How to Put Together the Perfect Lunch?
Hello and welcome back toWhat’s Cooking? , an open thread where you can share your brilliant thoughts, tips, recipes and opinions on all food related matters. This week I would like to talk about packed lunches and how you keep them tasty and interesting.
Your midday lunch can be a joyous break or a dull affair depending on how you plan it, so I want to know how you can make your work lunch happy. A few questions to help you get started:
- What lunch container do you use? Do you like an insulated bag, a classic square lunch box, a cute little bento, or a literal paper bag?
- What does your average lunch look like? How many items do you have there? Are there any products you just need to pack?
- Are you packing a drink? I used to find that my days went much better when I was hydrated, so I tried to always carry a large bottle of water with lemon slices and Diet Coke with me to maintain the caffeine.
- What’s your smartest lunch packing and nutritional advice? The best thing I’ve ever done for my work lunch was filling my drawer with good salt, lemons, and hot sauce .
- How important is diversity? Do you eat the same food every day? Cooking a large batch of something and eating it for a week always seemed like a good and inexpensive idea, but at the same time it felt kind of monotonous. Are you trying to mix everything up, or are repeated meals okay?
- How big a role do food leftovers play? I used to love the days when I could just pack a slice or two of leftover pizza, but found that most of the leftovers had to be turned into something new and exciting. Leftover steak turned into salad , chili was mixed with cheese and served with tortilla chips, fried vegetables turned into taco filling, etc.
- Are you a fan of the adult Lunchable? You know what I am .
- What food do you consider prohibited for work? I find it rude to bring a smelly lunch to the communal dining room, and the people who microwaved fish at work are monsters. It’s also pretty rude to do anything that needs to be in the microwave for a long time.
- Have you ever participated in a “ lunch exchange ” or group meal? A group of ladies at my old job always had small dinners for each other’s birthdays. It was quite fun, especially since there was usually cake.
- Where do you usually have lunch? Is it on your desk? Don’t eat at your table .
As always, feel free to comment on anything lunch related, even if it doesn’t answer any of the above questions, as I appreciate all your delicious wisdom.