Non Sandwich School Lunch: Tuna and Crackers
My oldest daughter (now 8!!) revealed to me the other day that she LOVED tuna. Well, ok then. I did not know this. So tuna it is. When a child tells me they like a food, I jump at that chance, so tuna has been on my list since school started last week.
My menu plan says that one day a week I do a "lunchable" type thing, on Tuesdays. Which to me means basically crackers, with some protein and stuff. So today the protein is tuna. My kids seem to do best when they have plenty of protein, so I try to make the protein the main part of the meal if I can.
School lunch day 3 - and a birthday!
For Monday lunches I like to keep it quick and easy. Come heck or high water, I am determined to make these lunches the night before. I'm usually pretty tired on Sunday night. After a full weekend, I want to just throw the lunches together and fall into bed. These corndog muffins were just pulled out of the freezer and popped in the box. I made chili and cornbread for dinner the day before, so I just made a double batch of the cornbread batter, and cooked up some super easy corndog muffins at the same time.
Day 2 of school lunch
ay 2 of school is not a time to throw anybody any curve balls. I will stick with favorites and things I know they will eat, so we can make sure we get through the day with full tummies. I try to do sandwiches only one day a week, it forces me to maintain some variety, and Friday is usually the day, but cutting it in a fun shape is a super simple way to make an ordinary sandwich seem a little special. On this second day of school I want to make sure they are feeling the love!
And here we go...The first school lunch of the year!
We had a great summer and I honestly really enjoyed having the time off from packing lunches every single day. But after that refreshing break I am looking forward to getting back to the daily routines and structure that the school year brings. If you have followed me for a while, you'll know that I'm usually pretty good about posting our lunches on my social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram), but I haven't been as good about actually posting them here on the blog. So my blogging goal for this year is to do much better about getting these lunches on the blog every day! I've come up with the format below that I plan to use for sharing all of the lunches - I want to tell you a little bit about my thought process that went into it, what I actually packed, a few extra tips to think about, and what products I used. If there is more you want to know - please let me know!
School Lunches 2014-2015: Weeks 18 & 19
We are not quite half way through the year and honestly I am starting to feel a little burnt out of ideas. The kids aren't tired of the food, it's just me. I could easily just keeping rotating through the same dozen or so things until the end of time, and I think they would be ok. But when you're a stay at home mom, you don't have a whole lot of creative outlets, so making the lunches a little creative is sometimes just something I do to entertain myself. I like to keep it interesting. So over the next few weeks I'm going to try to come up with some new ideas, because I'm bored.
I'm sleepy too. Due to a series of events (a flood, and then houseguests), we've had a boy sleeping on a blow-up in our room (squished right up against my side of the bed, because our room is so small that it didn't really fit) for the last 2 weeks. I didn't really mind having him there, but he is my autistic child and he doesn't always sleep well. He wakes up very early, and makes a bit of noise in the night, and I realize that I am suffering from some lack of sleep. He's back in his room now, and I am very much looking forward to catching up a bit on my sleep. Well, as much as one can do with four kids.