Pasta and Little Grainy Stuff

Second Breakfast (top): Pieces of raw bell pepper and a sandwich with seitan, cucumber and onion flakes. The baguette was so broad that I prefered to cut it in half lengthwise, but I put a rubber band around so it wouldn't come apart.
Lunch (bottom): Pasta with a vegetable sauce and some sunflower seeds for extra protein + the edamame corn salad from Veganomicon

A Golden Selection

Second Breakfast (left): Savoury French Toast
Lunch (bottom right): pumpkin soup
Snack: Carrots

Black Bread and Pumpkin

Second Breakfast (top right): Black bread with avocado and some radishes
Lunch (top left): the pumpkin saag from Veganomincon, on a bed of cooked millet
Afternoon snack (bottom): storebought sugar free chocolate chip cookies

Sweet Potatoes and Sunflower Seed Bread

Second Breakfast (top left): Sunflower seed bread with pureed avocado and cherry tomatoes. The bread was a gift from a coworker who went to Germany and brought it back as a souvenir.
Lunch (right): Sweet potato and peanut gratin from River Cottage Veg every day and spicy pieces of cucumber (bottom).
I also brought a smoothie made with a tomato and lots of fruit, like an orange, grapes, a piece of apple ...

Ethiopian Cabbage and Pear Tartlets

Breakfast (right): a bagel with a homemade spread made of white beans with garlic and peanut butter
Lunch (below): Ethiopian cabbage and potatoes
Afternoon Snack (left): tiny puff paste tartlets filled with a filling of pear sauce and almond flakes that I improvised and baked in my little muffin tin

Chili and Pigs in a Blanket

As you can see, at the moment I'm back to my old system of bringing several food containers. In part I'm just tired of packing so much food into the new big blue box, in part I'm going to be more careful now because I seemed to have ruined a t-shirt that was in the same bag with the box and got grease stains.
So, we'll see. What do we have here?
Breakfast (right below): Soy-pigs in a blanket and pieces of kohlrabi
Lunch (top left): Chili on couscous
Afternoon snack (top right and left below): wholegrain biscuits and some grapes

A whole lot of food

Second breakfast (top right): wholegrain bread with homemade carrot spread, nuts and pieces of yellow bell pepper
Lunch (below): a surprisingly delicious mix of green beans, cooked potatoes and champignons, fried with garlic, and a coleslaw made with sauerkraut instead of fresh cabbage
Afternoon Snack (top left): I brought two tangerines and homemade sweets created by mixing granola with melted white chocolate

Pasta with Beetroot

Second Breakfast (far right): Skewers with seitan, tomatoes and potatoes on a bed of salted cashews (protein!)
Lunch (left): Pasta with a homemade beetroot-horseradish-sauce
Afternoon snack (middle): Wholemeal bread with hazelnut-spread.

Croutons and baked Aubergine

Second Breakfast (top left): Pieces of bell pepper and potato latkes baked in the waffle maker
Lunch (top right): Bread croutons and pieces of bakes aubergine, to be mixed and eaten with the tzatziki in the round container on the leaft. I brough a tangerine as dessert.
Afternoon Snack (bottom): Sweet couscous made with orange juice, pieces of orange, almond flakes and goji berries

Gnocchi and Lots of other Stuff

Second Breakfast (bottom left): seitan sandwich, almonds and pieces of cucumbers
Lunch (top): gnocchi with homemade bell pepper pesto and a tomato/mozzarella-salad. The vinaigrette is in the small transparent container on the bottom right
Afternoon snack (bottom right): homemade vegan almond cookies inside the pink container (I forgot to open it for the photo) and pieces of pineapple

Glassnoodles and Millet "Burgers"

Second breakfast (top left): A baguette-sandwich with a filling of tinily cut vegetables, cheese and garlic + some cherry tomatoes
Lunch (below): Little "burgers" made of millet and grated cabbage + Asian glassnoodles with carrots, leek and nuts
Afternoon Snack (top right): a banana, grapes and homemade vegan cinnamon buns

What I learned today: It's easier to use this lunchbox if you put the breakfast (that is going to be eaten first) in the open compartment and the afternoon snack in the ones that can be shut. Also: Don't put an open banana near the rest of your food. The buns and the baguette had a slight banany aftertaste. Not what I was after...

