Given the weird eating habits of my kids, I am struggling to come up with food for them to eat during the summer months.
Dinners are not an issue, really, since I’m okay with spending some time preparing and cooking/grilling things.
But lunches? Those are gonna’ be an issue.
I’d like to find food that’s cold – i.e., doesn’t involve cooking unless it’s to cook a huge batch of something that can later be eaten cold. Food that the kids don’t need help preparing, specifically, and can just grab whenever they’re hungry.
The problem is that they won’t eat cold pasta. They won’t eat vegetables. One of them won’t eat sandwiches (?!). Given their druthers, they’d eat cereal for every meal or, the favoured standby, candy.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. So would some sympathy…
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My kids used to like a PuPu platter: cheese, crackers, ham, carrots, cucumber, ranch dressing for dipping.
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Can you get Morningstar Farms products? Microwaveable chicken patties, corn dogs, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, etc. Very quick and tasty.
And the best part: all vegetarian.
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Wait. WON’T EAT SANDWICHES? What kind of weirdo freak is he? You’d better tell him he’s gonna be kicked out of the Kids Club of North America.
I second the Morningstar idea. We spent way too much money on groceries this week because Sam actually eats protein if it’s in the form of fake sausages or veggie burgers.
Also, and I hesitate to suggest this because I don’t want to make you crazy, but what about just letting them eat cereal all the time? The only real con I can come up with is price, and I honestly have no idea whether it would be any pricier than keeping sandwich fixings around. (No one here drinks milk and we go through maybe one box of cereal every two weeks.)
And, uh, maybe keep sandwich fixings around for the two non-weirdos. (I’m sorry. That’s mean. I am just so totally blown away by the concept of not liking sandwiches.)
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WTF? No Sandwiches? We’d have a lot of trouble if P. didn’t eat Sandwiches. But considering I don’t like them that much (well, I do, but they have to be how I like them), I guess I can understand. Have you tried all different types of bread and toppings?
Maybe sandwich fixin’s with the choice of bread or not? Chicken salad, meat, cheese, bread, hummus, jam, etc with crackers and bread and fruit. They can mix and match as they like. Maybe kabobs or something like that.
Good luck! -
Maybe its the bread. Mine prefer wraps made from spinach or whole wheat tortilla wraps. We keep humus, cream cheese and a variety of lunch meat in the fridge at all times. We also keep yogurt – which they usually spoon over cereal!! We do the make your own lunchables thing also, cheese (I slice it by the pound rather than buy it presliced), lunch meat, pickles, sliced veggies (okay I have a wierdo who eats tomato off the vine) and a couple of kinds of crackers. I keep everything in containers on a specific shelf and they are free/encouraged to “do it yourself – dang it”
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I was about to suggest tortillas but I see Heather beat me to it. Pitas (with pockets, not the solid Greek kind [although those are great for making little pizzas]) are good too.
Trick I learned from being a canoe tripper for small kids: they will often eat pretty much anything if you let them sprinkle hot pepper flakes on top. PB&J with hot peppers, mmmm…..
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We get frozen burritos for my lunches.
My in-laws’ kids are all particular eaters. This phenomena really astounds me. When I was young and my parents were still married my eating preferences would occasionally be accommodated (like only having cow liver once every few months or having macaroni and cheese twice a month.) Regardless, my choices at the table were always: a) Eat what was put before me. b) Go hungry.
Sometimes I went hungry.
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I forgot, quesadillas are usually good, with cheese or cooked chicken and cheese.
Robyn, are you serious about the hot pepper flakes??? _That_ I don’t get.
And yeah, cereal works for me.
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Last comment on this (I promise): Carnation baked mac n cheese or Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese or Hash Brown Casserole (with grated cheddar cheese). CHEESE!!!!
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Eggs. Easy, yummy, hardboiled eggs. I make 18-24 and keep them in the fridge. Peanut butter on a spoon. Nuts. And there isn’t a thing in the world wrong with eating cereal 3 times a day. As long as it’s not Capt’n Crunch. Also, ramen. Ramen can make any day a happy day (says she of the carb restrictive diet). I miss ramen. :(
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English muffin pizzas.
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Lena – amazingly, the kids wouldn’t do much more than nibble at your hash brown casserole recipe. But also, they’re all warm things, and regardless of the costs of AC fighting the oven, when it’s warm and the kids and adults have been outside watercress of egg salad (they hate mayo, sigh) sandwiches would really hit the spot.
re: bread. They all like the bread we have and will happily eat toast. The one that doesn’t like sandwiches likes meat on it’s own, and likes bread (he makes toast a lot), but doesn’t like sandwiches, even toasted sandwiches. Another one doesn’t like *cherries* and when we had cherry cobbler would only eat the crusty bits. I swear they’re faking it ;)
R – ultimately I had the same choice as you growing up, but quite often my parents would make us sit at the table for an hour plus trying to figure some way to get me or my sister (who was particularly picky) to clean our plate (or in the one instance of liver and onions to try it (somehow we didn’t believe them when they told us it was steak)). I’m also a big believer that kids won’t starve themselves to death, even when confronted with vegetables.
But they’re also cranky with low blood sugar, so something they like and is healthy is icing on the cake cooked in the solar oven. Hmmmm, if the solar oven works, maybe some of the casseroles might work.
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