Ok, I stay at home with two little boys. Ususally I don't give lots of thought to luch until about 12:00. Then I think oh what am I going to do for lunch today. So what do you all do for lunches? I need some good and inspiring ideas!

I have 2 picky eaters, so normally I make 2 lunches...but easy ones.

My DD cannot live w/o PB&J...DS likes chicken nuggets, hotdogs, and they both loves Easy Mac. Nuke some green beans, and bananas, grapes, or apples.

I love taking a can of white meat chicken ( unless I have some boiled on hand which isn't often) and throwing in some celery , light mayo, sweet pickle relish and whatever else I can find and making some chicken salad...and serving it on a big plate of leafy lettuce with tomatoes.

oops...I wasn't thinking so much about kids as for YOU..lol.

Sometimes I do grilled cheese and Spaghettios. When my son gets a little older, I'll do grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Sometimes I'll make Nachos. All you do is sprinkle cheese on some toritlla chips on a cookie sheet and put in a 350 oven until it melts. I might accompany that with fresh fruit and a ham sandwich.

Also, today, I gave them ham sandwich, lemon yogurt and applesauce.

That's ok Kayday... you're making me hungry! I always forget about the canned chicken.

Well, I use leftover sometimes for my daughter's lunch.

But mainly lunches would be Mac & Cheese, Chicken Nuggets (Frozen store bought kind), Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup or Hot Dogs.

I love keeping it simple ..or easy at least for lunch. So mine is always one dish something...lol..Like a big baked potato...or something.

I am a firm believer in nutrition keeping away the bad spirits! My child was three in July and has only been sick one day in his life. I wish I could enforce the same wisdom in my own life. My DH and I are pretty picky eaters, so I was determined to broaden my sons horizons.
His lunch today was fat free bologna, cooked beets, carrot and green pepper sticks (dipped in ranch) and homemade applesauce (very little sugar)

I had a leftover cheeseburger form McDonalds when he wasn't looking! LOL

Don't get me wrong--he eats junk too, but I really try to be healthy at home. Goodness knows what crap his grandparents feed him when they have lunch out on their weekly dates.

My kids love hard boiled eggs with mustard. I sometimes boil them almost completely so the little one doesn't get a mouthful of dry yolk. Carrot sticks or cucumbers. Fruit salad. Heck sometimes even cereal depending on what they had for breakfast. String cheese and ham or salami rolled up. Apple cutup to dip in peanut butter. Okay I better stop. I already had lunch and now I'm hungry again.

Hi everyone,
I do child care from my home and I also have to sons 7&9 who are at school right now.

But I just wanted to share some fun things I do with All the little one's !

We make ants on a log with celery and peanutbutter with raisons as the ants .

With ritz crackers we make butterflies ad peanutbutter and some candy for decorations

Mumies for this time of the year hot dogs wrapped in bread dough-I think I bake it at 425 until golden brown

An for grill cheese I cut them with cookie cutters to make the shape they want!
Mini Pizza english muffins pizza souce with cheese on top and pop in the oven!

Every ones favorite is smoothies !

We do alot of cooking together -they love to mix and set the table clean thier little hands for cooking and eating .

I will keep thinking of others and post later!

When my girls were small I would fix chef salads, fish sticks w/mac & cheese; cucumber\  omatoes\\cheese and salad dressing. I would also cookie cut their sandwiches into whatever holiday was around, ramen soup was always something they would eat too.
Lunchmeat roll ups are also something they would eat.

My girls are now almost 17 and 13 and they still want me to use cookie cutters when they eat a sandwich!

Deviled eggs and baked potatoes. What great ideas. I also love the hot dogs wrapped in bread dough. Then, they look fun and they dont keep falling out. Brilliant.

Does anybody have a recipe for the mini english muffin pizzas? I know you can buy them, but that way I can control what goes on them.

Great ideas everyone.

Hi everyone its me agian ...........

I also thought of fruit kabobs --for the little one I use the wooden sticks and have them help with a butter knife or plastic knife to cut up bananas and if they can apples - oranges - kiwi fruits pine apple and then they have fun to assemble the kabob


frozen fruit bars yogurt - mixed fruit place in your molds and let freeze this is a good afternoon snack.


