You can prepare Hamburger Helper using beans. Get some single serve plastic tubs and freeze. Grab one on the way to work.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: I’m not a complete vegetarian, just using “I” in an example (though I don’t eat meat much at all). Obviously if there was something I couldn’t eat, I just wouldn’t eat it. Wow, how complicated!
I know you were looking for me to start bitching and raging about how RUDE it is to NOT ACCOMMODATE ME and everything, but no go.
For crying out loud, I only replied to you because you assumed animal meat was okay for someone who says she’s vegetarian. But hey, feel free to try to stir up the tired debate of “having people work around people’s non-health dietary restrictions is rude/people ignoring people’s non-health dietary restrictions is rude” again.
Um. Wrong.
Nice of you to think you know what I ‘assumed’. I thought to myself ‘she may or may not eat fish but in case she does, I’ll suggest it’. I also don’t consider ‘fish’ to be ‘animals’ and, as I mentioned, nor have some vegetarians I’ve known. Your head of steam was generated for nothing.
I was going to move this to Cafe Society, but it seems to have turned into a discussion on no true Scotsmen. Have fun.
Nuts and dried fruit make great snacks, btw. I also take those kiddie juice boxes for a dose of fruit.
Because some people make stuff with animal broth/fat/whatever in it that you don’t find out until after you’ve eaten it, and while you’re throwing up, your husband is calling his relatives and discovering there was meat broth in the sauce or chicken broth in the polenta or other things they didn’t think would count because they’re not “meat” after all… er. Not that I have experience with that or anything. Anyway, some of us don’t-eat-seafood vegetarians get grouchy that eat-seafood-but-no-other-flesh people call themselves vegetarians because they confuse other people into making assumptions about what vegetarianism really is and that occasionally turns into an annoying or even sickening result.
Anyway, getting back on track, if you can’t make something the night before, then I agree with the people suggesting you make a batch of something at other times. The freezer is your friend! Put a serving or two in the fridge and freeze the rest, in portions either in small freezer bags or in little plastic containers. If you have a few options for food when you look in the freezer, you’ll feel a lot better about your lunch. Look up recipes for different bean salads, perhaps - marinated ones work especially good for make-ahead food.
A favorite super-fast pasta and bean recipe for me is boil some pasta, drain, pour a can of black beans into a colander and rinse, mix with the pasta, pour salsa (stuff that isn’t too hot to eat in quantity) over the beans and pasta, stir up, reheat when desired. You can do the same with some cooked rice and chickpeas using one of those Indian-style jarred sauces from Trader Joe’s. Mix in some appropriate vegetable for more variety - heat up some frozen corn for the black bean/pasta one, or frozen peas for the rice and chickpeas. If you’re going to freeze and reheat pasta, undercook it a little more than you typically prefer.
Depending on your budget, substitute as needed - buy dried beans and cook on the weekend/a day off/while you’re making dinner, freeze your cooked product for later. You don’t need fancy salsa, get the mild version of the cheap stuff. Some stores you can buy that in bigger jars for a lot less. Get rice at an Asian/Indian food store in a big bag for probably less per pound than in the average grocery store, put it in a plastic storage container to keep bugs out.
Regarding peanut butter, it can be savory. Get some Asian noodles like udon, or just cheap spaghetti, and look for “peanut noodle” recipes to get ideas what to mix in with peanut butter. Typically it involves some vinegar, maybe 2 parts PB to one part vinegar, maybe some soy sauce. I found this recipe for a ton of ideas - of course on a limited budget you wouldn’t do all of this, but pick and choose - even PB, white vinegar (probably less in quantity since the flavor isn’t as mild), a little oil, a little soy sauce and sugar, maybe a dash of hot sauce if you have some. Then mix in noodles and if you want, some bits of veggies, and you have a hot or cold dish for lunch.
Check out recipes at http://vegweb.com/ - vary the ingredients/prep to fit your budget. It’s very vegan-oriented so ovo-lacto vegetarians have a lot more leeway, and personally I skip the more esoteric/pricey ingredients. I love this one, which uses a crockpot, and it’s great even without all of the listed ingredients.