New Lunchbox and a Resolution

So ... I've noticed that I every day around five I get the urge to eat something sweet, and that I usually end up buying some chocolate or going to Starbucks for one of these huge muffins. Delicious but not really good for my health. So I decided that from now on I will bring three meals for the day - second breakfast, lunch and ... I don't know, afternoon snack, teatime? I'm starting to be aware of the fact that even we Germans do not have real word for this meal, apart from "Kaffee und Kuchen".

So, when I was looking around the internet for inspiration, I found a great lunchbox system that I had not know before. And when I passed a junk shop near the office later, I found the same model, although not from the same company, for only 2 €.

 

Here's the link to the original from Sistema:

Sistema Lunchbox Amazon Germany

I've been experiencing with my new adquisition during the last week and at the moment I'm quite content.

My observations so far:

- It's quite spacious, which is both an advantage and a drawback: It enables me to really bring a lot of
  food, but I'm also obliged to bring a lot, because if I don't, everything moves around. Because of this
  I have to think well what I put in which compartment and what I'm going to take out first.

- My version isn't wellmade or sturdy, so I have to see how long it will hold up.

- It's a bit big for my bag.
- It's not easy to clean.

- It's not leaksafe, so I have to use smaller containers inside, and not many fit.
- I can't pack anything that has to be heated together with stuff that's to be eaten cold.

So, we'll see if in the long run this is a system that works for me, for now I'm trying! :-)

Cauliflower Soup and Bell Pepper Buns

Well, it seems I got my mojo back! Let's see how long I stay motivated...
For this lunch I made a delicious cauliflower-curry soup from this German website:
Tinkas Welt
I also brought fried mini-potatoes, and as second breakfast swirly bell-pepper buns and cherry tomatoes.
I case you haven't guessed by their slightly irregular aspect - the buns were homemade (and vegan!).

India meets Italy

Lately I'm trying lots of recipes from two cookbooks.
First we've got Cucina vegana, a vegan cookbook with Italian recipes in German, written by one of my favourite cookbook-authors, Heike Kügler-Anger: Cucina Vegana
I just love her ideas and made this savoury potato-tomato-pie from the book, that served as my second breakfast.
And then there's Veg Everyday from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: Veg everyday!
I was visiting a friend in London who had this vegetarian cookbook. She told me that she really likes it and uses it nearly everyday [so the title wasn't lying ... ;-)] . She mentioned that it was really cheap on Amazon UK, and I bought it there for about 5 pounds when I came back (although it seems to be a bit more expensive right now). I've already tried some of the recipes and have generelly been pleased.
Here I'm showing you the dhal from this book.
I also brought some storebought naan bread and a colourful salad,

This and that

More potatoes today - we Germans just can't get enough of them. I've brought a potato soup with some raw grated carrot as a topping and a mini-calzone with a triple-tomato-filling. It contains fresh and sundried tomatoes as well as tomato purée. I also made a quinoa-apple-trifle.

A Typical German Lunch

For this day I brought a typical German lunch: Roast potatoes with egg and red cabbage from the jar.
My second breakfast was more exotic: A tortilla wrap with a tofu-bell pepper-filling and some cherry tomatoes.

Yummy Leftovers

For this lunch I "invented" a new dish with leftovers that was surprisingly yummy: rice with corn and peas. Hmmm...
I also brought a baguette with a tomatoe-cheese cream and pieces of fried courgette.

Edit: So I just had a long, hard look at this photo and noticed that this wasn't the described mixture of rice with corn and peas, but my usual spicy green rice. Ups, things that happen when you've been hoarding photos for some time...

Pasta and Green Beans

 This lunch features pasta with spinach and garlic plus some green beans with sundried tomatoes. The recipe for the beans was new and I wasn't too keen on it. I loved my snacks though, a piece a hearty onion tarte tatin and some cocoa-hazelnut energy balls.

Homemade hodgepodge

This was a bit of a hodgepodge. I brought a homemade Indian dish wih rice, a sauce with peas and homemade fried paneer-cheese. Not a big success, but I was pleased with the cheese because it was vegan, I had made it with soy milk and it really wasn't bad at all.
My dessert was another little pot of deliciously sweet "chewing gum"-yogurt.
As a midmorning snack I brought two slices of homemade potato-pizza and some grapes.

Sweet Potato Flautas

For this lunch I made these sweet potato flautas:
http://www.beardandbonnet.com/sweet-potato-lime-taquitos-gluten-free-vegan/
I also brought along two kinds of "sauces" (their consistency wasn't very sauce-like): guacamole and a radish relish. In addition to that I had a spicy dish of roasted cauliflower with tomato sauce.
I usually try to avoid dairy products, but when I saw this yogurt with cherry-strawberry-taste in the supermarket, I just couldn't resist, and I have to admit that it is ridiculously delicious. It tastes like chewing-gum!

