$2 Lunch Challenge: Day Two

The lunches I packed for my kids for Day Two of the $2 Lunch Challenge were pretty similiar. I only made a few adjustments for my son. Here is my daughter's lunch which cost a total of $1.98:

Here is how it broke down:

• I made the pork chop "nuggets" at home. It took all of ten minutes. I used thick pork loin chops from Whole Foods, cut them up into small pieces, dipped them in a beaten cage free egg, covered them in a breading made up of panko bread crumbs, grated romano cheese from Sprouts, sea salt and pepper, then cooked them in a little bit of olive oil until they were done. All of the ingredients cost about $4.20 and they made 15 good sized nuggets. It looks like there are four nuggets in my daughter's salad, but it was three (one was long so I cut it in half). Total for the nuggets: $0.84.


• The ingredients for the salad (lettuce, grape tomatoes and radishes) and ranch cost $0.28.


• One cup of organic popcorn was $0.12.


• The fruit salad was all organic produce (banana, kiwi and tangerine) and cost $0.74.

My son is not a salad eater (I'm still trying), so I substituted the salad for two chocolate strawberry yogurt covered pretzels from the bulk bin at Whole Foods. I know the salad is much healthier than the pretzels, but we're working on it. His total came to $1.92.

Had they eaten at school, it would have set me back $4.25 for this:

• Breakfast Burrito w/ Ham, 360 calories
• Homestyle Potatoes, 207 calories
• Fresh Orange Slices, 31 calories
• Dessert, 124 calories
  TOTAL: 734 calories