Thanks Gina Juarez for your help on the muffins

Thanks, Gina! You're the best! I will try it. Sorry to make you hungry. I love grilled cheese and spaghetti too, but I've never been a fan of Spaghettios even when I was little. That's like my children ADORE goldfish crackers and that is one of the few things that my husband can't stand. He can barely have them in the pantry, but he'll eat just about anything. Oh well, different strokes for different folks I guess.

Thanks again!

I have 3 boys ages 7, 3 and 10 months and I work part-time 3 days/week. We do PB&J/chicken noodle soup, grilled cheese/tomato soup, hot dogs/mac & cheese/corn, spaghettio's, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, lunch meat/cheese plate, applesauce/banana/grapes/yogurt, microwave pizza. We buy frozen dinners to make things easier sometimes, even though I hate the thought of it. But the kids love, love, love the Banquet Salisbury Steak. They won't eat the mashed potatos, but they'll eat the steak and corn (if I salt the corn a little). They'll also eat fish sticks, lasagna and sometimes chicken, turkey or beef pot pies (but they'll pick around the veggies). I feel like I'm not feeding them very nutritious food, but they are so picky when it comes to vegetables. I can get them to eat most any kind of meat and even broiled or baked fish, but for veggies they'll only eat corn, sweet potatos (if it's casserole) and the oldest and youngest will eat green beans. Any suggestions on getting them to eat more veggies?

Hi potatocakes -myboyz like to eat thier viggies different ways
one likes his broccoli stemed and the other raw
one likes his carrots with ranch and not cooked and of course the other wont eat them with the ranch!

One of them will grab the spinage at the store or write it on the list!!


But we have to role model everything if we want them to do it right .

What am I talking about I will not eat my PEAS for nothing

Ok potatocakes name just made me hungry for my mom's version. Leftover mashed potatoes, mix in sour cream and bacon bits. Make out into pattys and coat with flour. Fry (yes I said FRY) in alittle oil. Top with shredded cheddar cheese!
YUMMMMM

I have a really picky eater in my 4 1/2 yr old son!! From the time he started to teethe and refused to eat babyfood any longer..it has been a challenge!! My 2 1/2 yr old daughter will eat almost everything!!

I make Kraft Dinner...of course,Weiner wraps(Pilsbury dough wrapped around hotdog weiners),PB & J sandwiches with NO crusts..go figure!,they both love Chicken nuggets and fries,Tater Tots(McCain products here in Canada) They are a pressed hashbrown potatoe pellet...kids love them!!

Ooh, that potato cakes recipe sounds yummy! I'll definitely have to give that a try!

mvigil - I try to role model good eating habits for them, and actually they all ate their vegetables pretty well for the first couple of years. Like the baby who is 10 months now, he'll eat anything. He doesn't like the jarred food, so I just mash up whatever I'm eating and feed him that and he usually loves it! I am a vegetable lover. I eat just about anything. I love fresh green beans and asparagus, raw veggies and dip, corn, mashed potatos, cucumbers, tomatos, everything! I eat a lot of salads. And I always put a few veggies on my boys' plates, but they never eat them. Sometimes I can get them to eat broccoli if it's made into a casserole (you know, with Velveeta and Ritz crackers). It just kills me that they're so picky because I have never been and I always said my kids would not be picky eaters. Oh well, I guess "never say never", huh?!

The only greens I can get my kids to eat is fried okra and spinach alfredo pizza from Papa Johns. It's a never-ending battle for me to get them to eat green things (veggies). I home make my chicken potpie and they won't touch it because of the celery and peas and carrots.

tex-mex is easy to do at home....

turkey tacos...by the taco bell seasoning, sauce, shell kit....make it with ground turkey instead of beef...or can do with chicken (canned or fresh).

enchiladas are easy too...you can buy the enchilada sauce and the corn tortillas and make everything ahead of time and just bake right before dinner so cheese is just oozing...you can make it southwestern with chicken, black beans, corn or maybe spinach...i've even made it with fish fillet cut up into bits...make it as spicy or mild as you like.

quesadillas - two tortillas, cheese and any filling you like, sauteed spinach, mushrooms, chicken, or just plain cheese.


