How can I make my packing up for work more exciting?
If I'm not warming up leftovers then I'll take in a sandwich, usually cheese with rocket or some form of chutney, nuts and then fruit (apples, clementines, grapes, raisins or strawberries) but I'm getting rather bored of this and need some inspiration. I guess I could branch out into soup.
Take in a tupperware box of stir-fry, or pasta or suchlike you've made the night before, warm it up in the microwave while you eat your sandwich. Everyone in the canteen will look at you like some kind of demon, and jealously watch you eat your delicious lunchtime treat, but it's only because they wish they weren't such a lazy useless fucker to do the same themselves. I do love a nice cup-a-soup in the winter months, too. Those nice chicken noodle broth ones that cost about 50p a packet. They don't do much in way of nutrition, but they aren't half comforting.
My lunch every day is an Asda garden salad with Asda's minty beans poured on and a healthy sprinkle of grated cheese, topped with whatever deli meat I fancy that day. I have it every day and I'm yet to get bored of it, but that might speak more about my adventurousness than it does about the quality of the monster salad.
I've been doing this for 4 years now and it's cheaper, quicker (spending 2-3 hours on one day, instead of an hour or so every day), and you can generally make some tasty/nutritious lunches that hold very well for the week.
I get a lot moaning from people at lunch asking "how can you eat the same thing every day?" "Don't you get bored?". The answer is no and fuck you. I really get tired of listening to this tripe, especially coming from someone who shells out 6 quid a day on sub-par cafeteria food, or someone who feeds off two packets of crisps, a twix and a bottle of diet coke.
I am fairly defensive about this weekly practice as I've spent a lot of time perfecting it and optimizing how I make my daily lunch box. I noticed that the healthier you eat (e.g.: slow cooked food), the better you feel (shocker), and you save vast quantities of money. If you have a freezer, you're basically golden, as you can store stocks/gravies/sauces for very long periods of time. If you have a cast iron Dutch oven, you've got the no. 1 method of cooking.
"Oh but I can't cook! It's too much effort." Please do us all a favour and fuck off, because no one "knows" how to cook, it's trial and error - or you know, googling a recipe and following that.
Bulk cooking for the week is my top suggestion. YES, you will run out of ideas, change it up sometimes. And no, it doesn't need to be for a full 5 days either.
>>11787 Fancy dropping us a couple of recipes? I'm increasingly thinkin of meal prepping for the week so that I can be sure to hit my macros and reduce the temptation to gorge on biscuits at work, but every time I go on mealprepsunday I get a bit overwhelmed and give up.
>>11788 Of course I can, mealprepsunday is good, but Americans are strange in their... ways and go overboard by making months worth of burritos or something equally daft.
Anyway, I've got some nice recipes on rotation:
- Chilli con carne with jasmine rice. Find a good solid recipe for this, as you'll be eating it often. A good ratio of 2:1 meat : beans is preferred. Throw in some sweetcorn in there for variety/texture. Whats nice with this one is that you can easily whack everything into a wrap (rice n'all) and sex it up with guacamole or whatever.
- Sag Aloo. Your humble spinach and potato curry. It's devilishly easy to make, provided you have the required spices. Throw in a cooked chicken breast, and you have a deluxe curry. Eat it with a naan, and you'll be laughing. Someone mentioned about curry being smelly. Well there are lunch rooms for that reason. No eating at your desk bollox.
- Nick Griffin's Beef Stew. Can't get better than this on a winter day. Cheap cuts of beef are key, followed by a good bottle of your favourite ale and vegetables, and this thing practically makes itself. You can opt to leave the spuds out and make a mash separately, which is perfect. OR you can be crazy and have it with some crusty bread.
- Pasta: Too easy. I cheat here and make my pasta fresh on the morning, 10 minutes while I have my breakfast coffee and you're done. The sauces that accompany them can be made in advance, anything from cream and mushroom, to tomato - it's easy as piss, and I usually reserve the pasta dishes for my lazy weeks.
Watch this video for Marco Pierre White's glorious tomato sauce:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEIjkr4QPFs "...And in my opinion it's one of the most important sauces in the kitchen" - Too true Marco, as this thing can be used for literally an entire dinner menu. Soups, lasagna, pasta, chilli con carne, pizza... etc... Tomato sauce from scratch, it's essential. Freeze it so it lasts longer.
- Pasta bake. Fucking loved this as a child and I still do. All you need is a large baking dish, and patience, and you've got 6 slices of heaven waiting to be eaten.
- Thai Green/Red curry. Love this one, get the Muy Ploy curry paste from any Asian shop, and basically throw in some green vegetables and protein of choice. Can be eaten with rice or noodles. Top tip: Green veg like peas/brocolli tend to go brown, so you might want to add them slightly blanched, on the day, like 2 minutes in a shallow boiling saucepan, and dried thoroughly.
I'm getting hungry now, so I'll continue this after lunch if you lot wish. Take care.
Bumping for the new year. The weather is proper shite as well.
You ever experiment with little nibbles during the day. Especially for when meetings before lunch drag on. I've found cashews and raisins do the trick nicely but at the same time that can be quite punchy carb wise.
>How can I make my packing up for work more exciting?
"Packing up", that's someone from Hull.
>I'll take in a sandwich, usually cheese with rocket or some form of chutney, nuts and then fruit (apples, clementines, grapes, raisins or strawberries)
Throw in a falafel and hummus wrap and a brunch bar, that's pretty much my range of what I eat at work.
>>15722 I had leftover mushroom stroganoff today, which was nicer than when it was first cooked. Tomorrow I'll probably get a meal deal. Thursday I'll most likely have a wrap.
I think I distinctly remember mentioning Mug Shots near the start of this thread. I fucking wish it was still economically viable to take a Mug Shot with me every day. Food in general is more expensive nowadays, but the slice ham and corned beef and such that you'd use for pack up sarnies seems to have been disproportionately affected.
It's not as if pack ups for work are going to be the difference between me making my mortgage payments or not, but it's pretty galling to add it all up and you realise the amount you are spending just to take some disappointing sandwiches and maybe a bag of crisps to work for your lunch would pay for a nice night out or a modestly sized bag of drugs.
Workplaces should be required to feed their employees. What do you reckon? Will that be a vote winner when I launch the No Blue Hairs Straight White Male Socialist Party party?
>>15724 In the before times I could get four for a quid on Mug Shot pasta from Farmfoods. These days they're about 80p each or on offer for about 4 for £3.
>>15724 My office (massive city centre multinational) has a canteen, but everything is more expensive than it would be if I walked 2 minutes to Tesco Express. I thought the whole point of canteens was subsidised food. When I worked at Tesco we had a canteen selling stuff for close to fuck all. Current place something like a bottle of Dr Pepper costs significantly more than it does at the nearby shops. There's no real reason to even use the office canteen.
>>15726 >My office (massive city centre multinational) has a canteen, but everything is more expensive than it would be if I walked 2 minutes to Tesco Express.
The problem comes in winter when it's pissing it down so your options for where to eat your meal deal get more limited. It's not just that the work lunch room gets busy, sometimes you just want to sit in peace without having people try to talk to you.
Yesterday there were only a few people in the office so rather than deal with the awkwardness I went out in the rain to find some shelter to sit down. But no, everywhere that does have seating also has an extortionate additional charge if you want to eat in and I found that there's precious little seating underneath any shelter in the city. Probably deliberately.