I did something Mrs Beeton did

Recently, as a form of self-flagellation, I have been reading the Frugal Family Fun Blog's posts about bento lunch boxes. Much as I admire anyone who can cut out carrot flowers and watermelon stars on a daily basis, I am not that woman. Since Eldest started eating lunch at nursery six years ago, I have been lucky to come up with a sandwich every morning. A sandwich filled with ham and stress and early-morning shouting.

Nancy's solution to this is to get the child to do it. Good for her. But getting my children into their clothes is enough of a battle for me, and Eldest's fine motor skills turn sandwich-making into an Occupational Therapy exercise requiring the kind of patience and time not available in The Coffee House at 8am.

The general idea of do-it-yourself was a good one, though. So I sat down one night and made a whole pile of sandwiches and stuck them in paper bags and labelled them and put them in the freezer. Each morning each Latte is thrown a frozen sandwich, a frozen yogurty stick thing, a piece of fruit and a box of raisins (both these latter items will return untouched) to pack into their box.

One of Eldest's favourite sandwich fillings is Mrs Beeton's potted chicken. I'm not at all intimidated by Mrs Beeton, especially since I heard her recipe for a toast sandwich which involved a slice of cold toast between two slices of bread. What was she, a teenaged student?

So. Potted chicken. (The recipe uses six tablespoons of cooked chicken, but this can easily be scaled down if your chicken was pitifully tiny or you used too many of the leftovers by mistake.)

6 tablespoons chopped cooked chicken
6 tablespoons chicken stock
3 tablespoons melted butter
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon allspice

You put the chicken and the stock in a pan and boil it. Then you put the butter and the spices in and you whizz it in a little chopper. And you put it in a jar, or in frozen sandwiches, or on toast for afternoon tea if the Duchess is coming round.

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