Keeping lunches interesting.... About This Page:

[MELLAMOUSE]

This summer I get to keep my son out of daycare. I however have to come up with new and interesting lunches. I know he is used to getting something different everyday at daycare and after a while fish sticks will get old.
So for SAHM's or those who are used to having their kids home a lot during the week, what do you do to keep lunches fun?
I know I will probably try some new things with PBJ wraps with fruit but haven't gotten much past those ideas. My DS is 2 and has started getting pickier about food so any ideas will be welcome.

[B.M.]

This may not work for you....................but during the summer or anytime my kids are out of school...........I often make the "big" meal for lunch instead of dinner. This works well for us. Sometimes I will make a big pot of spaghetti or something for lunch and reheat it for dinner. Another consideration (especially if you only have one child) is putting together a plate from the night before to reheat. Then for us, theres always the typical hotdogs, easymac, frozen dinners, ect.
This isn't exactly "fun" but it works for us................what I do also that my kids love is have them make menus during the summer, so that they get a choice in what there eating, they know what to expect, and I often let the older ones help prepare it--my oldest wants to be a chef.

[EeyoreNeedsLoveToo]

anything he can help with, might help him try new things -- spreading tuna on a muffin for tuna melt, sprinkling veggies on mini-pizzas (tortillas make it VERY easy!) and anything they can dip -- breadsticks in pb and honey, veggie sticks in ranch, etc.

[Belle*]

Ryan is a pretty easy kid to feed but I get bored making the same thing every day. So I try to jazz it up by serving breakfast foods for lunch, cutting sandwiches using cookie cutters, serving hummus with veggies and pita, making mini-pizzas, jazzing up Annie's Mac and cheese, etc. He does love to help in the Kitchen. Another poster just recommended Rachel Ray's Cookbook for Kids so I think I'm going to pick that up next time I'm at B&N.

[SarahJ]

I'm not a SAHM, but I sometimes have issues with dinners for my kids. Right now they are into eating turkey sandwiches which is nice and easy when we get home from a long day of work/school/daycare. I have found that my girls like things they can help with with. So anything that goes in the microwave is fun for them because they can push the buttons and it helps with their number recognition. We're also going to grow some of our own veggies this year so I think they will be happy to eat things they have grown themselves. As far as them getting in a rut of eating the same thing day after day, as long as it's nutritious I don't see what the big deal is.

For kids who like to help in the kitchen, my 9 yo niece is a great cook. I bought her her first kids cookbook a couple years ago and she loves it. It's one of the Williams Sonoma kids cookbooks which I think are a really great line of books. She has since looked at other kid's cookbooks, including Emeril, Rachel Ray, etc. and doesn't like those ones at all. I now buy her adult cookbooks because her skills are beyond what is in most kids books.

[Chrissi]

DJ really only eats one big meal a day - breakfast. The rest of the day, he's just too busy to slow down for more than a quick snack. Sometimes I can get him to eat half of a PB and raspberry fruit spread sammy, a kid-sized cup of yogurt, and a small carton of OJ. Other days, 2 Eggo Lego waffles and some fruit spread to stick the waffle blocks together is all he wants.

We have pretty light lunches, so something like grapes, cheese, and crackers will do most days. Rainy days means grilled cheese and a cup of tomato soup. Today, DJ skipped lunch and had a BIG snack after swimming class - organic cheese sandwich crackers, yogurt raisins, an organic blueberry fruit leather, and a pouch of organic fruit punch. We've been slowly making the switch to organic for snacks for him to cut out the preservatives and food coloring as much as possible. There are just tons of great snack options for kids.

DJ hates most veggies, but he'll eat any kind of veggie soup that I mix with tomato soup as long as I blend it in really well and tell him with a straight face it's tomato soup.

[PamelaK]

I know in the summer, my DD loves to make Mac and Cheese every day. For my own piece of mind and to break the monatony of it, I will sometimes take a hotdog and slit the bottom half into 8 "legs" and lay it on top of the Mac and Cheese so she has a Octopus guarding the food.

Also, not that it really makes anything different, I will sometimes use food coloring markers that I purchased to decorate a cake and draw pictures on her sandwiches or quesadillas. (Sometimes when she took her lunch to school I would secretly draw a heart or write I love you on her sandwich and when she got home, I would get the biggest hugs and kisses for surprising her.)