Today I was featured in The Independent supplement Mother and Baby

http://www.independent.ie/life/family/mothers-babies/think-outside-the-lunchbox-35016666.html

This is the unedited version:
I am an English teacher so the whole lunch box blog is like a school project complicated by the fact I had 3 fussy eaters aged 11, 9 and 6 who weren’t afraid to complain! Also our school is nut free which is probably becoming the norm now.

Tips to make lunches simple:
If you are a successful with school lunches you should want to eat them yourself.

Buy a snazzy lunch box we have Bento boxes with lots of different little boxes I them with lids and come with a proper spoon and fork and allow you to add a napkin too for sticky fingers.

I think it’s all about the planning. I usually have batches of muffins in the freezer, at least two flavours as one kid won’t eat banana and the other won’t eat lemon! There are recipes for banana or fruit ones on my blog which I alternate during the week as our dessert element. I know it gets eaten first though! We experiment with flavours and vote if they are lunch box worthy. For example everyone hates courgettes in my house but will happily eat zucchini and orange muffins or zucchini and chocolate cake. These can be popped into the lunch box in the morning and are ready to eat by small break if not sooner.

I also have different breads in the freezer such as brioche or homemade rolls. We don’t make sandwiches each day as mine won’t eat them, instead I deconstruct them. So a roll with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella balls on the side is really a cheese and tomato sandwich in disguise! Also I have one daughter who will eat brown soda bread but hates it if I sandwich it together with butter as when she opened it all of the butter was on one side. So now I put a little pat of butter or jam into the mini bento box and a kiddie knife and she butters it in school.
Lots of articles suggest cutting sandwiches into different shapes realistically who has time for that? By using different breads you recreate the mundane.

We also use leftovers input lunch box. Cold pasta with pesto or parmesan cheese becomes a salad item! Chicken goujons or pizza also goes in there too, much to the envy of school friends surprisingly.

Variety

I believe variety is important. I want to raise kids who will enjoy food and will experiment with flavours as they get older. For example while on holiday in France we had foie the porc for lunch, pâté to you and I, all three tried it and Aoife liked it. She suggested that we could put it in the lunch boxes with some crackers!  If they have the same lunch each day they