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What is a normal lunch for you?

 
Steward of piddlers
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Inspired by the success of the What is a normal breakfast for you thread, I have decided to ask a new question!

What does a normal lunch look like for you? Do you eat lunch?

 
master steward
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1. No lunch
2. Left overs
3. Peanut butter & jelly sandwich

Running from most likely to less likely.
 
Timothy Norton
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I tend to either not have lunch, or have a light one.

A favorite is a bit of sourdough and some jazzed up olive oil. Add some cheese or a protein and you have yourself a meal. Fridge leftovers are quick and convenient as well.
 
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Lunch is our big meal of the day so we try to make it a full course.

Yesterday I made a bulgur salad and some boiled eggs that covered all the bases.

We take turns cooking lunch so today Steve is making a skillet bread to have with the leftover salad and maybe some albacore....we often have his masa (rather than cornmeal) bread with raw milk and some blueberries or blackberries for dessert...his with sugar mine not.

We cook large batches of things that mix and match...we love leftovers, they are the only 'fast food' we eat

I'm done eating mid day (intermittent fasting works well for me) and he has another meal and some popcorn later.

Winter time more carbohydrates but now a lot of green beans and cucumbers and greens and other garden things along with farm eggs and milk and other proteins and carbs make up our lunches.

 
John F Dean
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Hi Judith,

After I made my post, I thought back into my past practices.  The size of my noon and even meals can vary greatly depending upon the temperature, length of daylight, and work to be done.
 
Judith Browning
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John, same here...this is the norm for several years now but back when the kids were home the big meal was when they got off the bus and Steve got home from work....lunch was whatever was around to grab to eat....I was working from home so meal planning and cooking fell in my lap.  We've had variations over years also.

 
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85% of the time, my lunch is leftovers from last night's dinner, often with a fried egg on top of it (today: hominy cooked in chicken broth, i will throw an egg on top and some cilantro and chili crisp)

the other days, if it's cold i'll make a handful of whole wheat pasta with some greens from the garden, with a quick miso-peanut butter-mustard sauce, eaten straight out of the pot. If it's warm, it's greens from the garden with a can of sardines. There are always greens out there and pasta/sardines are my emergency food stocks!
 
master gardener
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Like Tereza, our lunch is usually leftovers of yesterday's dinner and I also add an egg (fried, boiled, scrambled) if I need to stretch it or I just want variety. Today it'll be chilli and cornbread.

Sometimes I didn't make enough for leftovers and I have to scare something together. We usually have several of: rice, beans, tortillas, greens, salsa, cheese, broth, etc ready to go and these things can be combined with: each other, tiny bits of leftovers, whatever's coming out of the garden, eggs, and spices in an amazing variety.
 
master pollinator
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So breakfast and lunch are optional for me, and interchangible, like I may or may not have one or the other.  Only on rare occasions do I have 3 meals a day.  Usually its either 2 meals or 1 meal and some snacks.  And yes, I guess technically sometimes its 2 meals and a snack, in which case we could just say its 3 meals haha.

Today starting in the evening I've had: 3 slices of colby cheese and a blueberry yogurt and a half tube of ritz.  Dinner will be very late because my husband is on late shift tonight.  I'm probably going to go get another slice of cheese now because talking about food is making me hungry haha.

My husband needs to eat a bit more than me, biologically speaking.  So generally he eats a few times a day.  For breakfast I think he had some cereal with milk, judging by the empty cereal box on the counter for me to recycle.  He had a grilled cheese sandwich and dino chicken nuggets today (I'm not kidding, he thinks they taste better because dinosaurs, he finished off the bag, which was mostly gone anyhow.  He bought something for his lunchbreak at work (which was at about 8:30pm, I don't know what he got but I know it wasn't deep fried because he gets deep fried things one day a week as his work lunch, and healthier choices, whether brought from home or bought, depending on the day/what's happening here.  
 
gardener
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Hubby is retired but I still work 9-5 and I'm another one who takes leftovers for lunch.

I'm super fortunate that Michael is a great cook so week days I come home to dinner and weekends I take over.

Despite there just being the two of us for most of the year - my 90 year old mum spends winters with us in her self contained studio, she eats her evening meal with us and prepares her own breakfasts and lunches.

There's often plenty of leftovers from most meals and Mum will take some food upstairs for her lunch and I freeze portions for my workday lunches.

Even my colleagues get to share the bounty. I never label the containers but they have become pretty adept at recognising the meals - there are regular standbys that get rotated.

Tonight's dinner was a homemade meat pie that started as a large beef, carrot and foraged mushroom stew, reincarnated into pies with homemade shortcrust pastry, served with mashed potatoes and ratatouille that had been made a couple of months ago when zuchinnis were coming out our ears.

Enough left over for one frozen meal.

Tray bakes feature too, chicken pieces cooked over roasted root vegetables and greens.

Stir fried noodles reheat nicely.

We enjoy cooking and eating in our home!!

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Meat pie
Pie
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Roasted vegetables for a ratatouille
Roasted vegetables for a ratatouille
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Leftovers lunchbox
Leftovers lunchbox
 
pollinator
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Location: Oz; Centre South
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wholemeal bread; may be sourdough; plain or toasted.
lubrication:  butter, mayonnaise, hummus or avocado
green:  baby spinach leaves or cos lettuce
protein:  ham, turkey, chicken, cheese or egg
served as an open sandwich  - sometimes a bit unstable . . .
 
out to pasture
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Right now the weather is heating up and I cook up a batch of rice in the haybox once a week so we have some quick meals to throw together at lunchtime, which is our main meal of the day. The rice is cooked in bone broth and has some chopped cooked pork skin and turmeric mixed with it in an attempt to patch up Himself's clunky knees.

Today we had the last of the batch of rice with brown beans, pork heart, onions, mushrooms and a load of lambs quarters (aka fat hen), with some black bean sauce mixed in and a bit of parsley on top.
rice-beans-and-pork-heart.jpg
[Thumbnail for rice-beans-and-pork-heart.jpg]
 
Posts: 14
Location: Southern tip of Nova Scotia, Canada
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My wife and I try to make the mid day meal our "dinner" or main meal of the day. This means anything from roasts and roots to soups and salads to fish with instant rice depending on the day's other plans.

Our smaller meal of the day is usually in the evening but more likely to be closer to what's expected out of "Lunch".

Depending on if we're both tired at the end of the day it might be something that doesn't require work like store bought frozen chicken strips thrown in the oven, or it might be a "nibble plate" of crackers and cheese and veggies and nuts and fruit, or a sandwich, or random hand-fulls of random food over the course of a few hours (an apple here, some pepperoni sticks there, a pickle, a small bowl of popcorn, etc).
 
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