Packed Lunch Ideas

WexCan

Hi All,

Just looking for some ideas!

Basically, at the moment I'm working as cabin crew, and the company do provide hot and cold food, sandwiches and so on for us. Unfortunately, the hot crew food is very much like what you would get as a passenger - calorie-laden and rubbery. There are some nice things, like paninnis and the sandwiches aren't too bad, but it's luck of the draw really.

So, I was wondering if ye oracles of cooking wisdom might have any idea for packed lunches. Most times I'll need breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner, either hot or cold. For re-heatable food it has to fit in one of those foil containers like you get from chinese takeaways so that it can go in the aircraft oven.

Looking for something relatively healthy, easy enough to make etc.

Any ideas appreciated

taztastic

I love frying onions and chilli then steam a load of veg (courgette, pepper, carrot, parsnip etc) then simmer in a tin of tomato. Add cheese, tuna or chicken and season to within an inch of its life. Perfect hot or cold.

Kintarō Hattori

Quiche is always a winner, it takes less than an hour to make and cook and you can easily bring it into work and reheat it.

Lasagne is great too. Damn easy to make and when it cools overnight it holds it's shape really well and would be easy to take with you to work.

Chicken curry, this couldn't be easier to make and you can make as much or as little as you need.

Ceaser Salad. So easy to make it takes less than 15 minutes and tastes equaly great with chicken or bacon.

Fruit salad. Not something you'd eat often, but healthy and easy to make, though it's best to have it gone in two goes. Leave out the juice or syrup and throw in a flavoured yoghurt instead if you want.

Wez

I'm looking for somethign similar, but the other day I got a pasta salad in tesco for €2 (reduced from €3) and I ate it cold. I thought it was absolutely gorgeous! I'm looking to make something similar for college to just bang in my bag and eat it hot or cold the next day or over that week. Does anybody have any suggestions for a simple pasta dish?

Cheers!

Frequent

Pasta
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt and pepper
Mixed green herbs (thyme, parsley, oregano etc.)

Put your pasta on to boil.

Crush your garlic and chop your onions, and cook them until soft in the olive oil. Add your tomatoes, puree and sugar, and season well with salt, pepper and plenty of herbs. Stir well. Simmer until thick and piping hot. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

Drain the pasta and mix with the sauce. Toss well. Delicious hot or cold.

For variation, you can add any array of chopped vegetables (peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, carrots) at the onion and garlic stage. I like to add a small tin of sweetcorn a couple of minutes before it is ready to be served.

As for the original question, I am losing weight right now so have had to come up with interesting ideas for packed lunches and snacks. Here is a variety of what I bring into work:

Fresh salads with lots of crisp vegetables and a light dressing, with cold boiled eggs or some ham or turkey/cooked chicken breast. Changing the dressing and alternating the protein element keeps me interested.

Oatcakes with whatever toppings you like - I enjoy oatcakes topped with a little jam and some cottage cheese.

Home-made soups - I make hearty soups over the weekend and freeze them into airtight lunchboxes (you can get these in Tesco) and then re-heat them in the microwave at work.

Small cans of Heinz beans on toast (if you don't have a microwave or toaster obviously this will be a problem).

Sandwiches of course - but I'm sure you're sick of these. Experiment with new breads - the shops are filled with a massive variety. It doesn't have to be a sliced pan sambo with ham - there are lots of other options.

Wholewheat pasta salads - tomato dressings as above, or a little pesto.

Fresh fruit salad and yoghurt.

Vegetable crudites, with a dip if you like - maybe a small tub of hummus.

Crackers/crispbreads and cheese.

Hope this helps!

Blub2k4

Here's what I do.
There's a small shop called All Rooms on upper LIffey St., they sell plastic take away style cartons for 3.99 for 8.(If anyone knows of anything cheaper feel free to let me know) These cartons can be used about three times or more if you're lucky, but they break around the edges after a few uses and washes.
I make up dinners in these and freeze them, then take them along and pop them in the microwave at work.
I made 21 portions of lamb curry last week and it cost me about 9 euro in total to make it.
I went into the butcher and told him I had 6 euro to spend and I wanted some lamb on the bone, they do lamb from their own farm, he gave me a shoulder of lamb. I asked him to only cut it a bit, the main bones, so I could do the rest myself, the butcher will do it whatever way you want it. When I got it home I trimmed it down a bit took some of the bones out then I cubed it and I made a curry.

Ingredients All of this is depending on how much you're wanting to make.
Mustard seed
Cumin seed
Garam masala (Indian curry mix)
Fresh chilis, how hot do you like it? Chopped
MInced or chopped garlic
about a half inch of fresh ginger grated or 2 teaspoons of minced
1 medium onion chopped fine.
Tin of tomatoes
Shoulder of lamb, or other stewing lamb, chicken, stewing beef, whatever.
Basmati rice
Cardamoms
Whole cloves
Stock of whatever type fits, I tend to use vegetable stock with most meats.
Ground nut or vegetable oil.

Prepare your meat or have your butcher cube it, if you use lamb on the bone, leave some bone on it for the stock value. Heat some oil in a pan, when it's good and hot you should add in about a teaspoon or so of mustard seed then the same of cumin seed then some garam masala to the pan and fry it for a little bit, don't let it burn, toast it. Add garlic and ginger mix it up and then add the onion and sweat all this down. To the sweated onions add your cubes of meat, if you're using chicken then dont overdo this step but with lamb or other red meat you can brown it pretty well. To this lot then you add a tin of tomatoes and reduce and sweat a lttle more, then add in some vegetable stock, as much as you need to cover the lot plus a bit, less if you're using chicken again, unless you have chicken still on the bone or it gets too dry. Stew this lot for as long as you need. If you're using stewing lamb such as shoulder then turn the heat down and leave it on for at least three hours with no lid for a while to reduce it a bit then put the lid on to stew it.
The longer lower cooking temperature will turn the tough connective tissue to Jelly.
Boil up the basmati rice on a rolliing boil, always moving and adding more water from a kettle as needed, add cloves and cardamoms to the water as per taste, Drain the rice.
Portion this lot off into the plastic containers, if you have a good kitchen scales you can get them all the same, it's good for diet control.
Leave the lot on a windowsill overnight then freeze the next day.
The trick is to build up a stock of a few different dishes, rice, pastas, fish pie, whatever, to have a variation and not always only have the one thing.
It takes a few weeks to get a few meals done, but it's well worth it.

Hope that helps.