Calorie-dense and easy-to-eat, lunch ideas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go buy the all butter puff pastry from Trader Joe’s. It is a seasonal item in the frozen section. Two sheets in a box.

Unroll one defrosted pastry sheet on a parchment lined baking pan. Put down cheese slices, leaving a one inch margin around. Mix canned tuna and a little tomato purée in a bowl til
You have a paste (don’t let it get very wet or it will make the pastry soggy.) put one scoop of tuna over each slice of cheese. Then top with another slice of cheese.

Brush edge of pastry with egg wash, cover cheese tuna tomato mix with the other pastry sheet. Paint egg wash on top, use tines of fork to seal the edges together and poke holes in top. Bake at 400 for 30 min or until pastry is puffed up and golden. Cool on cooling rack. Delicious cold or hot. Cut into serving sizes.

You can also use meat sauce, or ham and cheese, etc whatever filling, as long as it is not too wet.

Thanks, will try this. She doesn't like tuna or tomato, or ham, but I can try it with cheese, or maybe apple filling? Or is that too wet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We do pasta with pesto or raos in a thermos. You could add cubed mozzarella and or Parmesan.

Or beans and brown rice with grated cheddar cheese in a thermos.

Or a protein bar with applesauce and crackers.

Those ritz cracker snack breaks (although a bunch have nuts) with a Clementine.

A quesadilla with smashed beans and cheese fried in olive oil that wrapped in aluminum foil. You could add mashed butternut squash too if she likes that.

My kid would like the mushroom ravioli—I’ll have to try that.

I’ve sometimes made empanadas with meat or sautéed mushroom and those make decent lunch leftovers.

Thanks for all these great ideas. She would probably like the fried quesadilla. I've never tried making empanadas, but will give it a try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bagel with cream cheese
Pinwheel sandwiches with her preferred lunch meats
Muffins/dense breads like banana bread
Cheese sticks and apple slices
Will she eat a cold quesadilla or pizza slice?

I'd forgotten about bagel and cream cheese - I'll put that on the list!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're focusing too healthy.

Chocolate croissant, milk, and veg or fruit.

Salami, cheese, veggies, chips, juice.

12 oz smoothie (Odwalla or something) and cheese sandwich with a veg.

+1 as the parent of a low-weight/low BMI kid, particularly at school it's just calories in. I would not send any foods that she doesn't like or only tolerates. Send stuff she enjoys and eat reliably even if it's junk. You can work on healthy eating at home.

[Anonymous]

Protein smoothie in a thermos

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soup isn’t going to be enough. Is this a private school? Most middle and high schools allow nuts.

Ravioli/tortellini with sauce would be my recommendation. Look at jarred sauces at the store and pick the one with the most calories. We use Rao’s Sensitive Marinara.

My teen is in recovery from anorexia, so unfortunately I have experience with this.

If she’s a slow eater AND a picky eater AND you have trouble with her weight, please look into ARFID. If it resonates at all, please get her treatment. You do not want this to persist into adulthood, and it can create health issues, short and long term.

She doesn't like anything with tomatoes, so sauce is out. Generally all condiments or sauces are out. Butter is a preferred favorite.

I read up on ARFID and it does resonate somewhat. But I would say she is much less pickier now, then she used to be between the ages of 6-8. She will at least try everything now. But the complete lack of interest in eating, lack of appetite, and also the frequent choking episodes (going down the wrong pipe), and lack of growth- that all sounds familiar. What does treatment look like for ARFID?

Her aunt also had a very severe eating disorder, but she says now that it was just undiagnosed celiac disease. We have tested multiple times for celiac.

EDs are genetic, so your daughter is at risk, regardless of symptoms. Celiac and EDs have a high co-morbity rate - in fact, I’ve read that everyone diagnosed with ED should be tested for celiac. It is very possible her aunt had both.

Treatment for ARFID is a mix of CBT, exposure therapy, food-chaining. You want someone who used evidence-based methods (they should use that phrase). Ask what specific methods they use. They should be able to back each one up. Talk therapy is a waste of time here, as is yoga, equine therapy, etc.

Lack of growth is a big red flag, btw.

I don’t know if this will help motivate, but picky eating can have a big impact on your social life later. Dating, lunch meetings at work, etc. My high school BFF was a crazy picky eater, and it has impacted her whole life.

OP here. This is kind of going down a rabbit hole, but I need to think on this. I'm familiar with EDs because I was involved in the family therapy portion for the aunt, who has been hospitalized and admitted to ED clinics several times, and it was kind of awful. She also had a therapist. But I really believe that all of that intervention only made things worse for her for a long time. She had been tested for celiac throughout her life as well, but only tested positive for it about 8 years ago, and she has been doing well since then. She also had growth issues as a tween/teen and is very small. So I have all that in the back of my mind because I do see similarities. And yet I feel the treatment she received made her worse, and only exposed her to some pretty severe eating disorders, and in a way, she was kind of competitive in that environment -" who can go to the most extreme" that type of competitiveness, to get the sympathy, attention, care, and to some extent - envy of the others in treatment.

