aKathy's What's for Dinner 2/20

It does help!  I have two bruises that are each about four inches in diameter ... seriously.  I went down hard.  Metal toilet paper holders are the devil!   

I forgot to mention lunch. We took lunch most days and sometimes ate in the cafeteria at school. Lunch was always a sandwich (PB&J, tuna, lunch meat), fruit, and either cookies or chips, never both. For my own kids and then the 14yo, same thing.

In high school, there was a Safeway right across the street and several small restaurants nearby, so sometimes (if I had any money!) I’d do that. At Safeway I’d just buy two apples and a candy bar. Nice lunch. We didn’t have a cafeteria in HS so it was open campus.

ETA and I still love sandwiches and eat them frequently.


Yes, we are. And our brother’s fine, he just doesn’t really get us and we totally don’t get him, either. But his second wife (the one who died suddenly a few years ago) was like another sister to us.

This sounds right up my husband's alley!!  I don't mind a good shoot 'em up bang bang once in awhile as long as there is eye candy!!

I used the leftover sausages from Monday's BBQ to make curried coconut sausages with rice in the Thermomix. I had planned to eat the rechauffed rechauffe   for lunch today, but I stupidly left the sausages in the Thermomix on the bench overnight. I will just have the rice instead - at least I put that in the fridge. 

Australian schools don't have cafeterias. They have a canteen (also called a tuck shop) where you can buy food, but there isn't anywhere to sit and eat. You just buy the food at the counter, and then go sit in the playground to eat.

When I was at primary school in the 70s, I would take sandwiches for lunch every day. One of my chores was to make the sandwiches for the week, which we wrapped and then put in the freezer. We had either Vegemite, or peanut butter, or ham cheese and lettuce. In the summer, we would put cordial in our drink bottles and freeze them overnight, then wrap the drink bottle in a tea towel. By lunchtime, the cordial had started to defrost, so you had a lovely orange cordial slushie.

Every Thursday was lunch order day. You wrote your lunch order on the front of a brown paper bag, put the money inside the bag, and then into the box in the classroom. Someone would then take the orders up to the high school canteen - the high school was next door. I LOVED lunch order day! I would buy a meat pie and an iced donut, and it cost about 40 cents! 

My kids' school had a canteen, so they could have a lunch order any day. Like most other parents, I only let my kids have a lunch order once a week, unless I ran out of bread for sandwiches.

scrapmaven......I hope that whatever cardiac issues you're having will improve/ resolve ASAP! As if your tummy isn't enough stress!





My siblings and I have always fondly reminisced about the cafeteria food at school, and how we LOVED it (when most of our friends
did NOT!) Especially that square cardboard pizza jeremysgirl mentioned. In junior and high school, they served on Fridays----I still crave it! And my Elementary school had the
BEST meatloaf and apple crisp.




Ugh, GROSS memories of us doing the same! . Nothing like a mooshy, soggy bread with meat.



Omg, right? I don't know HOW we choked down warm tuna . But I love it when children of the 70's (me included) reminisce about
riding in tbe back of station wagons with no seat belt, etc. and that popular saying: "but you survived, didn't you?"




That's very clever! I remember wrapping Coke cans in foil, thinking it would keep them cold for hours---NOT!

What is this chilli onion crunch of which you speak? It sounds like something DSO and I would love.

Chilli - good. Onion - good. Crunch - goooooooood!

(((Hugs))) and prayers. Welcome back!



smart man!



Germany and England - we had a fresh cooked school dinner...complete with a warm pudding.

Cyprus - we were on a tropical schedule so school let out in time for lunch at home.

I did mostly packed lunch in the States - sandwiches (tuna or egg mayo or mum would buy these meat spreads and make sandwiches with them underwoodspreads.com/products/ or occasionally the super thin lunchmeats - Buddig I think). I don't remember what we packed as sides - mum really didn't buy chips or Little Debbie/Hostess type things. I'm sure I took cookies if we had some. We would buy milk at school - whole, chocolate, strawberry, or coffee were the options).

I eat leftovers for lunch or pita and hummus or ...well today I had cereal - grapenuts with craisins.

DD17 doesn't care for school lunch so if she can get herself together, she packs a lunch. Usually leftovers with fruit and raw veggies and whatever lunch treat she asked for that week - this week it's individual bags of chips. If she doesn't get it packed - school lunch is free here so...she won't go hungry. She doesn't like sandwiches so won't take those but will take egg mayo or lunch meat/cheese without the bread.


Dinner tonight was leftover spiced country style ribs - I froze the leftovers last week and defrosted and reheated tonight - with roasted Greek rutabagas and a side salad. I also put the leftover coleslaw, carrot-raisin salad, and cheese cubes on the table.

AussieMeg I was curious about it but it is really like the chili found in real Chinese restaurants with an oil base, red pepper flakes, garlic etc that we would use for dim sum and add to soups. So not as tasty as I was expecting but a nice add to the soup.

Wow.....that's horrible! She's not the students' PARENTS---none of her concern if you didn't finish something ! ESPECIALLY if it was
something a child didn't like!
I'm glad we never had that in my schools! We already had enough of that at home---ugh! Mom made us eat EVERY. SINGLE. BITE.
even if it was something we hated. I still remember the time I had to literally gag/ choke down some lima beans. **shudder **

These kinds of stories really upset me! I think it was scrapmaven who said her Kindergarden teacher used to HIT her? (sorry
if I'm mis-remembering, but I'm pretty sure that was the story)

I had that at home too. I was just talking this week to my diabetes advisor, and told her I think that is a big part of me having difficulty with portion sizes now - I never learned to stop eating when I was full


I am a similar age to scrapmaven, and yes - teachers hit kids all the time when I was in primary school. It was just how it was. Parents also used to hit their kids - my dad had his belt and mum had her wooden spoons.