riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (07/30/84)
I have got to start cutting down on the amount of money I waste eating
out, and one place to begin would be by bringing my lunch to work each
day. Many years of taking my lunchbox to public school, however, have
ingrained in me a deep dislike for anything resembling the mushy peanut
butter sandwiches of my youth. I know that I won't stick to my
do-it-yourself lunch regimen unless I can eat well.
So how about it, netlanders? I know there must be some cordon bleu
brown-baggers out there somewhere. What do you take for lunch? I'm
looking for things that are (1) good, (2) vegetarian, (3) relatively
hassle-free and (4) good for me, more or less in that order. Reply by
mail and I'll summarize to the net.
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddleriddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (08/06/84)
I got a lot of response to my request for brown-bagging ideas. At least half of the respondents pointed out that a refrigerator and/or a microwave can let you vary your lunches quite a bit. In the words of Gary Benson: >> A lot of people I know freeze leftovers in single-portion size >> containers for later microwaving. If you do this, I have two >> suggestions: use those little glass casseroles rather than a >> Tupperware product, so it will clean easier, and heat more evenly. >> Take one out in the morning, and by lunchtime it is thawed, so you >> can zap it. The microwave oven at work is about the nicest thing >> I've ever heard of a company doing for it's employees who carry >> their lunch, and opens up all kinds of possiblities. On to the not-so-common responses: ======================================================================= Peanut butter sandwiches Humus & pita bread garlic tofu, sprouts in pita bread.. Yogurt rice & potato curry (recipe to follow on net) Lime rice (recipe to follow on net) -- eagle!prem ======================================================================= Lately, I have been bringing canned soup to work. We have a microwave in our cafeteria with which I heat the soup. Canned soup can be quite good, although I have opted for the Campbell's Chunky soups which are merely filling and acceptable. I would imagine that Knorr makes some good vegetarian soups. The major reason I go with canned soup is that I can bring a whole week's supply in on Monday and whether I eat them or not they are there. Not so with sandwiches. -- dcdwest!benson ======================================================================= Have you tried tabbouleh salad? Although not a vegetarian myself, I find it quite delicious. Primary constituents are bulgur wheat, parsley, onions, tomatoes (in no particular order), dressed with oil and lemon juice. Enlightened supermarkets out here sell bulgur or a mix with the parsley and spices already included, both in bulk. If you can't find it this way, maybe you can find a store which sells the mix packaged. It does not need refrigeration, and gets better the longer it sits (up to a fairly distant point). Bill Laubenheimer ucbvax!wildbill ======================================================================= I think that rice cakes with peanut butter is good. Its got your protein and your starch. Another good one is fruit and veges. Just brink in some carrots from home. Apples, bananas, oranges, etc. are good and hassle free. The veges. are easy too, all you do is cut them the nite before and put them in plastic bags. They have bowels here so you can put them in and make a good salad. As for dressing, I have a recipe for French dressing that's great. Take some mayonnaise (I use Miracle Whip) catsup, and garlic powder. Mix it in a small dish and there you have it. You can make some hard boiled eggs and put them in the salad too. Cheese sandwiches aren't bad. Its hard for me to tell you a lot of things, because you want vegetarian stuff. Cup-a-soup is good too. I did my best. Hope it helps. T. Hanna, mhuxv!tah ======================================================================= My second favorite lunch is a salad. I buy whatever vegies the look good in the store and I toss them in a salad. So my salads vary a great deal. But they are *never* just plain lettuce. I put almost any fresh vegie in a salad: any variety of lettuce, cabbage, celery, radishes, asparagus, carrots, cucumber, zucchini, peas, cauliflower, green onions, sprouts, bell pepper, mushrooms, spinach, or whatever else looks good. Personally, I don't care much for raw string beans; but cooked then chilled, they go well in a salad. I usually a add sliced, cooked egg, too. Do vegetarians eat eggs? If that isn't what you consider "relatively hassle-free", then I'll give you a hint. If I am making a salad for dinner, then I make my luncheon salad at the same time. If you are going to bring a salad for lunch be sure that you bring the dressing in a separate container. Salad which has been soaking in dressing all morning leaves something to be desired. What I do is put my salad in one Tupperware, put the dressing in a second, smaller Tupperware, and put sunflower seeds and croutons in a third small Tupperware. Then at lunchtime I toss the whole thing together. Another idea you might enjoy is what I call a vegetarian sandwich. I spread mayo on two slices of wheat bread, then I slice avocado on one piece of bread. I top the avocado with tomato, sprouts, lettuce and jack cheese (note: I put lettuce on almost all my sandwiches). Sometimes I add a little bit of chives. Then I top it with the second slice of bread. One restaurant we went to had an "Avocado and Jack Sandwich" which is very similar to this. I don't remember if they had tomato on theirs; but I do remember that they added walnuts. But I found that the nuts keep falling off the sandwich. So the next time I had a vegetarian sandwich I tried adding sunflower seeds. If you put the sunflower seeds between the avocado and the sprouts then they stay in place quite well and add a good flavor to the sandwich. Rae E. Haynes dec-rhea!dec-sunfun!rhaynes ======================================================================= My wife asked me to make this recipe for mock chopped liver for a party. I ended up with the leftovers in my lunch yesterday. It was pretty good. Ingredients: 1 Cup Sliced Mushrooms 1 Cup Chopped Onions 3 Hardboiled eggs 3 tsp margarine 1/4+ tsp pepper 1 tsp(actually a little less) salt 1/4 lb walnuts shelled Instructions: Saute Mushrooms and Onions in margarine till golden. Chop walnuts and then rest of the ingredients in a food processor. For a party, chill for at least three hours in a mold then set on lettuce for looks and serve with crackers. Serves 6. It can be used as the basis for salad or sandwich for lunch. Bob Kleiman ======================================================================= An avocado is small, filling, healthy, and easy. I used to carry just an avocado and a 35 mm film can full of dressing, a knife and a spoon. Plastic works fine if you don't want to carry the utensils back home. In the winter time, I would sometimes put two boullion cubes, a half of a handful of spaghetti (or other skinny pasta) and a handful of frozen mixed vegetables into a thermos bottle, and fill it with boiling water. By lunch time -- voila! soup! ... This "automatic soup" as I call it is delicious, and only needs a roll to make a complete meal. Gary Benson fluke!inc ======================================================================= I have found the combination of Molly Katzen's cookbooks, Moosewood and Enchanted Brocoli Forest with a cuisanart food processor (a lesser machine would probably work) to be very powerful. Her recipes are simple and very good but require lots of vegetable food preparaton. Like for one recipe she has you chop 3 lbs of onions. That would be a very tearful hour by hand. The cuisanart enables it to be done in less than ten minutes. This example has been repeated numerous times. For a recipe to start out with, which is excellent and takes three lbs of chopped onions see the onion-cheese tart in Brocoli forest. Use the a walnut crust described in the same book. And use the cuisanart for the crust and onions. It is very good the next day at lunch either reheated or even cold. Richard E Philofsky intelca!omsvax!rich ======================================================================= --- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle