The Tyranny of Lunches

M starts preschool on June 1. K and I are VERY excited...perhaps (but doubtful) even more so than Miss M herself. The school, at least on paper, looks and sounds uber-fabulous. I'm really looking forward to M meeting more kids her own age. I'm also looking forward to meeting more parents and hopefully making a few new friends (please, please, please don't let them all be a bunch of drips). What I'm not looking forward to is the fact that as of June 1, I will have to provide all of M's lunches.

I'm spoiled, I admit it. The wonderful owner of M's current daycare prepares all the kids lunches every day from scratch. So aside from packing a few pieces of fruit and yogurt each morning (and I don't even have to do that), I'm not expected to lift a single finger when it comes to managing her weekly lunches.

Sadly, those days will soon be over. And this has me more than a little freaked out. The thing is, M is used to eating BIG meals for lunch--pastas, soups, pizza--and lots of Syrian and Armenian dishes that I haven't a clue how to create. But her preschool has asked us to try and limit the number of lunches that will need to be reheated in the microwave. It makes sense...they've got a few dozen kids there at any given time and lunch would take far too long if each kid had something that needed to be reheated. However this creates a larger problem for me--aside from PB&J, M just isn't into sandwiches. So what to do?

I have been reading through a number of "kid" cookbooks to see if I can find inspiration. Some of them (one in particular) have loads of really great ideas. But only a few have recipes for meals that don't need to be reheated or prepared on the spot. And the even bigger challenge is, will she actually eat the lunches or go on a hunger strike? Oh, and from a purely selfish perspective, I'm just not looking forward to making lunches every frigging night.

So here I am. In the early stages of a full-blown panic. I suppose in my copious amounts of free time, I need to start trying out some recipes on her to see what works/what doesn't. And then make copies of the "hits" for future reference. But I don't WANT to. I don't want to deal with lunches at all. Nor do I look forward to the mounting pressure as M begins comparing her lunch with the lunches of other kids...kids whose moms and dads are gourmet chefs and Martha Stewart rolled into one.

Sigh.

Anyway, if you have any great kid-friendly, easy-to-prepare, cold lunch ideas or recipes....do share. I can use all the help I can get at the moment.