An oldie, but I have specific variations- lunches!

[WhyAyeButterPie]

I am seriously having lunch inspiration problems. It doesn't help that the week varies so much in this house.

OK, so, we are me (works at home but often does events out of the house too, sahm as well for some days), DH (works in a warehouse but does most of the cooking when he gets home at about 4.30pm), DD1 (three days a week in nursery, will eat anything but does like a little treat like some dried fruit or some sweeties, loves anything that can be dipped in anything else) and DD2 (no teeth yet, kind of half blw, two days in nursery, combination fed).

Sigh. The nursery and DHs work have microwave facilities, as well as fridges, at home we have a huge range thingy that has to all be turned on just to heat some bloody oven chips. (we have microwave, kettle, george forman, etc as well)

I love baking and cooking, as does DH, but we often have a severe case of cba.

Oh and we are very disorganised and don't drive, so often end up having to buy from the frankly rubbish corner shop or do late night baking or foraging.

I can't keep sending the kids in with half a tin of beans each and some bread, with foraged fruit that we have got in a panic on the sunday- this is not good!

Even when we are at home, I keep ending up doing scrambled eggs or cheese butties, with endless vanilla fairy cakes.

Any ideas?

Maybe if you love baking etc, then make one or two things per week to be eaten as they are or reheated for the 'main' bit of the meal?

You could bake savoury muffins/seed breads to go with hummus or just some butter spread on. (Eg cheese muffins, wholemeal, pumpkin seed and sunflower seed soda bread)

Pasta bake or pasta salad
Boiled eggs and soldiers
Cheese toasties (just make the sarnies and fry in a pan)
Cut up veg that you make enough to last a few days, and some homemade dips (like hummus) which tend to be ok in the fridge for about 5 days
Hardboiled egg sarnies
Microwaved baked spuds with tuna mayo or cheese etc
Ham sarnies with cucumber
Peanut butter and mashed banana on toast
Philadelphia on toast with tomato slices
Also thick soups are good and obviously ideal to make a massive batch and freeze in ziplock bags
Cans of chickpeas, butter beans etc are great for just mixing with some pesto and serving as is!

:) Some great ideas to be going at.

I'm a working mum with very little time. My solutions- shop online so the stuff is delivered when convenient to you; get a milkman- many of them deliver essentials, not just milk, so if you've run out of something you can order online the night before and it's on your doorstep when you wake; the essential is planning your storecupboard. I always keep couscous, risotto rice, pasta, part baked bread; a few key ingredients in the fridge- pesto, cheese, garlic; in the freezer some frozen veg, frozen soup, etc. Amazing what you can do with a microwave too- I never boil new potatoes since I discovered that you can nuke them in 10 mins.I've recently discovered toaster bags. They make great toasted sandwiches and as you're just using the toaster you don't have lots of equipment or messy clearing up or ages to wait. The best bit is that you can also use them to cook pizza slices (straight from the freezer!), oven chips, fish fingers etc...even boned chicken breasts! Hope this is useful.

You could make a really nice chunky soup, and send it in for the kids with chunks of bread and butter to dip in. DH could have it in one of those wide flasks that you can stick in the microwave.

Also you could make dips. I used to do avocado mashed with banana and a bit of greek yog when kids were small. They loved it. And they loved humous with crunchy bread sticks or veg sticks.

In the mornings I sometimes microwave a chicken breast in boiling water to stop it drying out, then slice it thinly to make chicken sarnies for the kids or chicken wraps. You can also do that then dip it in egg and breadcrumbs or crushed cornflakes and shallow fry it as home made chicken dippers.

These are all great :) I'm making a list. Thanks!

Forgot to say I have a couple of cba standby meals. I keep a bag of tortelloni in the freezer (I buy the fresh stuff from the supermarket chiller cabinet & freeze it, incidentally I find the basics ranges just as good as the more expensive ones)this takes 5 mins to cook from frozen. I either sling in some frozen peas,cook, then drain it all and put in some butter & pesto; or I leave out the peas, heat some bottled ragu sauce and pour over drained pasta then serve. My other standby is frozen salmon fillets, put on plate, cover with cling film (make a hole for steam) & microwave, 2 mins full power will do 4 fillets; meanwhile cut up & fry a rasher of smoked bacon, drain a can of lentils, stir lentils into bacon & pan juices until warmed through, serve with salmon & some bread.