easy lunches for grandma's

tonychelle

My grandmother watches my daughter most weekdays, and I'm trying to think of some easy/healthy-ish lunches to send with her or for her to fix for her. We've been doing a lot of mac n cheese, sandwiches and breakfast foods along with fruits/veggies lately if I don't send leftovers from dinner the night before (but I don't always get to cook a good meal because my husband and I are on different schedules part of the week). She's still somewhat picky and only has four teeth, but she eats pretty ok -- just looking for some various options.

Are there any "good" frozen chicken nuggets? She likes turkey too, but I'm not a fan of lunchmeat, so I'm trying to find some options for that too. And what are some good sandwiches other than peanut butter and cheese?

Are you guys doing "meals" or just snack type foods or mixtures of fruits/veggies/cheese? What do you guys send to daycare/caretakers?

LittleMommaBlueHen

DD loves soup.  DH makes a huge pot and she will eat it for lunch for several days in a row. 

JKTTC1

I make a chicken rice and vegetable casserole that last for days, vegetable soup, uncrustable pbj, leftovers from the night before, or the Gerber turkey stew! I send fresh fruit diced most of the time along with yogurts, bananas, and fruit cups . Other snacks include string cheese, apple jacks, yogurt melts, etc...

gina2433

I googled this today. I found a few websites that had good recipes. I also have a cookbook for toddlers. PBJ. Soups. Veggies n dip with cheese. Think outside the box.

Chan4dra04

Just a couple things:

1 - Tonychelle - that pic in your siggy of your daughter with her finger in her belly button cracks me up!  That is seriously an adorable pic!!!

2 - How are you girls feeding soup to your LOs?  Do you let them drink it cool out of a straw cup?  Or do you seriously spoon feed them?  My DD would get a burst of independence about 3 spoons in and want to do the whole thing herself which would end up on the walls.  Like everything else. 

As for ideas, my oh-so-smart DH taught DD to dip her food in condiments.  Now, she needs to dip constantly so that gave me the idea of hummus and veggies.  She still only has 2 front teeth so we are stuck giving her very thin strips of cukes, slices of toms, peppers, etc. 

Other stuff: 

Oh, and I bought a Squishy Snak Pak - they are reusuable squeeze pouches to put yogurt, applesauce or your own purees in there.  We use that at least once a day with the tubs of applesauce or yogurt we buy rather than individual serving cups. 

baked potatoes with cheese and broccoli

Taco cups - recipe (DD LOVES salsa, so we pile that on there, too)

Tuna salad

pizza bites on either zucchini, or bagels, or hamburger buns

Ham and Cheese muffins / sausage and pancake muffins

quiches

I like a lot of the biscuit/muffin type things for easy prep and go. 

If you need any more ideas, lemme know.  I have a ton.  But I don't want to overload you unless you need more ideas.

Natty13umppo

My go-to lunch when we don't have any leftovers or anything else much on hand is to do what I call the "Mexican bean bowl" lunch.  It's easy to prepare and I usually have most of the ingredients on hand:

Heat up a can of black beans (or pinto beans or whatever beans DD/you/grandma like).  Cut up avocado and cherry tomatoes (or regular tomatoes).  Add some shredded cheese.  Sometimes I add a corn tortilla (nuked or warmed on the stove).  (You could also add corn kernels!)  I serve it in little piles for DD and all in a bowl for me.  I top mine with sour cream, salsa, cilantro, whatever.    Add some fruit on the side and I think it's a pretty good easy meal.  And pretty easy to modify based on what you have on hand/what your LO likes.

As far as easy meat, Applegate Naturals has some frozen chicken breakfast sausages that cook in the microwave.  I keep a box on hand and if I want to add some meat, I'll nuke one of those, cut it up and give it to DD.

Have you tried cream cheese as a sandwich?  (Yes, it's cheese, but not cheese-cheese if you know what I mean so maybe you hadn't thought of it.)  You could add jam for sweet or thin cucumber or tomato slices.

authorofdreamz

tonychelle:

Are there any "good" frozen chicken nuggets?

We buy the Earth's Best brand. I like to keep them on hand for "emergencies" (aka I was too lazy to cook) 

Other things:
Quesadilla
Hummus on bread
Cottage Cheese with cucumbers (either on bread or just put the cc on the cucumber slices)

HPickle23

I buy all natural turkey breasts, bake them and chill them in the fridge then dice them up for DD. She loves chicken and turkey and this way I don't have to worry about the stuff in lunchmeat.DD also eats a lot of fruit that I can cut up and I get frozen berries since fresh is so expensive and I can generally find organic. I put a lot of stock into those pouches with the fruits and the veggies, that way I know she's getting some veggies. But I use those for snacks, the freeze dried yogurt chips and happybaby puffs greens.