Thursday 2 October 2008

Some packed lunches

I think I've finally managed to incorporate making a packed lunch into my evening routine. So, here's a peek at what this vegan eats in a working week (in no particular order, as I can remember the lunches themselves better than which day I had them):

* White rice with soy sauce; steamed broccoli; sticks of raw carrot and cucumber; little pot of wasabi paste and Plamil garlic mayo. By 'steamed' I mean I scattered the bits of broccoli over the top of the rice for the last two minutes or so it was cooking. Dinner the evening before also involved rice, to avoid using an extra saucepan. I made rather too much rice - this is the only day where I ended up throwing anything away.
*Chopped cucumber, red pepper and tomato, butter beans, grated carrot and pine nuts, in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a small amount of Provamel cream cheese. (this is basically vegan goat cheese, although you wouldn't know it wasn't margarine from the fairly basic packaging) This was the only time I have had to go and buy a snack, as the salad itself didn't fill me up. The butter beans were boiled from scratch over the weekend - I have some more in the freezer. Should have kept more out.
*2 lentil burgers (homemade, see a few posts down for the recipe); couscous salad with spring onion and olive oil; shredded lettuce; hummous
*Brown rice and chickpeas topped with shredded lettuce and grated carrot. I ate the salad and half the rice mix and was full. Resurrected it with extra salad dressing and mayo the next day.
*2 lentil burgers with quinoa, grated carrot and watercress. This meal was put together at midnight after a few glasses of red wine.
*Couscous salad with cucumber, tomato, spring onions and pine nuts, in olive oil and balsamic vinegar; topped with shredded lettuce.

For the sake of maintaining harmony in a shared office, I've steered clear of ingredients such as raw garlic in packed lunches. I may try to introduce small amounts of onion and see if anyone reacts. At any rate, what I can make is usually healthier than what the canteen has, and is certainly cheaper. It normally takes about half an hour to put something together - maybe longer if waiting for rice or couscous to cool down, but you can always go off and do something else during this period. I think there are a couple of lunches where 'special' products like vegan cream cheese or mayo are used, but this is largely based on what I had in the fridge at that point. They aren't essential.

4 comments:

Bex said...

Cheat steaming, I love it.

C said...

Vegan goat cheese sounds intriguing, but I'll bet its not something I could find in Canada.

And I am shameless about garlicking up my lunches. If other people are going to microwave sausages for lunch or leave bits of hamburger in the sink after rinsing their dishes, and stink up the place with microwave popcorn, I'll stink it up garlic!

Unknown said...

I don't know if they made it like goat cheese on purpose or if it just worked out that way, but that's what it reminds me of.
As for the office, it is a fairly new one with not very many people, so I tend to get very vocal about not eating raw garlic in here and by extension about how I'd get grossed out to smell fish or eggs. Hopefully that might affect what people do in here...

Bethany said...

When I was working, I felt feel guilty when the food I was heating smelled up the place - and we're talking a slight smell. Some of the stuff people were heating up smelled like heated garbage - and that is being nice ;-).

It was really hilarious when they had us all watch an HR PC sensitivity type video at work where one of the examples of bad conduct was when somebody complained about how gross somebody's food smelled. I would never make a comment like that, but really - what a stupid thing to include in the video. Everybody made fun of that clip for years.