This week has been very hectic.  When we returned from our mini-vacation we came home to an empty snack box.  Not a muffin or muesli bar in sight.  We had appointments to keep, loads and loads of washing to catch up on, homework sheets and readers to complete, and to top it off the youngest member of the family went to the doctor two days in a row.  Luckily, Tuesday is tuckshop day at our school, and I usually let the kids have this treat once a fortnight.  It’s a small school and the tuckshop offers a lot of homemade items, so it’s not a  junk for lunch day.  That was Tuesday’s lunch taken care of, but I still had to think about school and kindy lunches for the rest of the week.

This didn’t leave a lot of time for baking, and much of it was done after the kids went to bed.  We all know the golden rule, right?  Never try to cook something new when you are time poor or in a pinch….like when you have company coming over, you have limited ingredients, or it is late at night and you need to bake something for lunch boxes the next day.  Unfortunately, some of us never learn, and that “some of us” , would be me!

This week’s baked late at night  total failure was a chocolate chip  muesli bar.  I have made a few of these recently, and I have my favourites, but this one contained wholemeal flour, and that appealed me.  It seemed quite dry before I put it in the oven, but the author raved about it, so I stuck to the recipe.  That was my mistake.  It was too dry, and there was no way the kids could munch their way through a whole bar, so I cut them into smaller squares.  Once refrigerated, they were a bit nicer, but still only just o.k., so I’m not going to post the recipe.

More importantly, here’s what worked in our lunch boxes this week:

Chilli Chicken and Salad rolls (my recipe)

Macaroni with Spicy Mince (recipe coming soon)

Wicked Chocolate Cake (by Annette Sym)

Honey Loaf (from frillsinthehills.com)

Cranberry Muesli Bar (my creation through trial and error)

Popcorn (popped it myself, very cheap and low carb.)

Cheese sticks and crackers (I cut my own cheese sticks using low fat cheese)

Craisins, Sultanas, Apples, Grapes and Kiwi Fruit

Butter Biscuits (Friday’s afternoon tea, I will post the recipe soon.  They were great.)

It is unusual for us not to include yoghurt somewhere, but that’s just the way it went this week.

Hope this list gives you some inspiration.