School dinner @ £1.20 vs a lunchbox meal?

CravingSaving

Hmmmm... freezing sandwiches.... I have never thought of this. Are there some guidelines on what sarnies you can and cant successfully freeze? What retains its flavour and texture, and what goes soggy? I like the idea of making up a weeks worth on a Sunday evening, freeing up and saving at least 15 valuable minutes every morning, not to mention the "what the heck am I going to put in the sarnies today" last minute panic I seem to have only too frequently!!

Lemoncurd

Wow, another who thinks £1.20 is a bargain! It's £2 at my daughters school.
If I did packed lunches for her they would be about 50-60p as I home make the bread for sandwiches, make cakes or biscuits and wouldn't include a bought drink (just water), she would also have some fruit/veg.

bellybabe_2

Well, there might be guidelines, but we just make it up using some common sense, but failing that (as we often do :rotfl:) trial and error. We freeze cheese, honey, jam, ham and chicken sandwiches; not tuna or banana (well, we just haven't tried!), and not usually pitta bread just because we usually freeze that when we buy it so can't refreeze. Don't know if peanut butter would freeze well but neither kid's school allows nuts.

We make up the lunches each evening while making dinner, put everything in the lunchboxes and leave to defrost in the fridge overnight. The kids are happy enough so they must be defrosted in time for lunch - either that or they see their sarnies as a crisp substitute! :eek: - and they keep everything else fresh too.

Hth.
BB

ALIBOBSY

Wow £1.20 is very cheap. My DS and DD1's primary charge £1.75 per day, so for both of them its £3.00 per day so soon mounts up. Can't afford to do it all year round and as DS not keen on salads (he said the summer menus are yuck lol) we tend to let them have sandwiches in spring summer and october to feb on hot lunches.

DS does well on hot lunches as he will eat anything, he ends up getting seconds and thirds cos he will eat even the unpopular meals rofl.

He once came home having had 8 lots of lunch cos ev1 went for the pizza but he had the shepherds pie. He also demolishes fruit and regularly had 5 or 6 apples/pears/bananas lol.

ali x

LJM

firstly £1.20 is very cheap for a school dinner on the IOW we pay £1.80,although both my girls have these 2 days a week when its a roast their normal packed lunch consists of a sandwich,pot of cheese/cucumber/toms etc what ever we have in a yoghurt (1.15 for 12 lidls) and a piece of fruit again depending what we have in,maybe as a treat some crisps or homemade cake.though i dont tend to buy any extras every thing comes out of the 2weekly shop,so i think its good value for money

moneysavingfamilycomp

Hi everyone just thought id add something to this discussion i am a school cook ( i know shock horror lol ) and i am quite suprised at some of the comments. first of all it all depends which part of the country you are in as different counties do things differently.
>firstly go into school and ask for menu ours is a three week cycle.
>secondly ask to speak to the cook we are happy to talk to parents.
>thirdly ask if you can visit at lunch time to see whats on offer we are also happy to do this.
the school meal in our area is £1.65 per day ( i know there has been talk of an increase ) but the choice is really good and the portion sizes are vast.
here is todays menu
shepherds pie (all fresh ingredients)
or pizza (homemade)
or meatballs in tomato sauce (again both meatballs and sauce homemade)
served with two serving spoons of pasta
or two scoops of mashed potato ( real potatoes )
cauliflower
and carrots
and salad
1 slice of white or brown bread or half slice of each
sponge cake and custard with fruit
or jelly with fruit
or a piece fruit
water to drink ( not our choice goverment guidelines)
we try to encourage the children to take the correct carbohydrate choice but if they really dont like it we will be flexible we would rather they ate mashed potato with meatballs than took pasta and left it. we feed your children like we would feed our own they can also have as much veg and salad as they like and all three if they want it. there is a vegetarian choice every day and burgers or sausages are only allowed once during the three weeks and fish fingers once. i know school meals are excellent value for money there is no way you could get the amount of food in a restaurant for less than £2.
ok think thats it any questions please ask

CravingSaving

moneysavingfamilycomp wrote: »

ok think thats it any questions please ask

Thanks for all that.

Menu sounds lovely, but do you mind if I ask how big are the portions? EG. If you were to have a baked potato on the menu, would you serve a whole or half a potato (as they do at my little ones primary school).

I am sure that quality and quantity differ for each school, but are there some guidelines for portion size?

One of the reasons I went over to packed lunches instead of school dinners was because two of my kids used to come home starving. I checked with the school to see if they had actually been eating their dinners, rather than pushing them to the side of the plate, wasting them, then telling me they hadn't been fed, and they were the ones who always asked for seconds, 'Oliver style'!

I now give all my kids packed lunches because of cost, so please don't think I am knocking school dinners at all, just curious about portion sizes!

moneysavingfamilycomp

hi cravingsaving if jacket potato is on the menu each child should get a whole potato. i know a while back the powers that be decided to serve jacket potato as a carbohydrate with a meal and it was half a potato but we havent done that for a while. heres an idea of portions
3 homemade meatballs (about 4cm diameter bigger than it sounds lol )
2 serving spoons of pasta ( covers half the plate )
1 serving spoon of sauce
1 serving spoon of cauliflower
1 serving spoon of carrots
( salad if they want any )
1 slice of bread
1 piece of cake (aprox 10cm by 6cm and aprox 4cm deep)
1 1/2 scoops custard
1/2 portion of fruit
glass of water
iv tried to estimate sizes using a ruler to give you a better idea
hope this helps

trinity_bleu

I'm interested in this ... I'm assuming you don't freeze them with any salad in them but what about mayo ? Do you wrap them in kitchen paper or anything to soak up any water released when defrosting ? (I always stand my loaves of frozen bread on their end to defrost so the water runs down the sides of the bag and only makes the noggin soggy)

CravingSaving

trinity_bleu wrote: »

I'm interested in this ... I'm assuming you don't freeze them with any salad in them but what about mayo ? Do you wrap them in kitchen paper or anything to soak up any water released when defrosting ? (I always stand my loaves of frozen bread on their end to defrost so the water runs down the sides of the bag and only makes the noggin soggy)

Oooh more good questions! Just going to put the kettle on while someone comes along with the answers!!