Brown Baggin' it. Suggestions for a working person to help avoid the high cost of food? (frozen, healthy)

[Synopsis]

I recently began a new job. For the past several years, I have worked from my home office, but now, I am part of the "cube culture."

My question is this... Can anyone recommend healthy recipes that are easy to make, fill you up, and are good for taking in to work?

Please, feel free to suggest not only about food, but tupperware (or any other "ware") that is best for this. Generally, an all around "best method" for taking your lunch in to work.

I have been eating out a LOT because I'm now working away from home, and it is EXPEN$IVE!

I am going to make this a sticky, at least for awhile, because I think that in today's economy, saving $$$$ would be a big help for a lot of working folks out there, including myself.

Please, post away!

[crazyme4878]

Cold meatloaf sandwiches are good! Cold meatloaf is good period. Okay, I only know this to be true of veggie meatloaf, but I'm guessing it would be the same.

I send my husband with wraps. I first put down some maynaise, then some shredded cheese, then spinach, grated carrots, green onion, diced tomatoes, etc. I spray a little olive oil over the top and add some S&P. He always loves it. It would be easy enough to add some shredded deli slices to that as well.

I have thought about getting a tuperware veggie and dip tray (the kind with the snap-on cover) and preparing an array of sandwich toppings the Sunday before. That way everything would be ready and all you have to do is slap the fixings on the sandwich.

[Nomadicus]

Now that cool weather is here, well for some of you, wide mouth hot bottles full of chili are a hit. Chicken and dumplings go good in them also. Soft sided lunch bags with frozen cooler bottles for the days that the needs a sandwich urge kicks in. My wife uses individual fruit cups with the occasional pudding cup. I don't recommend a hot bottle of corned beef and cabbage unless you need to make a point with coworkers.

[7G9C4J2]

There is a one-word answer to your question: LEFTOVERS. That's what goes into lunchboxes in our home nearly every day, and I'm here to tell you that coworkers follow both my spouse and me from the microwave in the lunchroom back to our desks with their tongues hanging out from the heavenly smells.

Baking chicken? Add an extra piece to the baking pan, pop it in a sandwich bag and refrigerate. Take that and a saucer and a knife & fork in your lunch the next day, along with an apple and some carrot sticks, and you're set.

Making spaghetti? Great choice; toss in an extra handful of pasta, and divert a bit to a refrigerator bowl before you put it on the table. Put a spoonful of sauce over before the hordes of locusts dive in, pop the top on and stick it in the fridge, then sit down to supper, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow's lunch is already prepared.

Soups are wonderful lunch additions, too. If the soup is a light vegetable-based variety, or if you get very hungry during the day, take along a sandwich to go with, but the fact that you're eating something cooked makes the sandwich feel more like a meal.

Leftover pork chops make great sandwiches. Leftover brats, hotdogs, corned beef and pot roast, ditto. Leftover mac n cheese is heaven, leftover stew will have your co-workers begging for a taste, leftover casserole is comfort food away from home, and we could go on (and have, in other threads) for pages and pages.

Leftovers.... it's what's for lunch!

[Synopsis]

These are all great suggestions, and I REALLY appreciate them so much. It's not as if I have never worked from home before, but you all know great suggestions come from others.

I like the leftovers idea. I'm also thinking of going to the market and grabbing some of their pre-prepared items, but it is NOTHING like homemade.

Please keep posting forum members, I think that a lot of people could use your advice in these tough times.

Thanks!

[crazyme4878]

Originally Posted by MidwesternBookWorm

Leftovers.... it's what's for lunch!

Yes, my husband is sad that he can't take leftovers. He loves them! (he works in the field, so unless it is tasty cold, it doesn't work)

[Twinkle Toes]

I make a salad for lunch every day. I keep it in my "igloo" cooler in the car with my blue ice. I bought a bunch of containers from Smart & Final and I buy pre-bagged salad, put reduced fat cheese on it and pre-bagged chicken slices. oh, I also throw on some pre-chopped onions. I have small containers to put my fat free dressing in and I put the whole package together, along with my plastic fork and napkins and my bag of pre-packaged apples and my water and I'm good to go. I prepare this the night before, stick it in the fridge - grab it on my way out the door in the morning and I'm good to go. I'm a huge believer in pre-chopped, pre-packaged stuff because it's fast. If I had to come home from work and chop, and cook, and make and all that it wouldn't get done. Yes - I AM that lazy! LOL

[moonshadow]

I have some fabulous tupperware containers that can go from the freezer into the microwave so I just cook extra of whatever we're having for dinner and portion out some serves into the tupperware, pop it in the freezer and then take it into work for lunches.

The good thing about that is if you get into a routine of cooking extra and freezing, you don't actually have to have the same thing two days in a row.
You could have stir fry for dinner Monday night then go to work Tuesday and have the pasta for lunch you cooked last Thursday night. Gives you a whole lot more variety.

I guess the kinds of things I'd take for lunch would include soups, pasta, curry, stir fry, fried rice and casseroles.

[fjtee]

I often brought leftovers, too. Also, MBW is right in that you need to put what you want for lunch aside first. I've found that my family tends to eat almost everything I cook, even when it's too much. Pigs, they are.

[Synopsis]

You are all great folks... Thanks so much for the suggestions.