Healthy, Portable Food on a Budget!

One of the challenges we had for campmeeting was food. We were leaving the house by 8:30 every morning and I was getting home around 8pm, the big girls didn't get home until close to 10pm most nights. We opted to eat out for suppers with Daddy, but I didn't want ALL our meals to be eating out that week, both from a health standpoint and a budget standpoint. So, the week before campmeeting, I planned accordingly. I knew we would need to eat breakfasts in the car. Mornings were hurried enough without adding in time to eat at home PLUS the girls tend to not eat much when they first wake up, so waiting a little longer meant they'd eat more as well. So, the week before I made sure that one morning we had breakfast cookies for breakfast and I made a double (or triple, I forget, LOL) batch and froze all that we didn't eat. Another day we had banana muffins and again I (actually my mom, who was here visiting that day) made extra to freeze. So, we had banana muffins and breakfast cookies to eat for breakfast in the car on the way to campmeeting all last week.

For lunch, my kids aren't huge sandwich fans and again, I wanted as little prep as possible. So, the week before one day for lunch we had corndog muffins a new favorite at our house. Again, I made a double recipe and froze what we didn't eat that day. Another day we made picnic pockets for supper. I made 2 rolls and sliced and froze what we didn't eat.

Sunday morning (we didn't have morning meetings at campmeeting on Sunday), I went to a local farm stand and got black raspberries and cherries. I also had carrots and bell pepper in the fridge. Each evening I asked the girls which breakfast, lunch, and fruit options they wanted & pulled the breakfast & lunch items out of the freezer to thaw overnight (though one night I forgot and we at the cookies straight from the freezer for breakfast and they were good that way too, and the lunch items thawed by lunchtime, I just pulled everything out at the same time to save time overall, and to save trips to the basement freezer since I had a broken toe and going down the steep basement stairs was less than comfortable). In the morning I put the lunch "entree" (cornbread muffins or picnic pockets) in each of our wrap-n-mats. I washed the fruit of choice and placed it in a small stainless steel container (similar to these). I placed each of these items, plus a frozen juice box in each of our insulated lunch bags (I have a Built NY Gourmet Getaway, not that fun of a print though, wish it had been available when I got mine LOL, the girls each have a Lands End insulated lunch bag, that's no longer on their site). Then in my bag I added a ziplock of cut up bell pepper and carrots and a small stainless steel container full of ranch dip, that we all shared. It literally took a few minutes to throw this together each morning. Then I tossed the breakfast items into my "car basket" to hand out once we were in the car. A1 sits in the seat beside Little Bit, so she shared her breakfast with Little Bit each day as we drove.

The girls each have a stainless steel water bottle and were responsible to fill it each morning (or the night before, their choice) and I filled mine. So we had water on our drive up and at lunch, plus they had the juice boxes (I used a small re-freezable ice pack in mine instead of a juice box).