Please help me with a definitive school packed lunch list

[ponygirl]

I have two children at school (7 and 5) and another shortly to stay at pre-school for lunch and am stuck in a rut with what to give them. I thought I'd try and crib suggestions from you lovely lot. What do you give yours?
I usually do a selection of these:
Sandwich (or roll/pitta bread
fillings of tuna mayo/tuna & sweetcorn/cheese/cream cheese/jam or honey (occasionally)
Fruit/veg
Tomatoes/grapes/raisins/celery/dried apricots/satsuma
Other (savoury)
Cheese and crackers/malt loaf
Other (sweet something)
Chocolate brownie/jam tart/flapjack/cake
Plus a drink.
If I'm too repetitive, they seem to get bored and stop eating it, so I think we need more variety. I'm fed up of throwing food way. Ds of course wants packets of crisps or bars of chocolate but that is not happening, even though (apparently) everyone else has them. Hmmm...
Help please!

.

Cheesestraws
Rice salad
pizza slices

(I made dd1 a lovely rice salad with fresh veggies in it and a parsley and orange juice dressing, but unfortunately she refused to touch it. She is very conservative with food - on Friday she didn't eat her sandwich because it was made with Red Leicester instead of Cheddar :( )

chocolate not allowed at our school!

Are you veggie plus fish, ponygirl?
Homemade chicken kebab sticks
Homemade sausage rolls with wholesome sausage ingredients
Felafels in pitta
Include peanut butter / sardine / ham/ houmous / avocado / in the sandwich combos
Samosas (find some which are not incendiary)
Slices of spanish omlette / tortilla
Chicken drumsticks

Ive been putting the Ellas Kitchen smoothie pouch things in my ds's lunch box, he loves them, they are nothing but fruit and have nother added at all and count as 1 portion of fruit towards the 5 a day. I make muffins and freeze them too which saves time.

Yes, Blu! I didn't state that explicitly in the interests of compiling some info that would be useful to others though.

I think there are some great suggestions here: I'm going to be really sad and write up a little chart to remind what the choices are. My mind goes a total blank as soon as I see those empty plastic boxes...

Hi,
Just to let you all know about the apple thing, all you need to do is cut apple into chunks then fill a bowl with cold water and juice of half a lemon pop apples in and leave to soak for 10-15mins then take out pat dry and put in bag or plastic box. You can do this night before ar leave them in bowl overnight too.

Thanks for the apple tip elclose - think my DS will eat more apple if in chunks and not brown!

Excellent, eclose, thank you!

If you dip the apple in 50% lemon juice 50% water it won’t go brown or taste of lemon. You can then use an elastic band to keep the apple together for them.

I make homemade sausage rolls and pesto pinwheels for my lot.

Buy a sheet of ready rolled puff pastry and divide into four strips (cut across the narrow width, not the length). Add with your sausage meat (veggie sausage works just as well) then brush the edges with beaten egg and roll the pastry round the filling. Cut into appropriate sized bits, glaze with remaining egg and shove in oven for 25 mins or so till baked. These freeze no problem and you can just grab a few to defrost the night before.

Pesto pinwheels - another sheet of puff pastry. Spread with pesto (relatively generously) and add some additional cheese if you want, then roll up like a swiss roll. Cut into thinnish rounds (2cm or so) and then lay on a baking sheet, shove in oven and wait till baked. Again, these freeze and can be grabbed the night before.

Other fillings I've done are sundried tomato paste and ham/ cheese and pickle / grated cheese and marmite / a tomatoey pizza sauce spread thinly with shredded basil and ham . We're not fish eaters but I expect you could do something with smoked salmon?

I rinse the apple slices in plain water and that keeps them from going brown, at least till lunch. I don't think my DC would eat them if I put lemon on it.