Lunch box ideas and recipes needed - post 'em here please

[carriemumsnet]

Hi all

With the summer term (allegedly) approaching ( would someone please tell the weather?) , we're pulling together a definitive Mumsnet guide to what to put in your child's lunchbox - so if you've any inspirational ideas to help children eat healthily (or in some cases eat at all) or tips on making the process of preparing said lunchboxes less taxing in any way, please post them here.

Big thanks

I have found that asking dd(4) about what the other children in her class bring has been a good source of inspiration. So if mum suggests something the little madam might dismiss it out of hand but if Ollie brings it, it suddenly becomes V desirable

Cold home-made rice pudding with a little blob of jam in one of those mini-flasks.

you can get little mini pots of philadelphia, much better than dairylea dunkers etc, do your own "sticks"

Bump!

I think most of our ideas have already been covered. Similarly to maisykins I try to cover each category:

1. something bread based with protein in, usually tortillas or pitta breads instead of standard sandwiches. Occasionally oatcakes, crackers or ricecakes. Fillings tend to be ham, cheese, chicken. I would do hoummous but ds1's gone off that now. If we have sausages for tea and there are any left, he likes them cold the next day. Ds2 likes cold fish fingers too, and felafel, but his brother not so keen. Sausage rolls very popular but very infrequent.
2. Carrot sticks/flowers or cucumber in a little pot. (ds1 more likely to eat these than if mixed in with the sandwiches) Possibly celery or olives for ds2.
3. Piece of fruit, or some grapes in a pot. If we have no fresh fruit I'll stick in some raisins instead.
4. Drink - usually water, sometimes a juice or smoothie
5. Treat - usually cereal bar, sesame seed bar or yoghurt, very occasionally cake (e.g. day after someone's birthday) or homemade biscuits/flapjacks.

It gets quite automatic to be honest, although sometimes I find I've run out of cheese, chicken or ham and have to do marmite sandwiches. They still get eaten but I don't feel the meal is particularly well balanced!

Which is the best type of lunch box, and if you don't use cartons of juice, which is the best type of drink bottle? Pls

Sigg bottles are expensive but brilliant. Smaller ones might fit in the standard plastic lunchbox. Other than that, I think they're much alike. If you buy a Froot shoot bottle of water with a sports cap, they're usually re-useable.

The rigid plastic lunchboxes have the advantage of being dishwasher-able, and quick to swish around in the sink then drip dry on the draining board. However, they're a bit cumbersome, and don't usually have a strap to hang over a buggy/shoulder.

I like the softer, insulated ones like htis because you can put sandwiches in a tub, and the bag's easier to squash under a buggy, and they 'open up' smaller iyswim. Having said that, you have to hunt around for one that doesn't close with velcro, so it's harder to fill them without them popping open.

I like to line a lunchbox with a carrier bag, then you have a rubbish bag too. Ultimately, it's all down to personal preference. Most of the plastic lunchboxes are the same - but you do get fancy ones that have compartments like this but I find them more restrictive than helpful, personally.

Ds1 has a squashy lunchbox with a strap and a zip shutter. Agree with WanderingTrolley that it's easier to shove into places like his school bag or under buggy. Unfortunately it's a (whisper) Transformers one, so when he gets fed up with them I guess he'll want a different lunchbox. We have various tubs/hard sandwich boxes for the separate items.

I am fed up with the supposedly well designed leak-proof special water bottles that just end up breaking or leaking all over the place. Again, I have come to the same conclusion as WanderingTrolley and I just reuse a normal bottle of water or squash.

I like the tropicana Go bottles, they are the same as the poisonousfruitshoot ones but are just expensive juice and water. If you buy a four pack in Asda for a quid, you can reuse the bottles for ages.

Anyone give their older dc's flasks of soup in the winter, my mum used to and i was just wondering what age were they old enough to deal with hot liquid? Would 7-8 be old enough?

Carmenere, a bit of a faff, but try this.

Trial and error will tell you how long the soup will keep at what temperature. I've filled a flask at breakfast time and opened it at lunchtime to gauge how long it'll stay hot for, so as not to scald anyone. Obv this means a week of soup before you get the balance right, but worth it doing, maybe?

I think 7 is easily old enough. It's more about how well a 7 year old can pour from flask to cup really, isn't it? Again, practise at home first, unless you live to wash school uniforms

Cheers WT that is a great idea, dd is only 4 and in no way ready for pouring anything herself, not to mind hot soup. But I remember my mum sending us with home made soup and loving it and I couldn't remember what age I was. I do remember that when there were four of us in the same school that we all met at lunch time and the older one (my big sister) was in charge of doling out the soup.

Ah yes, 4 year olds, flasks and pouring not a great combo

Ah another idea, I was in LGJ's house last summer and she had lots of fresh mandarin segments in the freezer which the kids loved as they were like ice lolly's. I wonder if they would be good to throw into a thermal lunch box in the summer? Anyone done this?

ime it can be a bugger to keep things frozen, you end up with a bag twice the weight of the food because of the ice packs you need to keep stuff from thawing. (NB ice packs I like are the gel filled maleable ones, not the solid water filled)

You can freeze Frubes and the like, and they do thaw a bit, but you get less mess/wasp-attracting goo because they're in a tube, iyswim.

Oh and has anyone tried the inflatable fruit holder things that were on the Dragons den, I saw them on sale in Robert Dyas the other day and thought they were a good gimmic to get the dc's to eat their fruit.

A friend bought my ds's some of those inflatable things for Christmas. They were promptly attached to the boys' rucksacks and got carried around for days whether or not they had any fruit in. So they were popular, but tbh I doubt if the amount of fruit eaten has increased since then. I frequently put ds1's bananas in the banana-shaped thing as it seems to prevent bruising, but he sometimes forgets to eat it.

Any experiences of lunch box disasters? Anything get greeted with revulsion or anyone find month old bananas in the gym bag??