Pasta Salad etc.

A simple lunch with a pasta salad, a pre-cut apple (hold together with a rubber band) and some fruity chews. I think the sandwich was filled with homemade carrot-spread (it's been some time...).

Tabouleh

Hm, that was quite delicious! I had a wholemeal roll with fried vegetables as a midmorning snack.
For lunch it was tabouleh (an Arabic salad with couscous) and artichoke hearts (those had been frozen) fried with garlic. Yummy!

Pasta with Peas

Here we have a not very photogenic dish of pasta with peas and a almond sauce that's supposed to substitute a sauce with cream. It was quite nice, better than it looked. As a side snack I brought some cherry tomatoes and bread sticks. These are delicious, and they have them in different flavours. This some we went trekking often and have nearly always brought along a packet of these.

Snacks

Wow, I've been away for a long time ... This year I've really lived a typical Spanish summer. Here in Barcelona people change rhythm in summer, coinciding with their children's school holiday from the middle of june to the middle of September. During this time, people work less, leave the city for a whole month it they can, go to bed late and generally do not get a lot of stuff done, but have a really good time. And this year I've participated enthusiastically. :-)

So, sorry for the prolonged absence. Just as I'm going back to teaching and to long hours at the coworking, I'll try to post again regularly. The photos you'll see during the next days are older ones, so let's see if I can reconstruct what I had cooked for those days.

Here we have savory French toast with a tomato salad for lunch. The midmorning snack was the muesli in the other container, eaten with the soy jogurt.

Potato Salad

I suppose I could call this "Official Salad Week". Basically it's too warm to eat anything else.
We have a salad with boiled potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumber and pumpkin seeds. My snacks for the day are a smoothie with grapes, an apple and an orange plus tofu sausages, mini cheeses and cherry tomatoes.

Rice Salad

A simple cold meal for a hot summer day: A salad with rice, cucumbers, tomatoes and macadamia nuts, little apple-coconut pancakes and grapes.

Pasta and Seitan

Today's lunch features some good old friends - pasta with vegetarian bolognese, a reuben sandwich with seitan, some raw bell pepper as a snack and a yogurt.

Quinoa and Samosas

Today's lunch is my beloved quinoa salad by Poor Girl Eats Well, only that I used peas instead of the usual edamame, because I hadn't any left. I also brought homemade samosas and a smoothie with apple, melon, kiwi, orange, thickened with oatmeal and almonds.

Ethiopian Cabbage and Quesadillas

My main dish today was the delicious Ethiopian cabbage dish that I make from time to time, the dessert was a coconut pudding with agar agar. I had some leftover quesadillas from a Mexican restaurant and added homemade ones for a bigger midmorning snack.

"Dampfnudeln" and Some Snacks

This weekend we had friends over for dinner, and I'm bringing some leftovers to work today.  Here we have "Dampfnudeln", a kind of German bread dumplings that are cooked over steam. In Germany they are usually served in a sweet way, for example with a fruit filling and vanilla sauce, but I always follow a savoury recipe with cheese filling and tomato sauce.
My afternoon snack is a piece of the crumbly yet delicious homemade cake with nuts and pineapple that our friend brought as dessert.
I also prepared a sandwich with potato spread, dried tomatoes and avocado as a midmorning snack, accompanied by raw kohlrabi.

Rice with Spinach

Here we have rice with spinach and macadamia nuts plus watermelon gazpacho. I also brought a cereal bar as a snack and sandwiches with a filling of cheese and fried mushrooms with seitan.

Bulgur and Rice Paper Rolls

For this lunch I brought bulgur with ratatouille, my dessert was a vegan tarte tartin with peaches.
My midmorning snack were rice paper rolls filled with grated cabbage and carrots in a peanut sauce.

Aubergine with Mushrooms

For this day I tried out some new stuff - my main dish was a mix of fried aubergine and mushrooms on tomato rice (I just cooked the rice in tomato juice, which was nice, but it took much longer than usual). My side dish was this Carrot Slaw from Healthy. Happy. Life: http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2014/06/turmeric-curried-golden-carrot-slaw-11.html
As dessert I made a fruity pudding with orange juice and chia seeds.

Just Pasta

Sorry for the absence - I was away for a couple of days.
Here we have nothing new or fancy, just plain old spaghetti Bolognese, although with tvp instead of meat.
I also brought some grapes and little homemade spinach tarts as a snack.

