So you have zero cooking time. I worked part time through college and I thought that was bad.
Okay, I'm just going to talk out loud here. Please feel free to disregard or tell me I'm off the mark or anything.
It sounds like you have two problems. 1) No time/spoons to cook, and 2) not a lot of carry space for two meals.
For the lack of time, advanced prep or ready to go stuff will probably help. The 5 minute salad type thing. One thing you could try if your food budget is tight is to get salad fixings, cooked vegetables, and pasta or rice in their cheapest form. Cook them on the weekend and split the ingredients into tupperware beforehand. So you have one thing of pasta, one of frozen corn thawed in the fridge or other raw/precooked veggies, one of lettuce, one of hard boiled eggs, one of canned beans etc. Then in the morning you mix different combos together so you can get some variety without taking a lot of time.
Another thing to try is a crockpot or cook a big batch of something on Sunday to eat during the week. It sounds like you're already doing this in some variation.
But these don't solve the problem of carry space. The obvious first thing to try is get a bigger lunch box. If that's not feasible, if you have another bag is there space to cram fruit and granola bars or even a flat sandwich in there? If that doesn't work can you bring in an extra bag - I often use a plastic shopping bag for food, so it won't spill on my stuff if it leaks. Maybe it's something you could tie to the outside of your regular bag or lunchbox.
Another idea that may be a little weird is to pack small portions of five or six things and plan to kind of eat on a snack schedule. Instead of three meals a day you eat six with slightly smaller portion sizes, but because they are evenly spaced through the day you don't have a sugar crash or gnawing hunger by dinner, so total you're eating a little less which may take up less space. The fruit and granola (or whatever else you can stash in crannies outside your lunchbox) becomes a more integral to your daily eating, you bring in say 3 or 4 pieces instead of 1 or 2, and then the food in your lunchbox can be split in two -- one part for lunch and one part for dinner.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 04:19 am (UTC)Okay, I'm just going to talk out loud here. Please feel free to disregard or tell me I'm off the mark or anything.
It sounds like you have two problems. 1) No time/spoons to cook, and 2) not a lot of carry space for two meals.
For the lack of time, advanced prep or ready to go stuff will probably help. The 5 minute salad type thing. One thing you could try if your food budget is tight is to get salad fixings, cooked vegetables, and pasta or rice in their cheapest form. Cook them on the weekend and split the ingredients into tupperware beforehand. So you have one thing of pasta, one of frozen corn thawed in the fridge or other raw/precooked veggies, one of lettuce, one of hard boiled eggs, one of canned beans etc. Then in the morning you mix different combos together so you can get some variety without taking a lot of time.
Another thing to try is a crockpot or cook a big batch of something on Sunday to eat during the week. It sounds like you're already doing this in some variation.
But these don't solve the problem of carry space. The obvious first thing to try is get a bigger lunch box. If that's not feasible, if you have another bag is there space to cram fruit and granola bars or even a flat sandwich in there? If that doesn't work can you bring in an extra bag - I often use a plastic shopping bag for food, so it won't spill on my stuff if it leaks. Maybe it's something you could tie to the outside of your regular bag or lunchbox.
Another idea that may be a little weird is to pack small portions of five or six things and plan to kind of eat on a snack schedule. Instead of three meals a day you eat six with slightly smaller portion sizes, but because they are evenly spaced through the day you don't have a sugar crash or gnawing hunger by dinner, so total you're eating a little less which may take up less space. The fruit and granola (or whatever else you can stash in crannies outside your lunchbox) becomes a more integral to your daily eating, you bring in say 3 or 4 pieces instead of 1 or 2, and then the food in your lunchbox can be split in two -- one part for lunch and one part for dinner.
I hope that helps some.