply as she gets little to no calcium at all ). An asda chocolate mini roll.

It probably isn't the best lunch but she eats it so I run with that; or she did until this lockdown - now she will only eat the crackers

Well yes I could, in theory, bake something. I’ve got 16kg+ of strong bread flour. Also lots of oats and a selection of dried fruits/nuts, so could make flapjacks or something similar. But if I had young children I’m quite sure I wouldn’t want to do that at 8pm...

I would be willing to make houmous for dipping crackers & veg sticks.

Day before food shop here too, I could make an egg mayo or tuna mayo sandwich, sultanas, a bruised apple, a bag of bbq beef space invader crisps and a chunk of cheddar cheese. No fruit or veg in so it definitely wouldn’t be healthy in the slightest!

Pleased to say that yes I could.

I immediately thought no way but I do have packed lunch items in stock even bread as I like making it and have half a loaf on the go.

Ah I just realised I also have a packet of ham in the freezer, so that’s another option for sandwiches!

Ds1 yes, 2 peperami, a dry wrap, hula hoops, jammy dodger. Ds2 yes, 5 frozen sausage rolls in a flask cooked in the morning, chopped cucumber, ready salted crisps, bourbon. Dd yes, pasta with hidden veg sauce (always have a jar on the go in the fridge) and chopped frankfurters in a flask heated in the morning, chopped grapes, chopped peppers, angel slice.

They all have the same every day whether in school or at home,

Bovril or Marmite sandwiches (have bread in the freezer).

Grissini in lieu of crisps

Little yoghurt

Apple/satsuma

A few custard creams

So it would be a bit basic, but more or less edible (like most of my cooking, in fact).

Yes but I do a packed lunch for all 3 kids each day anyway. even though they're all home learning (I work in a school, DH has a full on job wfh and juggles the kids with work in the afternoons, so me doing the lunches is just one less thing for him to think about). So we always have lunch stuff in and I'd be able to put something together pretty quickly along the lines of:

• choice of sandwich or wrap with ham, cheese, tuna, marmite or jam filling
• portion of cocktail sausages, cold chicken pieces or cheese string
• portion of raw veg (carrot, cucumber, peppers, sweetcorn)
• portion of fresh fruit (apple, grapes, strawberries, raspberries)
• cereal bar, breadsticks or fruit loaf portion.

I could also make a quick pesto pasta salad if I needed to but tbh mine all love sandwiches and are more than happy with a combination of the above.

I could make food to go in a lunchbox. Whether dd would want to eat it is another matter and it would be quite scurvy inducing. Although there would be a kitkat, so that would make it better.

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?

If we didn't have bread and cheese we sure as hell wouldn't have Greek yoghurt, homemade tomato sauce and an assortment of crudites.