These awesome ideas are proudly brought to you by our friends at Thermos®
With the new school year almost upon us, parents around the country are getting ready to send their kids back to school.
Starting school is a big step for your child, but also for you too. You may underestimate how time-consuming and exhausting getting the kids (as well as yourself!) ready for the new school year can really be.
Think about it, as parents we need to:
- Go through all the stationery lists and tick them off, one by one… this can be extremely tedious, especially if you have more than one child!
- Check uniforms fit – some of ours have holes in them. Then (usually) purchase new uniforms that will then get holes in them by week two.
- Purchase hats in bulk, knowing full well that we will probably still need to purchase more throughout the school year because of #IdontknowwhereIputit
- Check that the school bags from last year don’t still contain a manky banana and receive the notes from the teacher that required you to go see them.
If your child is just starting out in prep/kindergarten (take your tissues and concealer) or if you are an old hand at the start of the new school year – we all face the dreaded SCHOOL LUNCH debacle…
What to pack the kids for lunches, every day, for the next 12 years.
My kids’ school has a healthy lunchbox policy which is a fantastic initiative to ensure that the kids are eating wholesome and healthy foods – but it can add extra pressure to the already-busy working week!
Fun Fact: The average parent will make 2,160 school lunches PER CHILD for the duration of their schooling years.
The school my kids go to also has a healthy lunchbox policy. Don’t get me wrong, I agree wholeheartedly with the ethos behind the no processed food, no party food, and no waste recommendations, but gee it can add extra stress to the already-busy working week!
Lunch Box Recommendations
First of all, when purchasing a new lunch box, make sure it is totally washable. (Then thank me a few weeks down the track). As well as washable lunch boxes, I have quite a few Thermos® containers for my boys. Why? It opens up the range of lunches that I can send to school with them!
Incredibly Thermos®FUNtainer® food jars can keep contents hot for up to five hours and cold for up to seven hours.. ..and the two versions of the drink bottles keep liquid cool for up to twelve hours or warm for 12 hours!
In fun designs that kids’ love, there is a colour and print that suits all – from Disney, Frozen, StarWars and Cars (my boys love Cars!), to flowers, butterflies and firetrucks!
The jars and bottles have a durable stainless-steel interior and exterior and even the littlest of fingers can easily open them up.
Here are some of my favourite recipe ideas that are simple to make, but pack a punch in terms of flavour and nourishment, whilst keeping food and drinks fresh in Thermos® FUNtainer® food jars or bottles.
Cold Drink Ideas
Be gone unhealthy sugar-filled poppers. Now that I can keep fluids cold for hours, it totally opens up what I can send to school with them.
- Banana smoothies (or Banana and Strawberry if they’re lucky – yum yum!)
- Flavoured waters (fill bottle with iced water and cut up fruit pieces such as lemon, strawberries, lime and cucumber)
- Homemade sugar-free lemonade non-sparkling
Busy working mums, that need to be out the door early can pop a delicious breakfast smoothie together and pop it in the drink bottle ready for the kids to enjoy throughout the school day. Not only will it still be cool by the time morning tea or lunch arrives (if they haven’t slurped it already)!
The trick to ensuring that your drink stays cool is to make sure that the contents are cool when you put them into the bottle, seal the lid – that’s it, you’re ready to go!
Cold Food Ideas
It isn’t just drinks that you can pop into a Thermos® FUNtainer® – cold foods work brilliantly too! Here are some nifty ideas to try:
- Smoothie Bowl
- Yoghurt with Fruit
- Freshly made sushi
- Homemade custard
- Fresh salad with dressing
- Chicken Salad
- Pasta or Rice Salad with chopped fresh veggies
- Hummus and Vegetable Sticks
Salad in a Thermos – it stays cool all day!
Warm Drink Ideas
But in Winter – you can also pack delicious warm drinks, too. Think:
- Warm Vanilla Flavoured Malted Milk
- Homemade Hot Chocolate or good ole Hot Milo
- Milky Tea (my boys love drinking tea!)
Hmmmm Hot Chocolate!
Warm drinks are something us Australian’s never really think about because we usually only drink coffee or tea (well the grown-ups do) so having the Thermos® opens up a whole new world of warm drinks – which is perfect during the winter months.
Plus if you are trying to put weight on a child (my little Autism Spectrum boy is always on the skinny side) – this is a great way to get an extra few calories into their bellies at school!
Warm Food Ideas
Now we get to the fun bit – warm food to pop into the Thermos® FUNtainer®. This is perfect for primary school kiddies as it holds 290ml, which is an ideal serving size and it has a really big mouth, which makes it easy for me to get food into the Thermos®!
I love that I have the option of filling them with hot or cold food. The mouth of the jar is extra wide, which means it is easy to fill, eat out of and also clean.
Some nifty ideas for warm food to take to school include:
- Heated leftovers from the night before (spaghetti bolognaise is a personal favourite in our household)
- Warmed home-made chicken nuggets.
- Cherios with a bit of tomato sauce.
- Meatballs
- Fried Rice
- Pizza Scrolls or Mince Scrolls or Vegemite and Cheese Scrolls.
- Vegetable Fritters
- Baked Beans
- Pasta Dishes (like Carbonara or Macaroni Cheese)
- Ramen Noodles with Vegetables
- Soups – any sort. Pumpkin, Potato and Bacon, Beef and Barley
Baked Beans are Good for the Heart!
Outside-the-Box Warm Food Ideas
Okay, so you probably already know most of the above warm foods that you can put into a Thermos® product. But now we cover a few of the ‘Outside the Square’ type of foods to include. Are you ready?
- Scrambled Eggs
- Hot Porridge with milk and a little brown sugar on top
- Roasted vegetables with gravy
- Toasted Sandwiches
- Dumplings with sauce
- Burgers – yep make up the burger and either chop it in half or if it is fairly small, just pop it right into the FUNtainer® – and it will be deliciously warm for lunch. Just don’t add lettuce!
- Mini Satay Sticks
- Mini Pancakes with Maple Syrup
- Warm hard boiled eggs with buttered soldiers
- Chicken and vegetables or chicken and rice
- Chicken Crepes – or any warm filling really! Just roll them up and pop them in the thermos!
My boys took leftover chicken and rice in the Thermos
Now you can win a Thermos® pack for the new school year! Enter Below!
Fill out my online form.
- This competition will run from 8am AEST on 22nd January, 2019 to 9am AEST on 6th February, 2019.
- The winner will be notified via email or phone, and winners may be published on Facebook
- The winner has 90 day to claim their prize or it will be forfeited and given to a runner up
- This competition is open to Australian Residents only
- This competition is open for entrants 18 years and older
- We will accept online one entry per person
- Thermos®, Stay at Home Mum and their immediate families are ineligible to enter
- We release Facebook from any liability in relation to the competition, and advise that none of our competition are sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook
- Please refer to our Competition Terms & Conditions page for full details
- This winner will be determined by skill of answering the question by staff of Thermos® or SAHM
