Packed lunches (i dont care how middle-class or boring it is)

[Lorayn]

Ok, so thanks to the packed lunch certificate thingy thread I kicked my daughters lunch into touch today.
There are no longer any crisps in it, and instead of a sandwich she has some breadsticks, cheese spread, pickled onions, cucumber chunks, a slice of malt loaf and a packet of raisins.
Thing is I know I'm gonna run out of idea's by tomorrow so any advice would be gratefully received!!
Also I know it shouldn't be cheese spread but got all confused in sainsbury as to what cheese it should be, anyone help??

errm...
what's wrong with a sandwich?

It wasnt just a sandwich, I was being rebellious and giving her choc cake and crisps

Think sandwiches are fine - bit boring after a while maybe . I try and change the bread to wholemeal occasionally or do my special "club" sandwich (3 slices of bread with 2 fillings) to liven things up! Even go so far as to do round sarnies using my cookie cutter (God, I really should get out more!)

Pitta and humous, tortilla filled with ham and cheese, cheese and crackers, pasta salad, bagel and cream cheese...
Always seem to go down well with dd (4) when she has a packed lunch. She has school dinners though because I hate making packed lunches

We quite often make use of "leftovers" eg. deliberately cooked too much rice yesterday so DD could have rice salad in her lunchbox today (do the same with pasta too) -makes a change from bread.

Some ideas here lunchbox menus

DS2 likes a cold sausage in his.
DS1 has hummous and pita or cheese dunkers but I gather they are banned by the MN lunchbox police

a few more ideas

HA, Tommy, exactly why she has her own breadsticks and dip as of today.

Next time you go to ikea pick up some swedish flat bread buy loads and freeze it. My ds likes it with butter and cheese rolled up so its like a sausage shape sandwich. Very yummy.

wholemeal bread sarnies with proper cheese.
or ham
or both
i bought some of those ritz cracker thingies, shoved aa couple of them in but you can buy hovis wholemeal ones...instead of crisps.
pot of grapes
or melon
or kiwi
or all
cherry toms
apple
little tiny sausages
or scotch eggs
or throw a quiche together, a slice of that each day till its all gone..you can shove all kinds of vegies in them and they are nice cold
boxes of raisins...oooh i tell you what i bought the other day, some raisins with yoghurt on them, also pinapple bits with yogy on.
yogies are nice, i refuse to buy the fancy ones in tubes/squeezy type htings, just a bof standard nice yogy and a different little fancy posh spoon each day.(cheep n cheerful) he loves them.

Dissle your making me hungry.

hmmm am eating bar of galaxy for my brecky

oh ok then

errm .. hoummous and dips? a cold rice salad?, wraps?...anything they are prepared to eat cold really. Left overs is a good idea.
However...ds gets the piss taken out of him if he has anything other than a sandwich and also regular comments like 'aren't you allowed a cheese string'..so we tend to stick to sandwiches (bless him..he's had enough of the piss taking atm) and try more adventureous fillings.

RANT ALERT

What annoys me about this - and I couldn't give a %&% if I get slated is that your original lunchbox was perfectly fine IMO and I bet that overall it provided a much healthier lunch for a child than the equivalent school dinner would have done.

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with a child having a bag of crisps or a chocolate bar or a white bread sandwich for lunch IF they have a well balanced meal in the evening and for breakfast and they have a healthy lifestyle.

I am sick to death of schools preaching what we can give OUR children and then cutting their PE time down.

AMEN sista wisteria

how about crackers sandwiched together with philadelphia

in asda they do little one portion pots of sandwhich filler and you can use them as dips for carrot/cucumber/bread sticks. They are only 38p and there are several types

ds current favourite is pitta bread filled with tuna and grated cheese mixed together with a spoon of pizza topping (the sort you buy in a glass jar)

cold pizza is always popular

croissant ,just a plain one but also pack a chunk of cheese or a chicken leg and a piece of fruit ,I think thats fairly balanced

Morning Custy and I thank you - that was a bit heated for me .

I argued this issue with our last primary school and won - ha ha!!

wisteria, I agree her lunch was probably fine, but when I showed her this morning what I'd made she said 'wow', it was more down to laziness and not knowing what to do that I didnt give her anything else.
I have told her she can have crisps tomorrow with some pitta bread and chopped up fillings to make herself.

ditto Wisteria

ds has a white bread roll (slightly more interesting for him than a sandwich so he eats it all) with ham or tuna mayo, a yoghurt, a piece of fruit (apple, banana, raisins) a drink of apple juice in a fruit shoot bottle and a packet of crisps.

Though he has stopped eating the fruit so I have told him if he doesn't eat the fruit I won't put the crisps in.

I also do cold bits (mini pasty, scotch egg, carrot, cold sausage, cheese) instead of a sandwich sometimes to vary it.

TBH you could just rotate what you have done today with a sandwich - she doesn't need a completely different meal everyday and a bit of rotation will stop it getting too boring for her.

That's moreorless what mine used to have cs, sometimes a choccie bar as well, but I did have gannets for children!

As they have grown up their lunchbox has dwindled (their choice) and now they tend to take a sandwich/ roll, piece of fruit and slice of home made cake/ biscuits or if feeling flush a treat.
I tried making it interesting before but they hated the fuss that the other dcs made so preferred the 'bog standard' lunch - I didn't get the chance to do all these interesting things, although may try them on some wraps this week now it's been mentioned!

I doubt I will be making too much of a fuss, some of the fsa suggestions are just way too time consuming, but I will definitely be trying some of these ideas and mixing them up with the lunch she was used to.
Thanks everyone.

My dd gets fruit at breaktime from school. We pay £2.05 a week & they get a large platter of fruit at break time to share between the class. And a small bottle of milk. She doesn't drink milk at home, but I am told she definitely does at school.

But then that leaves me a bit puzzled about what to put in her lunchbox!

I give her 2 slices of bread filled with ham/tuna/chicken, a yoghurt, 2 pieces of fruit & always something 'nice'. ie: a school bar or a bag of yoghurt covered strawberry bits.

She doesn't always eat the fruit I put in her lunchbox as she has had a lot at breaktime.

Mine has wholemeal bread with ham and cheese, yogurt, grapes.

Kitkat and fruit shoot. I have no shame