The Problem of Lunch

I never know what to eat for lunch. For the years when I was working full time I usually ate lunch out with my office friends. But now I struggle with at putting together something together for myself. I know I should make him a better variety of meals but E mostly eats sandwiches, chicken nuggets, or rice and meatballs and fruit.

This is probably my favorite lunch ever: rice, kimchi, SPAM, and kim (dried seaweed) but even it gets old after a while.

So instead I often skip lunch and then end up snacking throughout the afternoon. I’d like to get to a point where I’m making decent lunches that both E and myself will like but that means no dairy/no eggs and dealing with the whims of a two year-old.

How about you–have any ideas for decent quick lunches?

7 thoughts on “The Problem of Lunch”

  1. We generally have the exact same thing for lunch. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with fruit. Generally either strawberries or grapes. Sometimes we'll add some chips. That's it. Nothing spectacular.

  2. I don't know Faith, it's pretty tough to beat Spam! 🙂 I end up eating dinner left overs a lot, but I don't recommend that. Caitlin loves salad and so sometimes we make a big salad together and eat that for lunch.

  3. Lunch is a struggle around here because it is like a feeding frenzy getting all three requests ready at the same time! Eleanor loves those Costco mandu, but she can go through a whole bag pretty fast so I try to limit her. We like to do eat-everything-with-a-toothpick meals (cut up fruit, cubed cheese, pickles, crackers.)

    My own lunch used to be hit and miss, but I've tried to be better. Sometimes I will make a batch of something at the beginning of the week – like a pasta salad or something – and I eat off of that. But don't feel bad about E's lunch selection – it sounds like you have nice varied options. There is nothing wrong with sandwiches!

  4. LN loves tofu so I like to get the seaweed soup packets (they sell them at Korean stores) and drop chunks of soft tofu (soon-dubu) into the soup and it's simple and quick. And lots of nutrition.

    You can also make ramen – but you can jazz it up with your own sauce and ingredients. Or make it so that it has very little broth, add pieces of meat (even Spam!), some vegetables – like those stringy mushrooms (I forget what they're called, they're sprouty mushrooms).

    Of course, LN used to totally NOT eat anything and now it's so much better… 🙂 So in 3 years, E will be easier to please…?

  5. Hmmm…thanks for all the great ideas! I guess a big part of lunchtime success for me will be planning a bit ahead so instead of staring blankly into the fridge I'll at least know what my options are.

    I guess I should probably go back to putting together weekly menus.

    *Sigh*

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