Breakfast/lunch for FT working, overwhelmed mom, picky eater

ra_mom

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:13 am

Grab the sugary yogurts on your way out. You say it's something you eat. So eat it. It's not worth it to run on empty.

Keep the sugary instant oatmeal cups at work for emergencies. Don't worry about the sugar. It's better than making your brain and metabolism sluggish.

Cook a large pot of pasta on Sunday. Rinse, drain and toss with a drop of oil. Scoop out into containers. Take one with you each day.

Make a bunch of mini pizza spirals and freeze. Take them with you to work. I'm sure they'll be fine at room temperature.

provent

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:16 am

ra_mom wrote:

What’s a pizza spiral
It sounds good

amother

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:56 am

ra_mom wrote:

ra_mom and oliveoil, I really feel like I came on Imamother to ask for permission to eat sugary food for breakfast! Wink

How do you make pasta stay good the whole week? I find that it gets rubbery after a day or two.

What are pizza spirals?

amother

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 1:05 am

amother [ Firebrick ] wrote:

What would you eat if you were home?

If you want food to be hot, can you bring a small microwave and keep it in your office? Obviously, this depends on your job situation.

I am the only Jew at work and I don't have a space to put it where I wouldn't be choshesh that a non-Jew had put food in it.

I can double-wrap food and use the microwave (as per my Rav), but I don't like doing that.

dankbar

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 5:52 am

Avocado. pasta is fine room temp. sushi you can eat cold, so you can buy it before. cut up veg. melba toast, crackers, pretzels, wraps. some meals can be yogurt or oatmeal you like. some can be peanut butter. Nuts & seeds is a filling protein snack. fruit smoothies. cheesecake. do you like other fish canned like salmon/ sardines? whole fruits. cubed melon.
dairy muffins like carrot/cheese or choco/cheese cappucino/ cheese. potato salad/ pasta salad. milkshake. string cheese you do like? granola/protein bars. natural fruit leathers. dried fruit. cheese danish. craisins. popcorn. corn nuts. afalfa sprouts. fresh green beans/fresh sugar snap peas raw. fresh broccoli raw. cheese blintzes. lukshen cheese kugel. cheese latkes. soups in thermos. farina in thermos. pancakes. berries.

amother

Burgundy

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 6:27 am

Why don’t you like to double wrap food in the microwave?

Sounds like taking leftovers in a thermos or microwaving them is a good option for you.

Same with pasta, grilled veggies, and soups. Or you can make quiches with eggs and cheese and the veggies you like—pretty similar to an omelette. You can make them in muffin tins for easier packing. Pizza and grilled cheese may be more challenging to heat up.

Otherwise, I agree that smoothies in the morning plus rice cakes and peanut butter, deli, cereal and milk, cheese, veggies and hummus are good to have on hand for healthier options.

amother

Apricot

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 6:59 am

OP, you sound very much like me although I'm a little more reformed in terms of my picky eating. But like you, if I try and be adventurous I will skip lunch if I have a change of heart about that new ingredient.

Here's what I do:

For breakfasts, I WILL eat that sugary yogurt. It's food, and otherwise I won't eat and since I don't overeat, it doesn't make a dent calorie wise. I try and stock up on the healthier cereals I like so those are better options (like cheerios, honey bunches of oats, rice crispies, and corn flakes). Oatmeal I will eat oatmeal that I've made myself and I'll season it myself with maple syrup and brown sugar so I have more control about what goes in. Otherwise I'll just use the instant packets. I can also literally have a bagel and cream cheese, or an egg and cheese every day for breakfast. It's food. I'd rather have food than not eat.

For lunches: I have been known to eat a slice (sometimes 2) of pizza every day for lunch. And I'm fine with that. Now that I'm unemployed unfortunately, I make it at home and it's ten times healthier than store bought. When I was working with access to a microwave (you can absolutely double wrap and heat up, DH does that in his mostly non kosher keeping office) I would take things like mac and cheese and leftover shallow fried salmon cubes with a tortilla for fish tacos. Without a microwave, you can use a thermos, or those tiny crockpots they have now to heat things up.

If you like pasta, try making a pasta salad with veg you like, and add something like feta or grilled chicken to it for protein. That you can eat room temp, just take it out of the fridge a little before you eat. I find when I make such a thing for DH and dress it, it stays good for a couple of days.

Maryann

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 10:50 am

amother [ Apricot ] wrote:

I'm so surprised by this! This is basically what I eat and I never thought it was unhealthy?
Do all you ladies really eat so healthy
Im so impressed!

amother

Orange

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:03 pm

Sounds like me.
I keep oatmeal packets and protein bars and string cheese at work for those days I didn't manage to get my life together.
Lunchs that I've found work well: pasta and cottage cheese; cold cheese/cream cheese sandwich; sushi salad (rice, cut up veggies and fish- generally leftovers); dinner leftovers like shnitzel that's decent cold. I make whole wheat pancakes or muffins that I keep in the freezer. If I grab it in the morning it's defrosted by 10 or so.

MiracleMama

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:15 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

It would mainly be grilled cheese or leftovers from the previous night. Also sometimes pasta.

A thermos could be used for these things?

I don't know how successful a grilled cheese sandwich would be since it would kind of steam in there, but pasta works beautifully. I send leftovers for my kids.... things like spaghetti and meatballs, chicken and rice, beans and rice, chunky veggie soups, etc.

watergirl

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:19 pm

OP, you sound a lot like me. I love pasta. I hate salad and yogurt, etc.

I bought the most amazing thing for my office. A small crock pot lunch warmer - one for meat and one for dairy. It doesnt cook, just heats. I plug it into an outlet by my desk about 1.5 hours before I want to eat. Its perfect for heating pasta, salmon/roasted veg/rice all together, I want. I keep a stock of frozen Tabachnik soup at home and when I have nothing to grab, I take one of those. I hate being fleishing in the middle of the day so deli wont work for me, But I use my meat lunch warmer to heat up psr but I use my needs to heat up pareve vegetable soup that I made in a meat pot, etc.

This thing saved my life at work.

amother

Forestgreen

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:24 pm

andrea levy wrote:

Fast intermittently and eat whatever you want for the meal a day you do eat. Not suggesting you undereat, just eat it all at once and don’t worry about ‘having’ to eat breakfast and lunch. There’s no rule anywhere that says you HAVE to eat at a certain time. So don’t.

I'm not op, but I have extremely low energy if I eat my first meal too late in the day, no matter what and how much I eat. This doesn't work for everyone, unfortunately.

ra_mom

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 3:58 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

ra_mom and oliveoil, I really feel like I came on Imamother to ask for permission to eat sugary food for breakfast! Wink

How do you make pasta stay good the whole week? I find that it gets rubbery after a day or two.

What are pizza spirals?

Pour the pot of boiling pasta into a colander set in the sink. Then run cold water over it until cooled down. Drizzle a drop of oil and mix until coated so it doesn't stick together. Let sit a few more minutes so the rest of the liquid drips out into the sink. Then fill Ziplocs or containers with pasta, squeezing out extra air. Tastes great even a few days later. I rewarm in the microwave or you can keep it out until it reaches room temp.
Pizza spirals / wheels, basically roll up a rectangle and cut into rounds. You can add some more shredded cheese on top of each pinwheel. Bake. Some of the cheese will ooze out.
Another option is to keep bread, pizza sauce and cheese stocked at work and use a mini sandwich maker (kept in your drawer) to make yourself a grilled pizza for lunch.

amother

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 7:02 pm

amother [ Burgundy ] wrote:

The plastic leaks into the food.

Making a quiche is already a big patchke for me.