Your 'clean' take to work recipes

[gamergeek]

In my lunch box at work:
Mixed nuts (last resort, too much fat not enough protein)
Peperoni sticks
Jerky sticks
Mini-cheeses
Can of tuna
Various fruits and veggies (celery sticks, carrots, apples, etc.)

When I cook dinner these days I try to make enough to have several days of leftovers so my wife and I can take the leftovers to work.

Leftovers I've had in the last few weeks:
Steak with sauteed mushrooms & onions
Eggs & cheese with Pacilla peppers (my attempt at chili rellano minus anything carb related)
Scrambled eggs w/ green onions, bell peppers, spinach, and onions
Scrambled eggs w/ cheese & onions (Fridge was out of veggies that night)
Yogurts with ground flax seeds & fruit (strawberries, blueberries, mango, etc)
Grilled chicken with spinach & feta wrapped in lettuce leaves
Chinese Hot & Sour soup (homemade with tons of meat & veggies and some eggs, no noodles)
Homemade chicken soup (chicken, celery, carrots, onions, spices, no noodles)

Every day I take my lunch bag home, re-pack it and bring it back to work the next day.

[Sam277]

People thought it was funny/ weird when i took a 350g can of corned beef into school for a couple of weeks and ate it with a spoon. (Want me to bring some dog food in for you" etc. It did get very boring mind you. Brilliant for calories and protein. A good 90g protein and i forget the calories.

Gets boring though, hence why i stopped after 2 weeks. Got plenty of laughs out of it though.

[ybeayf]

Legumes of any kind. Last Monday my wife had just finished sauteeing a bunch of onions and carrots in preparation for roasting some pork, when the recipe was aborted because I discovered the pork had gone bad. I threw in a bag of dried lentils and some smoked paprika, covered with water, and presto: lunch for the rest of the week. There's literally thousands (if not more) of cheap and easy legume-based recipes. Chickpeas or lentils or black-eyed peas with random pork parts (trimmings, smoked hocks or necks, feet, etc.) or other meats. Charro beans. Cassoulet or fabada. Soltero de queso. Dal of all sorts -- you could make a different dal recipe every day for a year and still have only scratched the surface.

Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern food is especially good -- just look through any cookbooks from those regions. Meat stews, chicken with various sauces, meatloaf/kibbee, or anything you can cook a huge pot of and spoon out a container of in the morning.

[sgtrock]

Breakfast and lunch are always the same for me, every single day, 5 days a week. My glorious wife is kind enough to make all my meals for me.

Breakfast

Granola cereal w/ flavored yogurt (Yoplait) (amazing energy boost from this)
Cup of fruit
Glass of juice
Glass of water
Cup of coffee

Lunch

Box of chopped raw veggies (one of those small disposable re-sealable containers)
Some dressing (ranch, oil, etc)
Small bowl of tuna w/ mayo

Sometimes I switch lunches and have a spinach salad w/ tuna & veggies.

[spakahands]

Here's my sticky yet yummy "protien bars"

Combine dry stuff and mix, add wet stuff and knead (add water as needed - about 1/2 cup - 1cup), lay out on a cookie sheet and put in fridge for one hour, then cut and wrap in wax paper. Makes 10 massive bars. I put a light spray of the no-fat no-calorie cooking spray on the original sheet of wax paper I dump the goo on. Keeps for a week in the fridge. Very filling. May be a tad high in fat for some. Do not bake - kills the protein.

Is this true? I have been looking protein bar recipes for a while and finally decided which one to make and it is meant to be cooked. Now I have read this thread and i'm confused, Lots of the recipes i've looked at are baked.

[gamergeek]

I was inspired by Sam277's can of corned beef so I went to the store and picked up a pile of canned meats. I made sure that whatever I bought had no, or very low carbs. And at least had more protein than fat, but tried for twice as much.

I picked up: canned chicken, canned salmon, sardines (I didn't even know they came in 3 different flavors), kippered snacks, turkey spam (other kinds had very poor fat to protein ratios), and smoked clams.

I loved the kippered snacks, and the turkey spam isn't half bad. I'll update as I try the rest.

[lcjackson17]

Here's my sticky yet yummy "protien bars"

Combine dry stuff and mix, add wet stuff and knead (add water as needed - about 1/2 cup - 1cup), lay out on a cookie sheet and put in fridge for one hour, then cut and wrap in wax paper. Makes 10 massive bars. I put a light spray of the no-fat no-calorie cooking spray on the original sheet of wax paper I dump the goo on. Keeps for a week in the fridge. Very filling. May be a tad high in fat for some. Do not bake - kills the protein.

Is this true? I have been looking protein bar recipes for a while and finally decided which one to make and it is meant to be cooked. Now I have read this thread and i'm confused, Lots of the recipes i've looked at are baked.

Its not true. Proteins can not be "killed" because they are not a living object; they are a macromolecule consisting of amino acids chained together via peptide bonds. When heated, proteins can denature (unravel), but this does not make them any less nutritionally valuable. You eat canned tuna right? It's cooked.

[TonyHowarth]

Its not true. Proteins can not be "killed" because they are not a living object; they are a macromolecule consisting of amino acids chained together via peptide bonds. When heated, proteins can denature (unravel), but this does not make them any less nutritionally valuable. You eat canned tuna right? It's cooked.

+1
Do we 'not cook' chicken, pork, beef, etc. because the protein would be killed? It does unravel the protein chains to some extent, (more with longer time & higher temp) but that makes no difference. The whole thing needs to be unravelled & digested before you use it anyway.

That said, if it's a no-cook recipe like this one, then it doesn't need cooking

T

[Frotabaga]

As if you haven't been bombarded with salad ideas, here's another one:

Chicken breast (or beef, that'd be good too), cooked in fajita mix
Romaine lettuce (or anything besides iceberg)
Cheese, olives, sour cream, whatever you put on a taco

Combine in a large bowl. I like to add a salsa/avocado mix I make (1 medium/large jar of salsa + 1 avocado. Mush together and enjoy.) for some yummy fats.

Nice thing is that you can adjust the toppings depending on how carb-y you want your meal.

[Abzstrak]

I also have access to freezer space, so I usually cook up like 15 chicken breasts at a time, chop them up and divide them up 5 breasts per ziplock, then freeze. I then take some salad stuff to work, and nuke a chicken breasts work of chicken to dump on top of the salad. Usuaing this method I only have to cook chicken once every three weeks for lunches

I take those snack size cottage cheese things to work, eat them in the afternoons and have some frozen berries I can nuke for them.