Lunch for 18 kids?

Not me this time, it's Smockity!  Smockity and The Common Room Family share mutual friends, a family with 11 children under 15, four of whom are quads and two are twins.  All but two are boys.  The HG used to be their au pair during summer breaks (links are to posts we made when they visited us before).

Smockity wants to know what frugal but filling thing we can suggest for lunches.  Basically, my idea is to bring on the carbs.

Refrigerator bread dough keeps in the fridge so you can have hot bread in just the amount of time it takes to shape it and bake it, basically.

Baked potatoes are very filling.  Scrub them, poke a nail in them, put them in a couple large baking pans which have a little water in the bottom.  Top the pans with foil, or if you are really cheap like us, a baking sheet or two and bake.  The point of the nail and the water is that it speeds up baking a wee bit, shortening the time your oven is in use.

What you top these with will depend on what you have on hand.  We like butter and cottage cheese (children need lots of fat and protein, a low-fat diet is actually harmful to most children- barring the nasty fats in things like french fries and fast food burgers, of course).
Cheese is good but expensive.
Make a white sauce.  If you have it, add some meat to the sauce. 

You can also scoop out the filling, beat it with some milk and a bit of cheese and diced sausages or hotdogs, refill the potatoes and bake again for a few minutes for potato boats, but this takes extra time, extra dishes, and extra baking.

I've also made a big batch of pancakes and then used the pancakes for sandwiches.  My kids love pancakes with peanut butter and jelly.

When we had them over we served shipwreck- a casserole with hamburger meat, rice, potatoes, and carrots which is very forgiving and very filling as well as frugal.

There's Chinese Savory Beef, which is frugal because you can use the toughest cut of meat and it will be tender with this recipe, and you stretch the meat with vegetables.

You can also bake extra potatoes for the baked potato lunch and the shipwreck and then dice cold baked potatoes, cut up some hotdogs, bratwurst, or sausages, and onions and fry it all together.  Any of this leftover can be used in cornish pastries.

Chili and cornbread is always good, and chili is nice because you can always add more beans and tomatoes and water to stretch it out. 

Spaghetti with this recipe for garlic bread sticks.

Apple Fritters make a fun lunch.  Serve with home-made popcorn and a slice of cheese.

Homemade Chicken potpie (if you don't have chicken, make it some other meat, using what you have on hand, and use white sauce instead of canned soups).

Biscuits, made from scratch, with gravy also made from scratch (this was also a favorite supper in our poor days).  You can make white sauce with powdered milk.

Thai Style Pork Noodle Toss (the noodles are leftover cooked spaghetti noodles and the meat is diced small)

Turkey Picadillo (ground turkey, canned tomatoes, etc); One Pan Dandy (a less piquant version made with ground beef)

Chop Suey middle America style, cabbage, diced pork (or substitute another meat)...

Red flannel hash (canned corned beef hash, beets (optional, but then it won't be red), potatoes)

Cabbage and potatoes

Biscuit mix from scratch

a vegetable and egg pie with a biscuit crust- basically a pot pie with biscuit topping, and a vegetarian filling.

Potatoes a dozen ways.

Fried rice

pasta-e-fagioli casserole- noodles, sausage, beans, sauce.

Those are just a few ideas for frugal ways to feed a large group of kids.  If it were  adults, who can eat more tidily, I'd make more soups; Gypsy soup, Tortellini soup, parsnip cheddar soup, lentil soup for peasants, cheeseburger soup, and others.

What's your favorite meal for a crowd?

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