As much as I love food, I don’t love lunch. I like breakfast because I’m hungry after a long night and because I need my coffee but can’t drink it without eating something too. I love big breakfasts of eggs and bacon and sausage, or French toast or even the greasy crack crap from Mickey D’s. Even a bagel or bowl of oatmeal is okay.
I like supper because it’s a nice, big hot meal. Whether it’s chicken or beef or pork, whether it’s something mostly pre-made, like the roasted chickens from Loblaws that only need me to prepare a side of veggies and pasta/rice or something I make from scratch, supper is something I enjoy.
And God knows I love my snacks of chips or perhaps a chocolate bar with my nightly tea.
But lunch. Lunch is the bane of my existence. It’s not too bad if there are leftovers from supper, but often I send those with George to break up the monotony of sandwiches in his lunch bag, or else we eat it all the night before. I’m not a huge sandwich person so I tend to eat PB & J or PB & banana if I go that route. I’ve eaten more boxes of Kraft Dinner than one person should eat. If I have hot dogs in the fridge I’ll happily eat those.
However, it all boils down to one thing: I am so uninspired with lunch. I like to cook but not during the day, and I’m out of ideas. Thus, I turn to the ever-reliable (err, usually) Internet.
What are you having for lunch today? What is your favorite thing to have for lunch? Restaurant fare doesn’t count. I need ideas. Please share!
Well…its leftovers today for me.
But when I’m home, I’m a total sucker for a grilled cheese or quesodilla with a bowl of tomato soup or some other campbell’s easy stuff.
Oh god, I hate coming up with ideas for lunch too. Today I brought a microwave dinner (they were on sale). On weekends, it’s leftovers if there are any, or KD, or one of those chunky soups…
hmm…well today I had leftover pizza (with an apple to be…healthy). I usually have soup for lunch, just because its simple and quick to make at work. But when i stop to think about it, i’m a pretty boring lunch person.
Before this pregnancy, I liked making salads ahead of time so I can just grab a bowl and go. Also having boneless chicken leftover in the fridge is a great thing to have on hand. It’s great diced up on salad or chopped for sandwiches or fried up with hash etc. Try cooking something for lunches on Sunday afternoon…chicken…salads…boiled eggs…fried rice…
You can also chop cheese and lunch meats to eat with crackers. I love toasted sandwiches dipped in soups. I also purposely cook extra food to have leftovers for lunch. Oh and nothing says you can’t have an omelette, sausage, hashbrowns, oatmeal or whatever for lunch too. =)
This is an odd subject for my first comment ever, but my husband and I work (no kids), and lunch is the meal I’m responsible for, so. I make giant salads with chicken, good cheese, and cold pasta, and I pack some dressing for tossing. You can make it ahead but it’s sorta homemade, flexible and genuinely filling.
I’m pretty much like you – uninspired, so I’m no help. I tend to rely on the frozen box lunches. What’s more, I eat Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine to at least pretend I am limiting the jumk I put into my body, so there aren’t a lot of options available.
I work weird hours and have a few days a week where I sleep in. On those days, I tend to eat a late breakfast, around 11am or so, simply so I don’t even have to consider lunch.
If we have a really cheap dinner, I’ll make double what we need and the both of us will take that to snack on the next day, and maybe the day after that. I’m bad at proportions anyway, so we nearly always end up having enough leftovers for a whole dinner one night or two a week.
Some quick ideas:
Pasta tossed with olive oil, some garlic powder, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese.
Little pizzas out of English muffins — spread on some tomato paste, shredded mozzarella, and bacon mince or cut-up mushrooms or bell peppers or whatever. Dinner rolls also work well, and you can get pizza sauce in squeeze bottles from No Frills (does Quebec have No Frills?).
Mix some melted Velveeta with a little beef or chicken or even veggie gravy, just enough to flavour the cheese, but not enough to make it runny. Mix it with some shredded mozzarella, and stick in some avocado or salsa or chicken or beef or whatever, fold it in half, and bake it in the oven. We make a lovely quesadilla that is all Campbell’s Nacho Cheese soup (unwatered down) dumped in a saucepan with some chunks of chicken, heated gently, and spooned onto tortillas with piles of guacamole.
