Parents So how do you handle dinners with late practices?

[gymbeam]

@Gym Beam where did you find those s & p shakers?! My dd would love them!

I ordered them on Amazon. They are technically for soy sauce but work for salt & pepper, too! Not sure which set you saw, but I have both of these linked below.

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[NH~GymMom]

This thread is a Godsend. DD has about 40 minutes between school and 5pm practice, so I need easy meals she can snack on during quick breaks during practice. She gets home too late for a full meal before bed!

 

[LJL07]

This thread is a Godsend. DD has about 40 minutes between school and 5pm practice, so I need easy meals she can snack on during quick breaks during practice. She gets home too late for a full meal before bed!

I know! I feel like it should be a sticky thread. I almost posted a similar question yesterday and then remembered this had just been posted. With three kids, we are out mon-thurs until 8 and sometimes 9 at night. ughhh! Family dinners are almost impossible. Thanks, all, for these great ideas!

 

[Noideaaboutgym]

My DD has the evening s before's dinner in a food flask for her lunch at school the next day (plus dessert and fruit) and an extra large varied packed lunch for eating at any stage from leaving school through to going to bed. I also freeze single portion meals from bulk cooking to put in the food flask on occasions where we have eaten something that can't be put in the food flask, favourites here are curry, chilli, casserole etc. I have also been known to send a tin of heated baked beans in the flask with bread and butter separate.
Packed meals are sandwiches or wraps or homemade pasty, cheese cubes or string, chopped raw veg sometimes with a dip, crackers or biscuit, grapes or berries, a banana, a flapjack or cereal bar, frozen tube yoghurt, dried fruit bags. It is a lot and some days she eats it all and sometimes not, at the moment I am able to get this to her before gym, when I couldn't I put an ice pack in with it and it went with her to school along with her lunch in another bag.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

@Noideaaboutgym but is it a "proper" pasty ?

 

[COz]

Packed meals are sandwiches or wraps or homemade pasty, cheese cubes or string, chopped raw veg sometimes with a dip, crackers or biscuit, grapes or berries, a banana, a flapjack or cereal bar, frozen tube yoghurt, dried fruit bags.

And what does she do with the string? ;-)

@Iwannabemargo : what's a 'proper' pasty? A Cornish pasty?

 

[Noideaaboutgym]

@Iwannabemargo No definitely not proper, they prefer cheese, onion and potato but I will throw random leftover things in occasionally



@COz, she would probably eat it! All items in lunch bag are food unless they are plastic boxes! Cheese string are processed cheese which I only buy when I have a child with me shopping as I try to avoid processed things amap.

 

[Noideaaboutgym]

@gymbeam thank-you for linking photos of your lunches, I have more inspiration but even better I have a new use for the underused silicon muffin cases
Also what is sunbutter?

 

[mommyof1]

Someone mentioned thermoses not keeping things hot enough. One trick that works well for me is to preheat the container by filling it with boiling water and letting it sit for several minutes before emptying it and filling it with the hot food. It's an extra step, but the food seems to stay hot for several hours this way.

 

[mommyof1]

Also what is sunbutter?

Sunbutter is sunflower seed butter. It is really quite tasty and is permitted at peanut-free and nut-free schools. It also remains spreadable in the fridge, unlike some nut butters. We get it at Trader Joe's.

 

[Noideaaboutgym]

Someone mentioned thermoses not keeping things hot enough. One trick that works well for me is to preheat the container by filling it with boiling water and letting it sit for several minutes before emptying it and filling it with the hot food. It's an extra step, but the food seems to stay hot for several hours this way.

This is what I do, boiling water before starting to heat the food.

Thanks, the sunbutter sounds good, but at £11.99 (just googled it) for a jar over here I may have to give it a miss.

 

[gymbeam]

@gymbeam thank-you for linking photos of your lunches, I have more inspiration but even better I have a new use for the underused silicon muffin cases
Also what is sunbutter?

You're welcome! I've been adding new ones to the album and I actually started a Facebook page if any of you would like to to go and "like" it.
https://www.facebook.com/letspacklunchboxes

Sunbutter is one particular brand of sunflower seed spread (or butter). Maybe you can try googling for a different brand that may be less expensive in the UK? (Maybe you already did, but thought I might suggest it just in case).

 

[Iwannabemargo]

try here Link Removed

 

[munchkin3]

Great ideas Gymbeam! I already bought some of the cute containers....This is huge for us too! My gimmies finish at 9PM!!! So breakfast at 7 am, a meal at lunch, a meal before practice and a snack after practice.....of course, the hardest time is during the day because this is when they should be eating WELL, and us parents are all at work!! I try and make a good breakfast, and a good pre-gym meal, then i must rely on well packed lunches.....
I will use the picture of the lunchboxes with my kiddies.....excellent ideas!!!

 

[Noideaaboutgym]

Thank-you @Iwannabemargo I am going to try the local health food shop, I love the sound of almond butter and cashew butter too but if they don't have them I will be ordering online

Obviously these are for the kids really

 

[Flossyduck]

The different 'butters' are a big help in our household. I make no bake energy bars for dd, which should have peanut butter in them, but she finds the taste of peanuts a bit rich and sweet. I've been making them with almond butter and sunflower butter, on the advice of our local health food shop, and they've been going down much better. She eats them on rice cakes too, which she will never do with peanut butter.

 

[mobeans]

Yeesh sunbutter costing 11 Pounds . Thankfully I am able to find it for somewhere in the $4 range for it...Kroger and Target seem most reasonable...Whole Foods has it at $7.50 last time I was there.

 

[StringBean'sMom]

I haven't made it through all the replies here, but I can already tell this thread is going to be so valuable! We are working on a transition of school and practice times this year too. Practice is the same (5-9) but intermediate school lets out a full 1 & 1/2 hours later than elementary did. So now she gets off the school bus at 4:30 and practice starts at 5. They aren't allowed to eat on the bus, so packing a large or extra "lunch" won't help. Plus, she hates to eat large amounts right before practice since they tend to do most of their conditioning at the start of practice. Lots of food plus hard conditioning makes for "my belly hurts" phone calls - lol! She keeps her "during practice" snacks pretty light too for the same reason.

When she had a little more time after school, she could eat a decent meal/snack before practice and got in the habit of just a quick bowl of cereal after practice. Now, Without good pre-practice food, that won't be adequate anymore....time for momma to get more creative and give the crockpot a regular workout too! Hoping to use some of the good ideas from you all!

 

[beachgirl]

I LOVE seeing all of these ideas! My daughter has practice 4 to 8 and I take her directly to the gym when I pick up at school. If we go home we waste all of the homework time driving back and forth. She eats a a small dinner or snack before practice and a regular dinner at 8:30 when she gets home. My staples for the before practice dinner are homemade chicken, vegetable and noodle soup (barely any broth) that I freeze individually and heat each day for a thermos, pasta salad with a lot of veggies and cheese and bagels from the bakery section at grocery store that already have cheese melted on them along with a bag of fruit. We carpool home from practice with 3 other families, so whichever mom picks up brings a baggie of fruit for each girl to tide them over until dinner.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

well today she is there 4-8 but with 30 mins break 5-5.30, so in the oven I have 2 pasties, 2 quiche and 2 chicken pies so her and her brother (who coaches) are covered plus so is everyone else - plus the smell is driving me mad cause I'm on a diet and eating salad !!!