Healthy Lunches

[Katefox]

One of my favorite resources is looking at the bento lunch style resources (bento, for those who don't know, is the Japanese approach to the box lunch). There are some really fancy decorative ones out there, but there's also a lot of other great quick lunch ideas.

I have become quite a fan of bento-style lunches over the last year. I bought myself a pretty bento box, and like that once it's full, I know I've got enough lunch. The only problem is that I can never think of what else to do for vegetables, and carrot & celery sticks get a little boring after a while.

I've also discovered hummus is really easy to make, tasty, and healthy, too. (Really, it involves throwing things in a blender, and blending; dead simple). So sometimes I'll take hummus and slices of pita bread to dip in it.

- miniquiche (crustless quiche made in a mini muffin tin) with plenty of veggies. - these freeze well, and thaw during the morning, so you can make a batch on the weekend, and eat throughout.

Those sound quite tasty. Do you have a recipe for them? And do they taste good if you can't heat them up? I'm not sure if I'll have access to a microwave, so it's always nice to find things that don't need heating.



Although this year, I live a ten minute walk from campus, so I might just go home for lunch/supper, depending on when my classes are.

[Jenett]

Those sound quite tasty. Do you have a recipe for them? And do they taste good if you can't heat them up? I'm not sure if I'll have access to a microwave, so it's always nice to find things that don't need heating.
.

I haven't made them recently, but they're on my list for next weekend (I start work at the new job on the 8th, and plan to make some the weekend before to stick in the freezer.) I'll try and remember and post here, as a) my cookbooks are all shipped to the new home already and b) I don't remember the precise proportions I've favored.

[Jenett]

I haven't made them recently, but they're on my list for next weekend (I start work at the new job on the 8th, and plan to make some the weekend before to stick in the freezer.) I'll try and remember and post here, as a) my cookbooks are all shipped to the new home already and b) I don't remember the precise proportions I've favored.

So, now I have both made and eaten the mini quiches. They are in fact as awesome as I hoped they'd be as a take-to-work food.

What you need to make them
- mini quiche/mini muffin pan (you can make them in a regular muffin pan, but they'll be bigger, and you'll need to adjust the cooking time.)

- something to mix your eggs + milk or cream in

- a whisk, fork, or whatever else works for you for mixing eggs + liquid.

- whatever you need to prep your filling (cutting board, knife, colander, etc.)

- oven

Ingredients (to make 24 mini quiche: serving size is 2-3 at a time.)
- 6 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk or cream. (I use whole milk, because I mostly only cook with it.)
- pinch of salt
- dried herbs for seasoning if you like
- 1/2 cup of whatever filling you want (see below)
- 1/2 cup of cheese (shredded, or diced really small.)

How to make
Turn on your oven to 350F.

Grease the little mini quiche depressions in the baking tin. (a little butter, an olive oil spray, whatever.)

Shred your cheese and cut your filling up into little bits (about 1/4 inch square at most, and smaller is better.)

Put a pinch of cheese into the bottom of each depression in the tin. (This will make it easier to get the quiche out when it's baked, plus it tastes yummy.) You'll note these are crustless, which saves almost all of the tedious bits of making quiche otherwise.

Spoon or sprinkle your filling in on top. Add some more cheese if you want. You want the filling to loosely fill about 3/4 of the depression.

Take your eggs, and crack them into your mixing container. Add your milk. Mix together, until the yolks are broken (as if you were going to scramble them.) Add a pinch of salt, any herbs you want to add, etc.

Pour mixture into each quiche cup, until it is almost full. (Overflowing is not the end of the world, but takes more clean up.)

Put the tray into the oven. Bake for 20 minutes or so, until the tops are browning. Remove, and cool on a cooling rack. (You may want to wait a couple of minutes before removing them from the pan, though.)

Repeat for another batch, if your pan only has 12 depressions. (What I did was mix 3 eggs and 1/4 cup of milk at a time in a 2 cup measuring cup, to save dish-washing annoyance, and because it makes it easier to judge how measuring in the egg into the depressions.

