O/T: if you have children with free school meals do you also cook a hot dinner?

Toonie

I have a slightly different tack, as I'm a nanny. All of the kids I look after have school dinners and what that generally means for me is that their tea will be things like; soup, bread and cheese, beans on toast, eggy bread or a jacket potato. I do however make sure I do a large cooked tea if there are any days I know the kids won't eat much at lunch time (my lot aren't fond of the school roast dinner). Then, I tend to do things like sausage and mash, cottage pie etc. They also all have fruit and yoghurt for pudding as I think they need that extra hit of calcium as they don't get any during the day at school.

The reason behind my lot having school dinners is their parents want them to eat their main meal during the day, so I do lighter options for tea.

firesidemaid

definitely try egg based dishes - eggy bread was always a favourite;) - hm quiche can have whatever you have left over in it, but quiche lorraine with cheese and value cooking bacon is good.

soup with s/wiches is a great idea too, as not only can you vary the s/w fillings (maybe do a mixed platter) you can get a lot of veggie goodness into the soup without fussy kids noticing:)

esmf73

If you know that your children will eat SD until they are full, and that there is a healthy selection and that they are getting all of that selection - not just pizza and chips, then a sandwich could be OK if it fills them up - you could always do toasted sarnies!

moogiegirl

Our school gives you a school dinner menu for the term, so I check what they will be having and then work out what they will have for tea from that. On a Thursday they have a roast, so they have a sandwich & yoghurt for tea, Monday is a pasta based meal, so they have soup for tea etc, other tea meals include beans on toast, fish finger sandwich and also cereal.

valk_scot

My DD eats most things, is okay about eating up all her school dinners...and still comes home starving hungry. It's not the nutritional quality of the dinners, it's the portion size. She's almost 10 and a tall, skinny, energetic girl that does a lot of sports and is still being given the same portion sizes as she was when she was five or six. This school year she started the term on SDs but I've just changed her over to packed lunches so she can get enough to eat during the day. She gets two filled rolls, pack of crisps, fruit and fruit juice, flapjack or muesli bar, and something like cheese cubes and raisins, plus a snack to eat with her milk at morning break. That's on top of a decent breakfast. And she still comes home hungry, and there's no way I could only give her a sandwich for dinner. It doesn't necessarily have to be hot, but there needs to be two courses of it with decent portions. Plus supper...

Of course this might make some kids fat, especially if they're only "starving hungry" for chocolate biscuits! But it's usually blindingly obvious if a child simply isn't getting enough nutritious food during the day, in which case i would say a decent dinner is an essential.

zippychick

as this has dropped down the OS board Ive moved it to the families board so you can get more input from the parents over here

ZIP

YORKSHIRELASS

I have pondered over this too. I love the idea of just giving the kids a sandwich for tea but I have a feeling I would end up giving them snacks as well which can be both expensive and unhealthy. My thinking is that I have to cook because hubby and I both need a hot meal in the evening and I hate making different meals for different people. I also like us all to sit down and share our family meal so the kids have the same as us.

I find that on some days school will serve something DS doesnt like (ie macaroni cheese) and on those days he comes home starving. Today he had stew and dumplings so said he wasnt really hungry at tea time and didnt each much. This means that there is a portion of chilli to go in the freezer so thats fine with me!

The only exception is the night when he has football practice, then he just has a sandwich and maybe something like beans on toast for supper.

I am find it harder and harder to stick to my food budget. I need to really focus myself on it - feel some soup and pudding nights coming up!

onlyroz

valk_scot wrote: »

My DD eats most things, is okay about eating up all her school dinners...and still comes home starving hungry. It's not the nutritional quality of the dinners, it's the portion size. She's almost 10 and a tall, skinny, energetic girl that does a lot of sports and is still being given the same portion sizes as she was when she was five or six. This school year she started the term on SDs but I've just changed her over to packed lunches so she can get enough to eat during the day. She gets two filled rolls, pack of crisps, fruit and fruit juice, flapjack or muesli bar, and something like cheese cubes and raisins, plus a snack to eat with her milk at morning break. That's on top of a decent breakfast. And she still comes home hungry, and there's no way I could only give her a sandwich for dinner. It doesn't necessarily have to be hot, but there needs to be two courses of it with decent portions. Plus supper...

Of course this might make some kids fat, especially if they're only "starving hungry" for chocolate biscuits! But it's usually blindingly obvious if a child simply isn't getting enough nutritious food during the day, in which case i would say a decent dinner is an essential.

That sounds like an enormous amount of food for an adult, let alone a 10-year-old...

balletshoes

maman wrote: »

The school meals are very well nutritionally balanced but IMO portions are a little on the small side for older primary age children. That's unless your school cook serves up seconds. Also some children are fussy and eat very little.

As a compromise, I'd suggest having a hot snacky meal in the evening like beans on toast, beans with a jacket, omelette, scrambled egg, HM soup etc. (A hot pudding is also very popular and filling). All of these are fairly cheap but it allows you to sit around the table, chat and encourage good habits.

yes, agree with this. My DD has school lunches, and then something hot, but not necessarily a meat and 2 veg type dinner, with me at dinner time.

[Deleted User]

onlyroz wrote: »

That sounds like an enormous amount of food for an adult, let alone a 10-year-old...

But if they are anything like my neices they are walking empty food cupboards. They far exceed anything i can eat. For example my 12yr neice came to me today as she had an inset day. She said she had one of those Bevita i think breakfast biscuits, then i cooked her two fried eggs on two slices of toast, later on an apple, then we met relatives for lunch and she had a large portion of tomato/basil soup with a large chunk of bread followed by a large slice of lemon cake (far more than i could eat), then later on at our house she raided our cream crackers and then went home to a cooked meal with pud. She is 5'7, slim build, size 8 feet and still growing. Constantly hungry and nothing seems to fill her up for long! I'd go with it as a growth spurt. As long as its healthy with a few treats along the way, no harm can come surely.

Good luck \OP.