Help - DD starting nursery in 2 weeks & I need to send food in with her

[jumpyjan]

Slightly panicing about the food situation. The nursery does not have a properly equiped kitchen at the moment, they offer tea but mostly things she is unable to cope with as she's still not great with finger food (crumpets, sandwhiches etc), so I need to send her in with lunch and tea, 3 days a week.

Is anyone else in this situation?

I normally cook from fresh but guess I will need to cook something the night before and ask them to microwave it for her.

Is there anything that you are not supposed to reheat?

Was thinking I might make a veggie stew with lentils for her to take in to her trial day tomorrow - is it ok to reheat lentils.

Am really crap at all this as never freeze/reheat food.

You can freeze pretty much everything, although tuna is no great once frozen. I think rice is not good once reheated. How old is she?

What kind of things does she eat now?

She is 10 months and for lunch she would normally have something like minced beef with carrots or fish with veg but I puree it still or mash it if its something softer. I make the fish thing with frozen cod portions so not sure if I can cook then chill and reheat?

For tea I would normally give her cauliflower cheese, roast mashed sweet potato with cheese, pasta with cheesy tomato sauce - can I reheat this stuff?

I found some little tins of low salt/sugar beans so that could do for tea one day.

At the moment she eats a good variety of things and I don't want her diet to suffer as a result of going to nursery.

Im a bit of a hygenie freak when it comes to food and don't really know what I am doing when it comes to prepreparing stuff and reheating so worried about food poisining. I think they do have some sort of food thermometer thing at the nursery.

You can freeze nearly all that stuff and reheat it all. I make up batches of stuff (or I should say dp does!) and freeze it. Pretty much the same stuff as you are making already. Just make up a batch, let it cool, spoon it into ice cube trays and then freeze. Once it has frozen, take out the cubes and transfer them to freezer bags. You then just have to take out one freezer bag (perhaps with 4/5 cubes in) depending on how much dd eats. Empty the bag into a tupperware/container etc and then take this into the nursery. It will have defrosted by lunch time and then you can tell them whether you want them to reheat it or serve it at room temperature. I used to do this with dd1. She liked salads so I used to make those up fresh in the morning (cucumber, cheese, lettuce and breadsticks)

You are making excellent meals for her!

Thanks Karen.

Looking at what I make her I realised how much cheese I give her - no wonder she is so chubby!

I am thinking of doing the ice cube thing - should I ask the nursery to put it in the fridge or will that stop it from defrosting by lunchtime? Would it be better off being left out of the fridge?

I take out cubes in the morning and leave them to defrost at room temperature. Sometimes I pop the dish on the radiator or put it in a bowl of hot water (if I have forgotten to take them out first thing.) You could always take out your cubes the night before, pop them in the fridge to defrost and by the morning you can just hand this in to nursery. The food will be well defrosted by then and it is up to you whether you want them to reheat or serve at room temperature. Personally I serve all dd2's at room temperature as she seems to prefer it that way but now that the winter is coming I will probably start to reheat some dishes.

Great thanks Karen.

Think I will take out of freezer night before and put in fridge to defrost - then I can be sure it is defrosted by the time its at the nursery.

She does tend to prefer it warm but think they have to make it piping hot in the microwave and then let it cool?

I had to supply food when ds1 was atnursery all those years ago (7 years ago), and spent many a happy weekend bulk freezing, ds1 always got home cooked food, and the nursery was always very good at reheating.

When she is better at finger food Annabel's Chicken Goujons (in cornflakes) are great to send in.

Think outside the box, unfortunately you need to be organised but is is doable

Deegward - those goujons sound lovely! Are they hard to make?

Jumpyjan - if I ever reheat anything I only give it 15/20 seconds....just to get the chill off. Not sure if this is correct but it has not done any harm so far! I only really do it to warm something rather than to get it piping hot.

Yes think I am going to have to be really organised.

Still not sure about reheating lentils though - or reheating a bit of frozen fish? Guess this is ok?

I have reheated lentils. My dp makes lentils, carrots and sweet potato. I have reheated this. Not 100% sure about the fish. I tend to give dd2 tuna (from tin but not in brine, in spring water)

Hi ya, If you buy Annabel Karmel's baby planner book, it tells you what you can and you can't freeze/reheat along with some fab recepies!
I also cook everything from fresh and freeze pots for when I run out of time to cook, etc.
Had no probs. I would advise avoding reheating in the microwave in plastic as it's meant to release some cancerigenous particles, tell them to transfer to a bowl before reheating.
Good luck!