School Lunch Ideas

Lincoln did not inherit his taste buds from me. Seriously. This child loves bologna, hot dogs, vienna sausages and all manner of processed meats. Ick. No, make that double ick. He also likes tomato soup, pickles on anything (seriously anything) and cocoa puffs. Please don't judge my tastes, or the fact that I do feed these above mentioned items to my children, I want to continue getting cards that read "World's Best Mom" on them.

Lincoln decided a couple of months ago that he would really like to take lunch to school, rather than eat the already prepared and very cheap school lunches. I remember begging my mom for the same thing and therefore could not bear to tell him no. So, I started waking up at the crack of dawn (no, this wasn't new, but it adds so much to the story) to make a healthy, wholesome lunch for my oldest, free of any nastiness mentioned in the above paragraph. I made ham sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and always included a great snack of apple slices and a granola bar. You know what he asked me after a couple of weeks? If he could just have bologna sandwiches. It was at that point I gave up and gave him what he wanted. Seriously, if the kid thrives on salty, processed meats, who am I to stop it, right? (Don't tell him, but I purchased chicken bologna, he mentioned it tasted different than what he's used to, I told him it'd been a long time since he'd had bologna and his tastes must have changed...)

This week after rearranging all of the food in our kitchen to start our remodeling project, I found the chicken vienna sausages that I had stashed toward the back of the pantry. I decided to make the kids' day; y'know what I did? Threw a can of vienna sausages in his lunch sack, with an apple and two cookies. (gross, I know) I don't know who beamed more that evening when he said that it was the best lunch he'd had!

So, for the real reason of this posting. Kids like variety, I'm sure. I'm also sure that they love eating healthy. But sometimes they just love cheap, processed foods.

Tomorrow I'm going to try a new idea...SANDWICH KABOBS. It's a new way to eat all the foods of a great sandwich, without the traditional way of doing so. I think Savannah will love this idea, since she pulls her sandwiches apart and eats everything separately anyway.

SANDWICH KABOBS

Take bamboo skewers and stack them with all sorts of yummy "sandwich" fillings. Cheese chunks, cut up veggies, meat slices, grape tomatoes...it's a sandwich on a stick, without the bread.

Also, for other sandwich options:
whipped cream cheese and fruit
flavored cream cheese and veggies
apple butter
nutella
pita bread stuffed with cream cheese and veggies
jam and cheese