Fillings
I did honey smoked ham and gouda, which was awesome.

I intend to try:
- spinach and feta cheese
- sauteed mushroom and swiss
- caramelised onion and .. hmm, maybe chevre.

And you can obviously also do awesome things with herb combinations.

Storage
Ok. The awesome thing about these is that they freeze well. Freeze in a single layer, and then you can stick them all in a freezer bag, or whatever.

When you want to take them to work, stick as many as you'll want to eat in the fridge the night before. (They might thaw fast enough to thaw if you went from fridge into lunch bag, but I haven't tested that...) But because this makes lots, you can make a batch every week, or a double batch every week or two, and have lots of stuff waiting for you to eat without having to think about it very much the rest of the time.

If you want them warm to eat, you can zap them in a microwave for 30-60 seconds, but I actually like mine cold.

[Katefox]

So, now I have both made and eaten the mini quiches. They are in fact as awesome as I hoped they'd be as a take-to-work food.

Thank you for posting the recipes. I think I'm going to make them as soon as I get some eggs, and things to fill them with (spinach and feta sounds delicious).

[veggiewolf]

...

I made these last week, in regular muffin tins. We used the following as fillings:

- veggie sausage crumbles and gorgonzola
- spinach and feta
- scallion and sharp cheddar
- caramelized onion and gouda.

We used the Gouda shreds in the bottom of each muffin cup as well. Today, I had one on an English muffin for lunch.

[Stardancer]

I
One of my favorite resources is looking at the bento lunch style resources (bento, for those who don't know, is the Japanese approach to the box lunch). There are some really fancy decorative ones out there, but there's also a lot of other great quick lunch ideas.


- http://justbento.com/.

Thanks for this tip! I've been trying it out at work the last week or so, and my colleagues give my lunchbox longing stares...

[hufflee]

... easy quiche....

Just a note here, if anybody is interested.........
If you're like me and still addicted to carbs there is an easy almost foolproof way to make a quiche crust.

Take sliced bread and smash it flat and thin. You can use a rolling pin, but I just use the palm of my hand. White bread works best, but I've had decent results with wheat bread too.

Use a cookie cutter and cut circles out of the flat slice of bread that will cover the bottom and sides of the muffin tin depressions. Push the bread circles down into the depressions. Brush melted butter over each circle. (Make sure you cover each circle entirely.)

Pour in your quiche mixture and bake. Nobody has ever noticed that its not an actual quiche crust!

[Liadine (dragonflyeyes)]

I've gotten into a bad habbit of having a cheese sandwich every day for lunch - there's no way I'm going to buy low fat cheese so I'm looking for healthier option, any suggestions for quick, cheap and easy-to-make lunchtime meals?

Tupperware makes a really handy lunch kit - it's a round container big enough to hold more than enough for lunch but not so big that it's unwieldy, and the lid has a dip in it that holds a much smaller (enough for 2.5 tablespoons max) container. It also has a snap-in knife and fork.

Ever since getting it, I've been taking a lot more salads to work - I put the salad ingredients in the container, the dressing in the small container, and any ingredients I don't wants to get soggy from the lettuce (nuts and so on) I put in a plastic bag that I reuse. Salads are a great, healthy lunch, as long as you make them substantial enough to last you - if I have any leftover chicken breast I chop that up and toss it in, and nuts are also a great option.

Hummus and veggie sticks is great as a snack or part of a lunch. Hummus is easy and healthy to make at home, and I've found some great recipes that substitute yoghurt + a bit of a sesame oil instead of the tahini. Not traditional, but very tasty and a bit healthier. I also like to blend in some roasted red pepper when I get bored. (Hummus also fits nicely into the small container.)

I'm bad for going with sandwiches (or worse, grabbing lunch at the sushi place near where I work, which is awful for my bank account!), but I've found that planning ahead (by making a batch of something on the weekend that I can eat over the week) and having the appropriate containers to bring the food to work have both made a big difference.