Thursday, August 19, 2010

School Lunches - Lord Have Mercy

For three days now I've sent my child off to school with food packed neatly in his Star Wars lunchbox. Meat rolls, carrots, dipping sauce, potato chips, apple, nectarine, almonds.






Each day he's come home without a scrap left. "Mom, you've got to pack more. I'm starrrr-ving." Lord Have Mercy, I don't know what else to send with the child. Normally, I would send a thermos with the remains of last night's dinner but each meal I've served this week has been devoured down to the last lick of the bowl.

I had a break down last night. It was bad, very bad. I got sent to my room - by my husband. I'm trying hard to make this week's grocery budget work. But honestly, I think every last soul in this house feels the same way as my first grader. They're all STARRRR-VING. Eliminating the convenience foods from the grocery cart has meant that we've eaten all of the whole foods twice as fast. Now I know why my grocery bill was half the cost, the food only lasted half the week. Dang. There is still food to eat around here - turkey burgers from the freezer and soup materials from the depths of the pantry. But there is little left to snack on and the natives are getting restless.

With a full flight of whine last night at dinner it became clear that the spinach salad with tuna salad on top didn't cut it for my three little monsters. Thirty minutes into the incessant "I'm hungry" from the girl, "I'm starrrr-ving" from the boy, and "ahhhhhh" from the baby, I got an overwhelming urge to locate a bag of bagels and short-stack of pancakes and start shoving them into the short people's mouths. My better judgement kept me from making this gluten-fest a reality, knowing full well that doing so would bring a sleepless night of gut pain and a morning full of diarrhea.

All this to say, I have a few lessons learned for next week's grocery trip:
1) Plan to double and triple the recipes for everything I make.
2) Make at least two batches of homemade snack items that will last the whole week.
3) Get a membership to Costco where I've heard you can get gluten-free snack bars for 1/3 the price.
4) Locate tasty gluten free bread that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
5) Don't forget the rice cakes!

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