Aspies For Freedom

Are ideas for bag lunches that can be taken to work not involving sandwiches?

Salads or left overs from dinner.  Also I used to buy rice crackers and cans of tuna and take them to work.

depending on the weather, a good chunky soup in a thermos flask - you can get some excellent readymade soups these days, but it's a cheap and easy to thing to make once you get the hang of it and you can make soup out of all sorts of things.

Things I have had in my packed lunch:

Thermos of soup
Portion of salad (grains such as rice, bulghur wheat, millet, couscous or quinoa can be made and dressed the evening before; for leafy salads take the dressing separately)
A dip such as hummous, baba ganoush or taramosalata with raw veg sticks or crackers for dipping
Pasty or quiche (make it at the weekend and eat it over the next few days)
Jacket potato (cooked in office microwave!) + filling

Really yummy quiche recipe for you  to make - very easy

Packet of short crust pastry (you can make your own but readymade is fine)
150 gr smoked salmon - cheap or even bits is OK
Packet of herb cream cheese 120 gr  (or therebouts)
3 eggs
200 ml cream
Good grinding of black pepper
bunch of chives (optional)

Heat oven 180°C
Line 20cm quiche dish with pastry (either grease dish with a little butter or line with baking paper first)
Chop cream cheese into small bits and dot over bottom of pastry
Chop smoked salmon into small bits and spread over cheese
Whisk together eggs, cream and black pepper and pour into dish
Sprinkle with chopped chives if using.

Bake 45 minutes in hot oven - take out, leave to cool and cut into portions.   Uneaten portions will keep in fridge for 3 days.  Good with a green salad.  Easy to make and good standby lunch for unexpected visitors.

I take a packed lunch to work (packed lunch--I think is the British version of a bag lunch).
I don’t like sandwiches and so I usually have a salad of mind-boggling complexity.

Ingredients include….
Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, radishes, spring onion, avocado, carrot, cress, celery, beetroot, basil, rocket, potato, figs, nuts, sweetcorn, beans etc and the kitchen sink.

And for pudding a fruit salad containing…
Apple, orange, mango, blueberry, kiwi, passion fruit, pomegranate, banana, lychee (yum lychee…I might just go and have some...back in a min).

I've just ate three Lychees...very tasty. At this rate I'm not going to have any left for my packed lunch...this is always a problem. I eat everything straight away.

Oh, just one more...
The lychees are gone...all gone.

Tupperware containers can contain spaghetti, salad
ziploc bags can hold frozen chicken rice

This in the container I use for my packed lunch...it has 3 handy compartments.


Guesswho...
Do you eat frozen chicken for your lunch...how very odd; perhaps there is something in that aspie-neanderthal hypothesis after all. lol

what kind of thermos is good?

The short fat ones with wide tops are the best for soups or casseroles.  the taller ones are better for hot drinks.  If you can only afford one - get a short one.

One with a carrying handle is good.

Two paeans to the packed lunch:

Packed lunches used to mean curly sandwiches and brown bananas. These days, they've gone gourmet.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/...40126.html

Limp, shop-bought sandwiches are out. Exotic, home-made salads are in. Sales of lunch boxes are soaring as workers pack their own.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/...03953.html

I have an insulated lunch box with strap.  It has two compartments, one top, one larger at bottom.