So I am fearful of intervention, because I feel it can sometimes make it worse. And this is such a complex, tricky thing that is different for each person, and with our child, she is so oppositional to any kind of intervention, it would be extremely stressful and challenging to take that on. Also, I do believe she is doing much better with breakfast and dinners. The lunches has been challenging because she seems to rarely finish them, and she says she doesn't have time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're focusing too healthy.

Chocolate croissant, milk, and veg or fruit.

Salami, cheese, veggies, chips, juice.

12 oz smoothie (Odwalla or something) and cheese sandwich with a veg.

+1 as the parent of a low-weight/low BMI kid, particularly at school it's just calories in. I would not send any foods that she doesn't like or only tolerates. Send stuff she enjoys and eat reliably even if it's junk. You can work on healthy eating at home.

Yeah, I'm not against junk food. But I guess I want to make sure she's not just getting a pure sugar rush and doesn't have enough complex carbs or protein to sustain her through the day. These are great suggestions though, and putting them on the list.

[Anonymous]

Op, I have a picky eater who tends to need calories too. Following for more ideas, but I send a lot of things like buttered pasta, pancakes (he loves those and you can find higher-protein mixes), waffles, cheese quesadillas. I focus on calories and fight the protein battle at home. I know he won’t eat it there. I get the frustration but I just need him to eat.

Will she eat scrambled eggs for breakfast? I try to push those so he has SOME protein.

[Anonymous]

Lots of good suggestions here. We also do Cliff bars for our underweight kid at school. They are very easy to eat and contain a lot of calories.

[Anonymous]

As far as hot food I do nuggets once a week and pasta in sauce once a week. Both in a preheated thermos. Turkey/cheese sandwich or turkey, cheese crackers. With fruit. Cereal bar or granola bar?

[Anonymous]

My DS is likes wraps- large flour tortilla, avocado, and some kind of protein. It's fast and gets him through the day. I add extras like a cookie or peanut butter cups for calories. He's not starving at lunch and could stand to gain weight (ADHD medication).
OP- I think the reason DS does well with wraps is because he doesn't analyze everything in the sandwich before eating- he eats a varied diet (with some hard exceptions), but if he decides he doesn't like something, he won't eat it, no matter how hungry. It happened last night- he was hungry, did not like how Chipotle prepared his tacos, and simply refused to eat any dinner. Very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Google Rachel Zoe crack salami. If your daughter likes salami and has a sweet tooth, she will love this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I should note - the school has a nut-free policy, so no nuts. Also she dislikes any kind of sun-butter or nut butter. And unfortunately she's also picky. She does have a sweet tooth, but does not like bananas. Generally she doesn't like meat, but will eat fish or chicken sometimes in small amounts, and she will eat salami. She dislikes sandwiches, but I still pack them for her, and she eats about a 1/3 of it.

Some things I have in rotation that have been successful: cheese and bean burrito, buttered mushroom ravioli, mushroom soup, brocolli and cheddar soup.

Oh, that’s crazy. Sorry to hear that. Nuts are such a good way to get protein and are filling. How much do they really enforce the policy? Peanut butter is filling, for sure. Kids need protein. And the sun butters can cause digestive issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go buy the all butter puff pastry from Trader Joe’s. It is a seasonal item in the frozen section. Two sheets in a box.

Unroll one defrosted pastry sheet on a parchment lined baking pan. Put down cheese slices, leaving a one inch margin around. Mix canned tuna and a little tomato purée in a bowl til
You have a paste (don’t let it get very wet or it will make the pastry soggy.) put one scoop of tuna over each slice of cheese. Then top with another slice of cheese.

Brush edge of pastry with egg wash, cover cheese tuna tomato mix with the other pastry sheet. Paint egg wash on top, use tines of fork to seal the edges together and poke holes in top. Bake at 400 for 30 min or until pastry is puffed up and golden. Cool on cooling rack. Delicious cold or hot. Cut into serving sizes.

You can also use meat sauce, or ham and cheese, etc whatever filling, as long as it is not too wet.

Thanks, will try this. She doesn't like tuna or tomato, or ham, but I can try it with cheese, or maybe apple filling? Or is that too wet?

I think it would work! that sounds yummy. (The TJ's pastry is the same as dufours, which is available year round at places like whole foods but is 4x the price.)

[Anonymous]

Ham and cheese croissant - really, any croissant sandwich (think filling with brie, mozzarella, havarti, etc.)
Butter cookies dipped in chocolate
Donuts
Fried chicken nuggets
Latkes
Beef and cheese quesadillas
Mini-corn dogs