nutritious lunches to send to school - please share your nutritious ideas.

[eleusis]

DD starts going a full day today. I'm a nutrition snob, and consequently I have turned my nose up at the school dinner offering and DN (nanny) is packing lunches -- preferably hot ones that go into the thermos Santa brought for DD. But sandwiches are okay sometimes too.

We have some ideas (past, soup with added veg, etc.)

Does anyone have some good recipes they like to send with their kids? Can I have some ideas PLEASE????

We use a top quality flask that keeps things hot all day long. The school would not allow us to bring in soups. So far i have done salmon stir fry. Fish pie its even possible to do a roast chill con carne shepherds pie rice with fish and veg fresh noddles . When i do pasta i always make my own veg sauce homemade breaded chicken with veg homemade fish cakes various forms of stews ie chicken chausser currys . I have found that most things will go into the flask. My charge who is now in his final year at primay school loves his hot lunches. Of course he does get cold things never sandwiches as to be honest there are are loads of other things all homemade such as breadsalmon bites with a slasa sauce cold past the odd hoe made sausage roll i batch cook a things such as flap jacks fruit loafs so that i can dig them out of he freezer as and when needed veg with dips fresh fruit. I never put crisps chocolate in his lunch cheese strings etc. To be honest he knows that his lunches are often differant from some of his friends and loves the large in put that he has no day or week is the same. He had a school christmas lunch last month came home and said never again. Beause he has a diary allery and his parents and i just do not do junk school lunches are just so easy.

imo it is a mistake to dismiss school dinners on grounds of nuitrition. Yes they are in the main simply empty calories, fat and salt but the culture they support (you sit down, eat what you are given etc. ) makes children more likely to eat the healthy food you provide when you are at home. - you can smother them with veg at evenings at at weekends.

I don't want to teach my children that it's okay to sit down and eat crap so long as everyone else is doing the same.

I do agree that sitting down and learning to eat what you are served with other kids is a good thing... but not at the expense of nutrition.

DD was actually disappointed at taking her lunch. She wanted to buy (I think she thinks school is a restaurant -- she has an odd fascination with eating out fo a 4 year old ). Anyway, I have since hyped up the thrill of her thermos and involved in the shopping last weekend (which was no treat for me!!) so she could pick some good stuff for lunch.

Why no soup?!?!?!

She took soup today. Hope I'm not in trouble. It was oxtail soup (from a tin, yuck!) but I said it was okay if we could put chopped up carrots in it.

My last charges couldn't take soup as it was hot and might spill and the lunch staff couldn't be responsible for that!!! Something (or yet another thing) to show PC going overboard.

She had to take cold lunches only. So I did lots of pasta and rice salads with tuna, chicken, grated vegetables, cheese etc. She would eat any vegetable as long as it was grated LOL. Wholewheat mini pittas were a hit too, with hummus and veg or cream cheese and veg. She used to tell me a lot of her friends wanted the same lunch as her instead of the "boring" school lunches which were mainly fish fingers or yucky pizza.

Oh yes, we do lots of chopping and grating of veg as well. Makes it very difficult to pick the veg out.

Milk can be spilled as well. Perhaps they should ban all liquids.

School lunches at DS's state school are fab and not at all lacking in nutrition! Have you looked at the menu? I thought it was now not permissable to offer lunches of 'empty calories' in schools?

I mean, slave over a hot thermos by all means, but would be interested to know which LEA now offers nutrition-free school dinners!

Actually DS does now have packed lunch, and in his wide necked unbreakable thermos he has
last night's leftovers
pasta and pesto (pretty nutrition-light, I think!)
Chicken curry and rice
spag bol
kedgeree
tuna-pasta bake
any sort of stew - Irish, beef, chicken, fish
I would send rice and dahl if he would eat dahl
risotto with a little extra water so it isn't solid

I've promised to set up a 3-week rotating menu for DS1 like the school meals service. So far this term he has had: pasta bolognese and biccies; cold pancakes, breadsticks and a banana; and today a chicken drumstick, 2 oatcakes and some chopped mango. Tomorrow is hot porridge with brown sugar, and carrot batons (separately!), Wednesday soup and pitta bread, Thursday shepherd's pie and yoghurt, and Friday lamb casserole and pear.

He is on a low/moderate salicylate diet, which means I have to be careful about the fruit and veg.

One day I'll do a hot pudding (eg apple crumble) with a sandwich. Am going to try steak pasties too.

Grilled chicken wraps, my dd loves them.

We usually put the chicken, chopped tomatos, lettuce and cucumbers mixed with some low fat yogurt.

She sometimes picks out the cucumber but usually she eats all of it. You could try all sorts wrapped up though.

Soup not allowed for small children at DS's school as it is too easy for them to pour it on themselves and scald getting it out of the thermos.
Check she can manage unscrewing and tipping food out of her thermos - they get very little help or supervision on the packed lunch tables.

Blu, I'm not too shy to name and shame. The LEA is Richmond Upon Thames. Quite a few school in the borough have opted out of the LEA contract. But, sadly, not ours. I have a menu which could be okay, might not. I was happy to consider it if Sodexho would give me a list of ingredients on which to judge their meals. But, Sodexho said they wouldn't give me that list and I said hmmm, don't think I can trust someone who doesn't want me to know what's in the food.

The contract was issued to lowest bidder to meet the new government standards. This, of course, means they do nothing that they aren't legal required to do. And, I'm not okay with nutrasweet, white bread, and general crap. This is DDs main meal of the day, every day. So it will have to be packed at home. I'd be quite happy if they raised the price of the meals and the quality. But, that isn't an option.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.

Many school dinners are still not great. I would not be prepared to let my children eat them more than once a week - as it happens they usually choose not to at all, the prefer stuff from home and that suits me. Their school meals have got much better but still not good enough for me. And I have tasted them - our school regularly invites parents in.

I don't buy the idea that children have to eat poor-quality meals in order to learn table manners and social skills etc. Mine eat every meal in our house around a table with loads of conversation, having to try new foods etc.

At my charges school the older ones are allowed to sit with who they want so if they want to sit with a school meal child then all well and good. Manners are encourged through out the school. Manners and sitting down to what you to eat is a everyday thing and should happen what ever the meal arrangmentss are. Which is why my charge takes in his hot food rather than miss out playing with his freinds at lunch time and comming home.

I think it's outrageous that they won't give you a list of ingredients. They could easily make the menu and ingredients available on their website.

Thank you Blu. No one else seems particularly bothered about this. And I stuggle to understand why they dont think it's important.

I'm with you, eluesis. The only complaint I have about ds's school is the meals they serve, hence he has packed lunches. Before he started the school let us have a 'trial' meal there and I was so disappointed - the food was poorly cooked and, imo, low on nutrients (partly because of the poor cooking!) They did offer salad and fruit but it was in a separate part of the dining hall, so not an 'obvious' choice. The pudding they offered that day was low-fat, artificially sweetened yoghurt - I would never touch that stuff and I certainly wouldn't give it to ds.

So, packed lunches it is, but hot soups etc are also not allowed. I am also looking for inspiration - ds is quite fussy and we seem to have got in a sandwich rut recently!

Nor do I buy the idea about learning social skills through eating school lunches - the packed lunchers sit with the school lunchers and they all have to follow the same rules. I am not going to have ds eating processed, undercooked crap just so he can learn 'manners'!

Can you tell me this thermos flask you got is it like a drink one of it is a thicker one? I am having a hard time picturing what it looks like. I would love to send ds in with hot food rather than a snadwhich as i dont like the offering either so i am very interested.