Cook, Cook, Cooking

Despite the absolutely revoltingly hot weather we've had over the past few days I've been busy in the kitchen gearing up for back to school and the need to fill lunch-boxes. My girl will be starting full time school this year so three days a week I'll be trying to get lunch boxes sorted for all four of us and the other two days I'll only have three lunches to organise. I know both the kids like variety so I'm trying to come up with a system where they can have sandwiches a couple of days a week and have different kinds of lunches to mix it up a bit.  Since I already bake most weekends I'm just planning to get a wee bit more organised and bake something savoury for the lunchboxes as well as something treat-like that can be popped into the lunchbox a couple of times a week. The biggest challenge will be making sure I can freeze it. The grand-plan is that I'll make sandwiches the days I don't work (and in theory am less rushed in the morning) and grab things from the freezer on the days I do work. That said, it'll still be me directing the lunchbox filling. It won't be a free-for-all choose-what-you-want kinda thing. For one, they're kids so they don't always cope well with lots of choices. For two, my head would explode.

So to get through the first week and give us a bit of surplus to fall back on I've made meatballs, cheese and bacon muffins and our very favourite choc-chip cookies.

I figure the kids will eat two or three meatballs and I'll pack a small container of vegie and cheese sticks to go with them. The muffins can be sliced and buttered - and since they're a bit dry due to a touch of overcooking I think they'll need it - and I'll send some sliced vegies or perhaps some dried fruit to go with them. Add in their drink bottle and a piece of fruit and they're all set.

I have some more ideas and a few recipes put aside but I'd love to hear what you do for school lunches. Got any ideas you want to share?