posted
So*, I start full-time work on October 3rd.
Given I have access to a microwave, fridge, dishwasher, cutlery and crockery at work, I intend to take my own rather than buying over-priced junky stuff.
But, I want more than just sandwhiches. So far I've worked out some soups I can make in big batches on weekends and freeze, and am thinking of maybe batches of fresh tuna cakes as well.
What else should I be thinking about? I need stuff I can prepare on the weekend and freeze (or fridge) for the week - I won't have much time after or before work for food preparation.
I am also buying cute tupperware to transport said lunches. Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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If I were you, I'd just pack leftovers from dinner the night before. But then, I'm lazy. Good for you.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Though I pretty much just get the sandwich deal, so I can't help you too much with the non-sandwich lunch ideas.
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Taking lunch was always easy for me. We always had leftover rice in the rice cooker so I made bento with that and Costco chicken (the kind that you throw frozen into the microwave for 45 seconds) almost every day while I was in HS.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Yeah, well, I'm still in high school. Things get a little bit different once you hit college, I'd imagine.
(This is, of course, assuming that I'm not incorrect in thinking that you're currently at college. However, you could also be referring to the past when you did attend high school. *shrugs*)
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Ha ha. I just graduated from High School. College is bliss, except for that tuition factor...x.X
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Chicken salad, potato salad, or any type of pasta salad (personally I like tuna&tomato pasta salad mmmyummy). Posts: 1431 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I have a recipe for Indian Spiced chicken and raita that's easy to make and eat for the week. Over a salad, the chicken (shredded) and the raita (as salad dressing) are really, really good.
Posts: 516 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Back when I worked, I'd make and freeze into individual serving size containers pasta & sauce, chili & rice (my favorite is Cajun Chicken Chili), and such like that. If you like curries, then pretty much any kind of curry with rice will freeze well.
I'd usually make enough of a dish that I could freeze five or six at a time, but had, oh, 20 containers or something, and I didn't label them. So it was always a surprise as to what I was going to have for lunch. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Will, that's a bit sloppy for the office, no? You'll be walking around with chili spots on your shirt all afternoon.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Salads. Lots of veggies with grilled meat or shrimp on top. Dressing in little jar to toss with the salad just before eating.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I pack a lunch, but I eat the same thing every day.
Morning snack: protein cookie Lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwhich, with a yougurt Afternoon snack: Another yogurt and a plum
For variety, the flavor of the yogurt and the flavor of the jelly will change. I like cooking and variety in food, but it's a major pain in the neck to think of something new every morning. Fixing my food for the day takes three minutes in the morning, every morning.
posted
I take a banana, a granola bar and a book for lunch. I just go out to my car in the parking lot, roll down the windows and turn on the music. It's a nice interlude and fairly cheap.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I made a couple of fluffer nutters for lunch today. I wish I could get my act together enough to have something to heat up for lunch. Only reason I made fluffer nutters is because I think we're out of jelly and I'm tired of PB&J's anyway.
posted
I generally take the sandwhich route, but occasionally I'll feel domestic and bring along some sort of curry. At my last place one of my coworkers and I would bring lunch for the both of us on Thursdays (alternating Thursdays of course), which actually wound up being a lot of fun. Man, that guy could cook.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
imogen, I love frozen homemade soups. I've found that freezing them in an ice cube tray and then ziploc-bagging the cubes makes it easy to take out just as much as I need for one serving. reheats faster as cubes, too.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I make my son's school lunches four days a week (yes, he could do it himself, but I *like* making his lunch for him). I could eat the same sandwich every day, but he won't. So twice a week I send him with something he can warm at school, and twice a week he gets sandwiches or cold pizza (if we have some left over).
For warming, I sometimes split a can of spagetti-o's across two days. Or ravioli. Or pasta and franks. If we had pasta for dinner the night before, he gets the left overs (which he likes).
For sandwiches, I keep deli meats on hand and a variety of breads. Sometimes I make the sandwich on a bagel, or toasted english muffin. Sometimes on whole wheat or rye. He prefers ham and cheese, so that features more than other selections, but I also make turkey and cheese. If I'm out of deli meats, he gets PB with one of two jellies I keep.
That's just the main dish. I stock fruit bars, chips, crackers, nuts, canned fruit and so forth from Costco to make lunch making faster. And to make snack finding after school easier.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
leftover lasagna makes for a really good lunch. I also make chicken salad to eat with crackers or in a sandwich.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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There's this deep-dish garlic cornbread pizza thing I make that is awesome right out of the oven -- the crust is crusty, the corn meal and parmesan cheese (plus flour and a lot of butter) combining to make this salty but with hints of sweet flavorful but not overpowering carrier for the sauce and toppings and cheese.
But the real beauty of it is that it's great as leftovers because the flavors continue to meld and when you heat it up in the microvwave the crust turns into polenta.
EDIT to Add: I almost always bring my lunch, and it is almost always something I heat up. Sandwich + chips (or whatever) just doesn't cut it. Unless the sandwich is a full-on sub on fresh, crusty Italian bread. Unfortunately, the two sandwich places near work aren't that great. Although Subway's meatball sub will do in a pinch.
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I'm one of those annoying people who take recipes and completely alter them, but don't write down the changes and then prepare dishes by how things look and feel.
But I'll see what I can do.
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Mmm, that salad sounds like a good idea bunbun.
In fact, all the salad ideas sound good. I think I'll have to investigate some different dressings and salad ingredients to mix it up a bit.
I've come round slightly on the sandwhiches thing - I think I might have to find somewhere that sells *nice* bread though. And then I'm thinking keeping a steady supply of good cheeses on hand will be a must. Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I'm one of those annoying people who take recipes and completely alter them, but don't write down the changes and then prepare dishes by how things look and feel.
