I need ideas for lunch food

[unicornduke]

 I go through this every year or so: I'm bored of my current lunch option and I need to figure something else out. 

Here's the problem: I may or may not have access to a microwave or refrigerator and I don't know until the morning of if I will. Sometimes I leave the office to go out to the field part way through the day and so can't heat something up. I like to have lunch planned for the week ahead of time. 

Here's the other things: Salads are terrible and I will not eat them. I don't like leafy greens, raw tomatoes, onions. Even "salads" that are a mix of fruit and vegetables that I like aren't good because they aren't filling. I'm usually hungry within an hour. I highly dislike mayo and vinegar based things. 

I usually eat fruits and veggies as snacks through the rest of the day along with granola bars and crackers and things like that.

So here's some things I do eat: sandwiches with cheese/dried beef (only lunch meat I'll eat because warm lunch meat is disgusting), sandwich with PB&J, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes with cheese, cornbread with cheese/dried beef, and I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I usually rotate between these every couple of months. 

It has to taste good at room temperature. Does anyone have any ideas? 

Comments

[dragonlady7]

How about, like, chilis? Goulashes?
I gotta think about this some more. I feel you on salads-- sometimes if there's a bunch of meat on them it's enough but usually not. Also too much lettuce and I get sick. yes really!

[unicornduke]

hmmm, I think for me, chili is going to have some really gross textures when cold. Like cold beans seems very ew sitting here. And I wish being hungry would override that factor but it doesn't.

I've never had goulash officially but it looks good. I'd just have to find the proper gf pasta because some are hard when cold.

[dragonlady7]

You need, like, those heat packs from MREs. i wonder if they sell those...

[dragonlady7]

Oh you could do like. shepherd's pie kind of stuff. I usually do mine with a mashed potato top, and then it's just this kind of mush of cooked meat and vegetables, and that might be all right cold if you like cold mashed potatoes.

[unicornduke]

Shepherds pie is a fantastic idea. I love cold mashed potatoes.

[graydon]

"No gluten" really hurts this, because the canonical approach is the cornish pasty, which is so hard to do gluten-free. (One needs robust, structural pastry.)

Fried chicken was more or less invented for this purpose (train food, pre-refrigeration); you'd need a chickpea or corn coating instead of the usual flour one.

Biltong -- South African style dried beef -- is nice if you can get it; somewhat moister than jerky and differently spiced. Biltong and tortillas is pretty bland but you could throw in some cheese or some chutney at the time of consumption.

Actual pemmican? you'd have to make it, because the decent commercial versions are gasp-choke expensive, but it's more or less meant for this.

I'll eat bacon and rice cold; cooked bacon, belly or side, keeps pretty well. (Cooked on a rack over a baking pan in the oven, it's even low effort!) Bacon and quinoa, bacon and cheese and quinoa, can be pretty good cold but cold quinoa can get everywhere.

Pease pottage with bacon bits would be insanely old school.

[oracne]

Can you eat barley? I like it cold, and it can make a good base for things.

[graydon]

I can't, don't know about Unicornduke.

There isn't much gluten in barley, but there is some; this is why I can't drink beer. (Most beer; there's some sorghum beer out there, and guaranteed-only-rice, too.)

[unicornduke]

I'm not sure, I never got tested for celiacs but my cousin has it, so I just assumed I did. Either way, I'd have to do some careful testing before I'd take it for lunch. But wheat, barley, rye are all in that family.

But I can do other whole grains like amaranth and sorghum as long as I eat all the other things I need to eat.

[graydon]

Speaking as someone else with celiac cousins, you don't have to have celiac to have a gluten intolerance. There's this DQ gene cluster and it has eight known states, one of which is celiac and one of which is "normal". The other six are annoying and confusing and poorly understood, but can definitely come with food intolerances, one of which is gluten.

[unicornduke]

I had an exceedingly unhelpful gastro doctor who basically did a colonoscopy and had me do the FODMAP diet and then shrugged and said if the diet fixed the issue, then why bother figuring anything else out. He also didn't think I needed to see at dietitian to help me out at all. Which I honestly really really did need to see one at the time but I eventually figured it out.

So yeah. I never did any other testing including the upper endoscopy so it's a mystery.

[graydon]

"Intolerance is doctor for don't eat that."

I went through a long and wandering diagnostic process but it came down to about the same thing; don't eat that. And then I had to figure out what had soy in it, which turned out to be much more difficult than it ought to be.

[unicornduke]

oh dang, yeah soy and corn are in everything. And like, all their derivatives.

[unicornduke]

These are some good ideas! I had some gf puff pastry in the freezer and I threw the leftover meat and some cheese on them so now I've got something for tomorrow.

I'd never heard of pemmican before but it's an interesting idea!

Bacon is good although I'd have to buy leaner cuts than I've been getting lately. I've been buying loin bacon because I save the fat for cooking. I guess I could just trim it but there's no much meat left. Also the fat tends to soften and get really really gross depending on how I store the bacon.

I did throw some in mashed potatoes and ate it all cold together the other day. It was great.

Thanks for the ideas! I'll have to write these down and figure some things out.

[graydon]

Back bacon -- what might be called Canadian Bacon -- is pretty lean, hereabouts. The hard part is getting it without the cornmeal. (It's more or less smoked pork loin, the stuff that gets rolled up into pork roasts. If you have a smoker, unrolling a roast or two would work.)

Or just ham; if you've got a source of decent ham this lunch application is more or less what smoked pork generally is for. (Reasonably priced smoked pork shoulder is a lot to wish for.)

[Edited to add -- real pemmican, with buffalo and saskatoon berries, is amazing. Venison or just beef can be excellent but it's got a bad work/mass ratio in terms of results.)

[unicornduke]

I've got the in with a local pig farmer so I can get whatever cuts my little heart desires. That's why I've got the loin bacon, it's so incredibly delicious and I cook all my stuff with bacon fat instead of other oils :)

Plus they might have some things they can't sell for Official Reasons that I might be able to trade for.

Pemmican might be worth the effort if I end up with another deer somehow. I'm sure it will happen at some point.

[graydon]

Oh, goodness, that's excellent. You could make your own ham!

Pemmican is mostly a drying problem; bulk lean meat drying is work. Tasty, tasty work, but work.

[dorchadas]

Well, you could do what I do and-

Here's the other things: Salads are terrible and I will not eat them.

...hmm.

Have you thought of making Japanese bentou? They're based on rice, vegetables, and meat or fish, and all designed to be eaten cold/at room temperature.

[unicornduke]

haha, that's exactly the reason why I asked folks on here, all the internet searches I did told me to just eat salad.

The bento idea is a really good one! Someone on another social media did suggest it as well and I'm probably going to do some of that. I just need to work on coming up with ideas. I'm not the greatest cook so I suspect the protein being cooked correctly and with good spices or sauces is going to be the hardest part. And maybe work on the proper rice texture lol.

[dorchadas]

Here's some recipes from that same website!

I can't help with the rice, though--I use a rice cooker, so it comes out great every time. It's a wonderful investment if you eat rice often enough (like, daily), but otherwise, probably overkill.