Ideas for a civilized sack lunch, please.

http://www.rockypatterson.com/DUMBING/Lunchables.jpg
left to my own devices I get these!

Japanese is good. Think inside the bento box!

Buy a bucket of miso paste for cheap and follow the instructions for soup, chop up scallions and add, then Thermos it . Peanut butter, sesame oil and a tiny bit of soy sauce whisked together and poured over cooked spinach satisfies the veg component. Sometimes I see this spinach dish scattered with sesame seeds. Protein...buy a load of chicken wings (cheap) and find a recipe for teriyaki/marinade and make a bunch up in advance. If you have leftover mashed potatoes you can make Japanese-style potato salad by adding a handful of cooked carrots (they often just mix in Birds Eye style cubes) and stirring in a couple of spoonfuls of mayo. BTW apart from the soup, this is all served cold.

All I know is if you eat this last thing with hot fried chicken your hangover disappears.

Can’t go wrong with yogurt, an apple and a small piece of chocolate and a can of tomato juice. If you make your yogurt on your stove this easily comes to less than $3.

http://lunchinabox.net/

a whole wheat pasta salad or brown rice salad are good options. add some chopped veg, a protein, and whisk an olive oil/lemon/mustard viniagrette together to dress it all. add a piece or two of fruit and you've got a decent, grown-up meal.

I like all these ideas. Thanks.

turkey sandwich + cajun mustard

orange

Ideas for a childish sack lunch, plz.

string cheeze and little graham cracker bears with a Juicy Juice.

add a Lucky Strike and that's basically been my lunch.

I bought a rainbow thermos.

Dabney Coleman is mentioned as the star of Sack Lunch.

I thought of another one: make a frying-pan sized Spanish tortilla, cool, cut into wedges. Freeze the ones you don't take to work that day. Last thing at night, take tortilla from freezer, move to fridge where it will thaw properly. Microwave the tortilla at work, dip it in salsa or aioli, also have a leafy salad. It's worth buying a bag of salad with a view to making it last the best part of a work week. Make yr own vinaigrette.

My go-to salad is this: sliced cooked beets and a bit of their juice in the bottom of the salad bowl, add thinly sliced red onion, some olive oil, some balsamic vinegar. Leaves on top. Toss. Eat. You can also do a spinach version where you fry pieces of pancetta and red onions together until the pancetta is crispy and the onions are soft. Then you put the beets, oil and balsamic in the pan, remove from heat, stir and apply to raw spinach.

I would probably spill beet juice all over my shirt half an hour before an important meeting.

*half sleeve of crackers plus any of the following:
--cheese
--smoked oysters
--hummus
--leftover meat chunks
--etc

*orange, apple, similar size fruit

--smoked oysters
Really any sort of canned meat food product can replace, this is just my fav.

Do you have microwave access? If so RAMEN! (I like w/ shaved onions & cabbage cooked in with the broth & barely a drop of sesame oil & lemon juice just before enjoying).

canned octopus is turgid with protein

The Krogers I used to live near had canned octopus! This one doesn't.

In fact the Krogers I live near now is a glorified convenience store.

DEAR EUCLID KROGERS - FUCK YOU.

Replace crackers with pita in the hummus equation, add some sliced tomato and cucumber. This is one of my favoritest and simplest of lunches.

I always forget how good these are. Don't spare the hot sauce.

Like anyone, I can eat half my weight in hummus, but it's so damned expensive. Making my own is well into can't-be-arsed territory.

And Lauren, I like whole wheat pasta, but does anyone else think brown rice is the devil? It's so... dirt-like. Where I live, at the grocery stores they make sushi rolls with brown rice! LOL stupid hippies.

And yes I've eaten oysters on Saltines with tobasco all my life. I invariably eat the whole tin.

a dab of mayo added to the oyster-cracker-hot sauce can be real nice.

I usually make 4 servings of dinner and throw two of them into pyrex bowls. My wife and I get lunch the next day without really having to think about it.

This does depend, of course, on you making dinner at home on a pretty regular basis. It also kind of keeps us from eating things that don't make good leftovers during the week. But most of the time it's totally worth it. If you're making curry / pasta / stir fry / whatever anyway, just make more of it.

I cook for about 5 people, on average, and there's only one of me eating. The rest makes lunches for days but it's not especially "lunchy", it's more dinnery. Have microwave access, though, never thought about cold lunches before!

hummus is really easy to make: blitz a can of chick peas (drained), tahini, olive oil, a few cloves of garlic, and lemon juice to taste in a blender/food processor. it takes me under 10 minutes start to finish, including clean-up.

as for brown rice, i'm used to it and don't mind it. there are some dishes that i'll only eat with white rice, but for salads i think it works well.