my younger one is an extremely picky eater so.....I boil my kids' pasta in vegetable broth/chicken broth...it takes a little longer but it gets a teensy bit more nutrition in there...also I will blend veggies down to a liquid paste and mix it into pasta sauce - zucchini, squash, eggplant, asparagus...spinach gives little green bits which the girls will fuss over...i use this same technique for lasagna - can sneak more veggies into the meat...can use turkey instead also....I've made lasagna with chicken and cream sauce (kind of like lasagna meets pot pie)...oh yeah, I do the broth thing when making rice too.

oh yeah, I've also used the veggie liquid and mixed it into ground turkey and made mini burgers..then I use a cookie cutter to cut mini "buns" from plain bread...with tater tots on the side.

some of these require a little planning - I usually prep it the night before after the kids go to bed and then pop it into the oven right when I get home from work the next day so it's ready within 30/40 minutes.


sorry I rambled so much!

Mine loves her PB&J, but she also eats other kid favorites - mac & cheese, sometimes with peas or broccoli, spaghettios, pizzas made with flat pita, not the pocket kind (I sneak some small pieces of zucchini on there - not much flavor to it, so she doesn't know the difference,) leftover chicken & rice, green beans, corn, acorn squash cooked with cinnamon & brown sugar, grilled cheese on whole wheat, carrots dipped in hummus, edamame (steamed soybeans,) cottage cheese with canned peaches or pears, quesadillas with tomatoes & zucchini. Nachos are a great idea, Ginger. I'll have to give those a shot. Olivia used to love beans, now not so much, maybe on nachos though.

She won't eat chicken nuggets unless they're from Wendy's or fish sticks at all. I buy IQF pollock, though, sprinkle it with a little seasoned salt and bake (from frozen) for 10 minutes & she loves it.

Looking back at all of you guys' picky eaters list, I guess I'm pretty lucky Olivia will eat such a variety. The only problem is what she will eat *today*
It all depends on her mood.

I know this isn't the healthiest lunch, but when i'm exhausted (i have 2 5 year olds a 3 year old and a 6 month old that sometimes still keeps me up at night) i give the kids frozen meals called kids cuisine. they have fish sticks, mini pizzas corn dogs, etc, and they're pretty cheap. of course, they come with corn, but the kids don't eat them much. my kids love ham roll ups, they don't eat a sandwhich, so i just take slices of lunchmeat, roll it up and add pretzels, goldfish, applesauce, etc. easy, no mess lunch

My son, seven, loves ham/turkey/cheese melts. We make them with tortillas and just wrap them up and put them in the microwave.

I normally serve these with some type of veggie or fruit.

I forgot - I just coincidentally checked a book out of the library called "The Cooking Book" "Fostering young children's learning & delight" by Laura J. Colker.

It's about your kids helping out in the kitchen, has tasks listed by appropriate age, using recipe cards with small children. It has breakfast, lunch, dinner & snack recipes, and for play stuff too like a bunch of different play doughs, silly putty, slime, finger paint, bubbles, and suet cakes for birds.

I haven't put any of it into practice yet, but it looks like a great book. All of the recipes are kid friendly - a lot of them use ziploc bags for mixing with little hands - so you can bet they'll be easy for you if you don't have any "help."

Some of my kids' favorites are the english muffin pizzas, mac-n-cheese with a can of tuna and a can of green beans stirred in, small corn on the cobs (that you buy in the freezer section), BLT sandwiches, PB and pepperoni sandwiches, they LOVE apples, bananas, grapes, steamed carrots w/honey, yogurt, eggrolls & rice, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese sandwiches, quiche (can load this with veggies!!) and of course, their all time favorite is anything that I am eating if I made something different for them. LOL!!
I get in "lunch-funks" too. I went to kraftfoods.com and signed up for their quarterly food magazine (free). It ALWAYS inspires me with new ideas when it comes, so it offers a nice change of pace for the kids every 3 months.

Thank you all so much. You guys havew tons of great ideas! I'll have to make a list so I can pick something off of it when I get stumped. It all sounds so good.... I'm getting hungry again reading this... I think there's some chocolate brownie icecream waiting for me (the kids are in bed)