But I'll see what I can do.
I do that as well, so I sympathize. The original recipe and some suggestions of how to alter it would be fine with me. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Hmmm - lunch is one of those wonderful meals wherein you can do really super simple snacking things, too - which is important for those of us that end up working through most of our lunches. I like to take:
Fresh vegetables (carrot sticks, celery sticks, sliced cucumbers or green/yellow zuch, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.) Add some peanut butter for a protien.
Fresh fruit (apples, grapes, bananas, kiwi slices) - the trick here is to choose fruits that aren't very messy.
Cubed cheeses and crackers.
Dried cereals or granola mixes.
Protein bars.
And lots of water and herbal teas.
Leftovers are great, too - when there ARE any (grin).
Posts: 20 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I make the kids' lunches every day and don't do much in the way of creative dishes, but my packing is creative.
They both prefer hot food to sandwiches for lunch, but they don't have any way to heat anything up or keep it refrigerated.
I usually take a short, metal thermos and fill it with near boiling water to preheat the thermos, then I empty and dry the thermos immediately before filling it with chicken nuggets, pasta, leftovers, etc.
The kids report that the food is perfectly hot when they sit down to eat.
When I made lunch for work, I always did the casserole/pasta or crockpot route.
My favorite casserole was something I made up while trying to duplicate a recipe from a restaurant:
Saute 2 cloves minced garlic in 1/3 cup olive oil
Add 1/2 ea thinly sliced red, yellow and green bellpepper and 1/2 red onion.
After onions have softened, add 1 big can (26 oz?) diced tomatoes and 2 packages (1.42 oz ea) Lawrey's dry spaghetti sauce mix. Simmer over low heat for 1/2 hour.
Cook 16 oz of bowtie pasta to al dente, drain.
Toss sauce and pasta with 8 oz of Feta cheese.
This is super easy, gets rave reviews and is very, very pretty when placed in a clear glass casserole dish.
Just like some of the recipes above, it is best the next day after the flavors have had a chance to combine. This is great as a take in lunch, and as a do-ahead potluck item.
posted
EDIT: Forgot the most important points -- not only is this dish tasy, it's quick and easy to prepare, realtively nutritious and works well in large amounts. I can do a week's worth of lunches in less than half an hour, and I don't get tired off it because it's tasty and substantial but not heavy, heavy. The biggest problem I run into is that if dishes are too tomato-based or have too much meat in them, they get too heavy for me after three days in a row.
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Okay here's one that I can post off the top of my head:
Take red lentils [this is very important -- green won't work]. Rinse the lentils and then boil them in hot water until they are just tender. Drain. Return to pot. Mix in a pat of butter, cumin, coriander, chili powder and chicken stock paste* to taste. If you like texture, you could also sautee some onion and garlic in butter and add that. As you stir the spices in press down a bit with the spoon to mash the lentils a bit. You don't want a total puree, but a little mashing is good. If the end result is still to watery, cook it down some more -- stir often so it doesn't burn.
Put the lentils in tupperware.
Cook jasmine or basmati rice. Put the rice in tupperware. Add a pat of butter to it once the rice is cool.
Microwave the two containers. Alternate bites -- you could mix the two, but see my point about texture above.
You could also top one or the other with yogurt. I like the tangy taste of yogurt with these types of spices, but this dish is better without, I think.
Oh, and, of course, you could also pack pita or any other type of flat bread to fill out the meal. And if you were really healthy and ambitious, a lightl-dressed tomato salad works nice on the side.
*this is chicken bouillon that needs to be refigerated -- you could use the cubes if you had to, but they don't taste as good. You could also omit the bouillon or cook the lentils in chicken stock [but it's kind of a waste of stock -- the paste works best and is available at Costco].
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I go the lazy route. I make enough extra when I make dinners so that I can save another helping for a future lunch. I don't like to eat the same thing two days in a row, though, so often Monday's dinner becomes Wednesday or Thursday's lunch.
My bosses frequently comment on "how well you always eat"... chicken breast in various marinades, steak, beef stroganoff, on and on and on.
And LadyDove, I need to try that thermos suggestion out. The kids don't care for sandwiches all the time but school hot lunch gets expensive!
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:I go the lazy route. I make enough extra when I make dinners so that I can save another helping for a future lunch. I don't like to eat the same thing two days in a row, though, so often Monday's dinner becomes Wednesday or Thursday's lunch.
See, that's me. Sometimes. Although today I had Ramen.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Somewhat more difficult to eat, but very cheap:
Baked chicken thighs or drumsticks, usually with some olive oil, paprika, salt, pepper, and optional garlic (depends if you can be garlicky on the job), it's 400 degrees for about 45-60 minutes. A thigh or two drumsticks with some pasta (bowties are my favorites), and a dollop of pesto sauce. Easy to microwave, but you need a plastic knife and fork. You could do shredded chicken instead, but dark bone meats are cheap cheap. I've also done the pesto + pasta with meatballs.
More productively, I've prepared homemade burritos. This is usually some sort of white chicken strips sauteed with bell peppers, onion, and mexican spices, thrown onto a flour tortilla with mexican rice, shredded cheese, and a dollop of sour cream. The tortilla is wrapped up, then the top of the tortilla gets enchilada sauce and another thin layer of shredded cheese. Microwave to melt everything together at lunch.
There are indian spice packets that make huge meals. I like Shan korma mix. It requires about 1 kg of lamb, several onions, garlic, ghee, ginger, yogurt, and the spice mix. I usually eat this with rice, but you could heat up nan at work pretty easily.
BTW, I'd strongly recommend seeing if you can get a toaster oven put in. We got one for the biology lab's kitchen and it makes lunches much tastier. That way you can have a slice of warm toast, or crispy french fries.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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