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Meals you can pull from a cupboard (no cooking needed) on the cheap?
I do a summer program for kids in Minneapolis. The program runs one day a week (done at a church in conjunction with some adult services they provide). We give the kids a take home pack with food.
Several of these kids do not have basic cooking supplies where they are staying. I asked them and half didn?t have a stove or microwave, a couple are moving every night. We have given out a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwich supplies because of this. Last week we branched off a little bit and gave them enough stuff for three tuna sandwiches to see if they liked them.
What else can we give them that would be more like a meal and has some kind of nutritional value? It has to be cheap too. We have access to a restaurant supply store so we can get things like single use jelly and mayo packs. Last week our meal portion included a loaf of vitamin enhanced bread, 20 single use jellies and peanut butters, one three-pack of tuna cans (pop-top lid), single use packs of mayo, disposable knives and hand wipes. The tuna packs were $1.79 which was pushing it on the price since each kid needed one (we try to keep the contents of the bag under $5). They get snacks too, but those are not hard to come up with.
What else can we give them that is ?lunch-like? and requires no heating, cooling or special tools besides disposable silverware?
Re: Meals you can pull from a cupboard (no cooking needed) on the cheap?
What a great program. Thank you for helping those kids!
I'm trying to come up with some ideas. Does everything have to be non-perishable or just not require refrigeration. For example, apples can last a week on the counter, but they would spoil if you had leave it in your storeroom for a month. Also, if you're packing for a week at a time, could you carry items from one day to the next (like a loaf of bread)? Do you know if they have access to a refrigerator?
If tuna in pop-top cans works, chicken comes that way too.
What about single-serve fruit cups or applesauce cups? That would last longer than fresh fruit.
Granola bars or cereal bars?
Mr. Sammy Dog
Would something like pasta salad or a couscous salad be too much preparation? You can add lots of veggies, and even things like chickpeas for extra protein to make them complete entree-style salads, and they don't require any heating or even much in the way of refrigeration (provided you avoid dairy and they're eaten the same day)...
Mr. Sammy Dog
These might be more snackish, but trail mix and popcorn would keep well. Popcorn is really cheap and very filling. You could even make peanut butter popcorn balls to up the nutrition on them (and you can roll them in all kinds of things to change the flavor). Trail mix is pretty healthy, too, as long as you hold back on the chocolate chips and M&Ms.
Also, rice and pasta can both be eaten cold if they have a refrigerator and are big, cheap filler items. You can cook them ahead of time.
SPAM - a nod from our thrifty parents' generation
Canned chicken mixed with mayo and spread on a cracker
They have to be non-refrigerated. They get a pack every week so fruits work, but they get them as part of the snack (along with fruit snacks, granola bars, crackers?). Some children live in shelters and don?t have a ?home? during the day and some are living in something that is not supposed to be a dwelling (like in an empty room above a shop) so not all of the kids have any kind of kitchen supplies (some do, but that wouldn?t be nice to give some kids easy-mac and soups and others tuna and peanut butter).
We saw the chicken cans with pop-tops, but they were three times more than the tuna cans?still something to keep in mind.
Wondering what you had in mind for pasta salad?.wouldn ?t the pasta need to be cooked, or if it was pre-made wouldn?t it need to be refrigerated?
As for SPAM?no. But that is just a personal opinion.
One other thing, we like items that need to be refrigerated after opened to be things they can eat right away because some won?t have a way to keep it refrigerated. I don?t want people keeping open food that can spoil because some people will end up eating it.
Are the kids old enough to prepare something or do they need something they can just open and eat? Are you giving them enough food for an entire week?
If you google "no cook food bags" you should come up with websites with ideas for food bags for the homeless. There might be something there. Another option is to google no cook backpacking or camping meals.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
The kids are 3-10. They all have someone who takes care of them so even if they are not able to put a sandwich together someone they stay with is. Most of the time the person who drops the kids off seems to care a fair bit about the happiness of the children so I would like to think they would help them eat. The idea was to give them the same amount of found they would get at school (5 lunches/snacks).
I was wondering if you/the staff could assemble salads ahead of time and send servings of it home in cheap gladware or ziplocks or something. I wasn't sure whether you have the option of pre-cooking things, or if they have access to refrigeration. (If they were eating the salad that day, refrigeration wouldn't matter so much.) But it doesn't sounds like this would work.