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Freeze any unused jarred sauces if you’re worried about it going bad and being wasted before you use it again - pour into a freezer bag and label and date, or a plastic container and be sure to label. (If you can’t manage to label the outside of a container, wait until the sauce is frozen then write it on paper and pop the label inside the container for later reference. Be sure to remove this before thawing!)
I do bag lunches all the time myself, and prep in advance really does help (as others have said). I often cook on Sundays and freeze portions of soups and stuff to be eaten during the week for lunch, or dinner if I’m feeling lazy.
If you like salads, buy a bunch of fixings on Sunday - lettuce, tomato, mushroom, cukes, olives, peppers, sunflower seeds, pepitas, croutons, crumbly cheese, whatever - and just just take a few minutes to toss whatever you want that day into a Rubbermaid bowl. Keep a few dressings around for variety, and put the dressing in a little container if you want to avoid sogginess. Finish off with a low fat/low sugar bran muffin if you still don’t feel full.
If you make twice as much dinner as you need each night, and pop the remaining portion in the freezer, you will eventually accumulate an assortment of lunches so you don’t have to eat the same thing you had the night before. It takes about 30 seconds to grab the disposable tupperware container, plop a chicken breast or whatever into it, and toss it in the freezer. This is the easiest, least time-consuming way to do it.
This will go a long way toward making your life more interesting. Different kinds of mustard, pickles, pesto (if you have a food processor or blender, you can make it yourself in about 10 minutes, and it freezes well). Go to your local ethnic grocery stores and see what interesting condiments they have - I’m a fan of ajvar on a sandwich with feta cheese, and maybe some roasted peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and/or red onion.
For that matter, on the weekend brush a bunch of different veggies (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, etc.) with olive oil and roast them in the oven on a baking sheet - they will easily keep in the fridge for a few days. Add roasted garlic if you’re brave, then pile on your sandwich with a dash of balsamic vonegar, some freshly ground black pepper…mmmm, now I’m hungry. (You might not want to put this on your bread until lunchtime, though, so it doesn’t get soggy.) For that matter, take some of your veggies and make them into a pasta salad for variety.
A variation on bread and cheese is an onion bagel, toasted, with garlic and herb cream cheese. (Our office has a fridge, microwave and toaster oven, so we’re lucky.) Piece of fruit for afters or in the afternoon.
I am trying get into the habit of making some fruit salad and taking a small container with me. I can dip into it before lunch and eat some at my desk if get hungry. I always have some crackers and insta-soup stashed in my desk for emergencies.
Often lunch will be leftovers from dinners during the week, if we’ve made enough.
Ask Metafilter has a couple of good brown bag lunch threads, and I’m sure you can find some vegetarian suggestions: here, and here and here. Probably more here.
This is especially true if you go with the no sugar added or natural peanut butter. Then it’s basically ground up peanuts and salt. It’s sometimes called old-fashioned peanut butter. I’d tell you what kind I usually buy, but I’m currently on a honey-nut Skippy kick, and I shop by package recognition, rather than name.
I heartily second the hummus and soup camps. A pot of soup can last for a week (or more if you freeze single servings of it and defrost as needed) and is dead easy to make. The fact that you’re a vegetarian and not a vegan also means you can grab the Campbell’s Soup to Go things in tomato and just nuke at work. If you have access to a Costco or Sam’s Club, you can get a case for a reasonable price.
As for the hummus, I usually skip the sandwich part and just eat it with chips and a salad. So good and filling. Salsa works, too, if you go the chips route.
One of my favorite vegan/vegetarian-friendly recipes is lentils and carrots. (Replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth or water. Instead of a two large carrots, I use a couple handfuls of baby carrots cut into slivers.) It doesn’t take too long to prepare, and the leftovers re-heat well.
Salads are great thirty second sack lunches for me. I buy bagged leaf spinach, a bag of baby carrots, some raisins and walnuts and apples, a little cheese. I toss a good amount of spinach and carrots in a tupperware with smaller handfuls of the nuts and raisins and beans, all I have to do is chop an apple which takes less time than it takes to assemble NajaHusband’s sandwich. Splash on a bit of dressing, slap on the lid, and bolt out the door.