I’m doing Weight Watchers now, so lunch is either soup or salad, maybe with some grilled chicken on top.
Pre-WW, I would have soup with a PBJ!
You seem to like breakfast food…you could do the opposite of what you had that morning. If you have cereal, have eggs and bacon for lunch, and vice versa. I totally love cereal. That’s a quick easy lunch, for sure.
ohmigod – someone else in the world who knows about pb and banana! YUM! Have you ever tried pb and bacon…?
Totally uninspired over here, too. I love having lots of leftovers so we can use those, but when we don’t I dread lunchtime. I’m not a quesadilla girl and I really have to be in the mood for PB&J; when I eat a salad I end up feeling really hungry again in just a few hours, plus fresh produce is just insanely expensive (is it just here, or is it like that everywhere?)—if I bought everything I wanted to put in a salad, it’d cost me $20. I do baked potatoes in the microwave. Sometimes grilled cheese, but I really suck at those.
I made a huge bash of pasta salad and that’s what i’ve been bringing to the office for the past 2 days…
When I’m at home, I usually go for easy-ish for lunch. Sometimes that’s leftovers, but usually it’s something like perogies fried in hotsauce, or “fresh” pasta (usually cheese tortellini that I freeze and pull portions out of) with sauce.
I’ve been known to resort to plain elbow macaroni with butter, s&p, and a little cheese.
I don’t eat meat now, but um, what Kristen said about PB and bacon? So, so true. You won’t be disappointed. It’s like crack! (And the best part is that no one believes it’s good… which means more for you!)
I had leftovers for lunch – chicken skillet with potatoes, corn, and black beans. I’m like you, though. I hate spending the mental energy on what to eat for lunch. Usually it’s a granola bar and some yogurt, or a ham and cheese sandwich. My fave is grilled cheese, or greek flat bread dipped in hummus.
I rarely eat lunch–or any other meal mid-day. I don’t even eat breakfast. Meals tend to make me sleepy, so I generally only eat supper in the evening, although I snack occasionally–all of which I’m sure are very unhealthy. Mostly I just drink unsweetened tea all day–it’s my “water.”
However, every Friday my boyfriend and I have a standing lunch date, where we alternate choosing a restaurant to dine in and and treating the other. Whenever it’s my turn to choose it’s almost always the Olive Garden, simply because the salad is relatively healthy, the soup is good, and even though the breadsticks are fattening–it’s all very inexpensive and filling (and a glass of wine never hurts)! Are there Olive Gardens in Canada?
– quesadillas
– pita pizza
– hummous & crackers
– chipotle black bean dip & pita wedges (or rolled up as a burrito)
– chickpea salad (kind of the same idea as tuna salad, but fish-friendly) on toast
– a HUGE salad, with loads of stuff in it & a nice balsamic vinaigrette. I toss in homemade croutons, chickpeas (noticing a trend here?), maybe a few olives, fresh cracked pepper, sometimes leftover breaded tofu cubes. Oh and lettuce 😉
I often just eat leftovers or on the run as you describe, but those are some of my favorite things if I have a few minutes to put something together.
I am uninspired too!!! I do better when I’m on weight watchers (and following the plan really well!) because then I’m planning out my meals. Many days, though, I end up eating a cheapass frozen meal or just some cheese and crackers. Blah. Boring.
I love tuna sald with walnuts on fresh bread! Yum!
When I’m home, the quick & tasty lunch that works for me is this: fancy scrambled eggs.
I lightly beat 2 large organic eggs with some heavy cream from the farmer’s market, grate in some very sharp Grafton Village cheddar, and then add two pinches of fine sea salt and a few shakes of D.L. Jardine’s Blazin’ Saddles hot sauce. I scramble that up in a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.
Tasty stuff, and surprisingly filling.
Quick lunch? Campbells of choice and a salad out of a bag. A bit of blue cheese on top with some cut up tomato. With a bit of time I like a grilled cheese or a grilled peanut butter sandwich — with top and bottom really smooshed together.