Advice On Daughter Please!

Hi Penny Pincher

The only thing I wondered about the packed lunches is could you introduce some salad occasionally in th sandwiches & what about fruit juice instead of squash sometimes? Nothing too dramatic but would add a bit of variety maybe? Oh, and my mum used to put chicken drumsticks & cherry tomatoes in mine for a special treat!

On the sausage rolls & quiches, here is what I do :

Sausage Rolls
Ready made puff-pastry
sausagemeat/skinned sausages/mince of choice
Flour for rolling (lots for the sausagemeat as it's sticky!)
Beaten egg to galze
For variation you can add a little dried stuffing mix, fried onions, grated carrots or even grated apple to the sausagemeat if you want.

Basically just roll the pasty out, cut into strips abotu double the width of a sausage roll, put rolled out sausage meat into centre, brush beaten egg white down one side to form a seal & fold over. Cut into sizes as desired, put slits in top & put on greased baking try, glaze with beaten egg & cook at about 180 degrees for 20 mins or until golden. Allow to cool & store in an air tight tin or freezeer.


Quiche
Shortcrust pastry base (either bought or beacuse we are old style home made) & partially pre baked to ensure cooked all the way through, although lots of people would probably not bother partially pre-cooking.

Eggs
Milk or cream
Hard grated cheese like chedder or similar
Onions
Any combo of : ham, onions, sliced cooked sausages, cooked chicken, spring onions, asparagus, chopped bacon, sliced tomatoes, cooked chopped courgettes, cooked chopped aubergines, sliced peppers, crumbled goats cheese, smoked or tinned salmon, tinned tuna (works well with tinned pineapple chunks!), cooked brocolli florets. Or pretty much anything else you can think of!
Seasoning, sprinkle paprika or curry powder on top to colour & flavour if desired.

Fill pastry base with eggs/milk/cheese/onion mix & add selection of other flavourings as chosen, arranging some nicely on the top for presentation, cook for about 35 mins at about 170 degrees until fim but springy itn eh centre. Can be eaten hot or allow to cool & slice, store in fridge or freezer.

If you leave the cheese out it's a savoury flan instead of a quiche!

HTH

Have you considered school dinners even just one day a week. Often fussy eaters try food they wouldn't normally try at home because their friends are eating it. Ask the school for a menu - usually 3 weekly so you can decide.

I was thinking about cooking up some chicken pieces and doing rice/pasta & chicken for her packed lunch, but unsure how I should store this, can I freeze it etc etc???? Also, was thinking about making some HM sausage rolls & quiches-but have never made these before and was wondering again-how do I make these and how should they be stored??? Also the cheese straws???

Chicken and pasta can be frozen, you can defrost the day before or over night, and add mayo or anything else when defrosted. )I like sweetcorn, mushrooms, onions and carrots in my pasta salads.

Lillibets receipes look scrummy,

You can also add veggies to the sausage meat if you want, pre-cook it and mix it in well

That sounds a decent packed lunch to me. My kids have similar but drink water not squash. I often put a little tub of cheese 'n' pineapple, fruit salad or homemade rice pudding in as well. My biggest bugbear is that the boxed are kept at room temp or even worse by the heater so I'm sure whatever you put in is foul to eat by lunch time.

MATH wrote:

.................. My biggest bugbear is that the boxed are kept at room temp or even worse by the heater so I'm sure whatever you put in is foul to eat by lunch time.

Yup, mine too!!! The way I get around this is to put a cool box ice block in the lunch bag.