Brave New Food

Hm, strange new stuff today. First things first - I dreamt about my main dish the night before. It is boiled black quinoa arranged in layers with combinations of fried vegetables (pumkin, bell pepper and carrot for the orange layer, tomatoes, bell pepper and red beans for the red layer). I loved recreating in reality what I had seen in my sleep, but the taste was just so-so, so I don't think my dream was the presage of a big carreer as a famous chef...
I also brought an interesting dessert, it is an orange "pudding" made with orange juice + a bit of sugar that I boiled with agar-agar. Not bad, I might make something like that again.
My midmorning snack was a bagel with fried vegetables.

Pasta Salad and Scrambled Egg

 This food was for a day that I didn't go to the office and thus didn't have a microwave, so everything could be eaten cold. As a midmorning snack I had scrambled eggs with fried cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. My lunch was my mother's pasta salad and a storebought mini-gazpacho. Everything was quite yummy!

Potato Dumplings and Homemade Sherbet

Wow, this looks huge! I made "Schupfnudeln", which are a kind of potato dumplings from Germany, similar to gnocchi, for example. I made mine from scratch according to a vegan recipe found on the internet (most recipes contain eggs) and  fried them with chopped onions and bell peppers. They were accompanied by a salad with tomatos and avocadoes.
My midmorning snack were grapes and a sandwich with bell pepper paste, brie cheese, kohlrabi slices and fried onions. Everything tastes better with fried onions!
My dessert was something new and I'm quite happy with how it turned out - I made a peach sherbet by blending a couple of peaches with some sugar, freezing the mix and breaking it up with a fork from time to time. This first try hasn't been perfect texture-wise, but the taste was great.

Thai Curry and Vegetable Pies

 For this lunch I made a kind of thai curry with curry paste and coconut milk. I used whatever vegetables were at hand. I'm quite proud of the rest of my stuff - a mango lassi made of soygurt and canned mango (quite okay) and those cute little pies. I just cut out circles of puff pastry, put them into a muffin mould and added of filling of finely chopped summer vegetables and tomato paste. Those looked cute and tasted fantastic, I think I did a good job!

Fideuà

For this lunch I tried to make "fideuà", a Catalan dish that's basically a risotto but with pasta instead of the rice. Not bad. I also brought a dessert, something that I have eaten when on vacation camp as a teenager - quark with tangerines from the can and a lot of vanilla sugar. That's really nice and easy to make for a big group of hungry kids. In my case I used vegan "quark", I just poured vegan yoghurt in a sieve and waited until it had lost some liquid.
My midmorning snack were homemade waffles and some cherries.

Rice and Yellow Stuff

For this lunch I improvised a dish with different types of rice, sundried tomatoes and artichokes. I also brought corn with melted cheese, yummy. My dessert was mango from the can.

Mashed Potatoes and Company

Finally a bigger lunch again. I had homemade mashed potatoes and two soy sausages, accompanied by fried cherry tomatoes with a touch of garlic. Yummy! My midmorning snack was a sandwich with a sauerkraut filling (shown open) and some radishes.

Soup and Pretzel

For this lunch I brought lentil soup and a pretzel. The most interesting thing was probably my midmorning snack - sweet quinoa cooked in orange juice with dried fruit and nuts.

Midmorning Snack

I'm sorry - lately life is getting in the way with my blogging. I'm both working and playing hard, so I often don't have the time and energy to plan and prepare something blogworthy.
Here I'm showing you the snacks I brought to the office one morning - a sandwich with a tomato spread and slices of tomato, soy sausages, radishes and homemade granola-chocolate-bits.

Polenta Quiche

This lunch consisted in an Italian quiche with a base of polenta. I also brought puff pastry with green asparagus as a snack. And dessert - it wasn't easy to photograph, because it had layers of pureed peach and granola. Very nice!

Soup and Corn Muffins

Here I've tried a new soup with cauliflower and pasta from an Italian cookbook. I accompanied it by homemade corn muffins.
My midmorning snack were fried skewers with seitan, mini bell peppers and cherry tomatoes.

Courgette "Pasta Bolognese"

Here I tried something new, instead of normal pasta with bolognese sauce I made the "courgette spaghetti" that I had often seen on the internet. I sauteed the stripes of courgette with a bit of garlic rather than making a raw version. The taste was nice, I quite liked it, but noticed very much during the afternoon that this is not as filling as real pasta, as I was hungry again soon. I accompanied the main dish with a little salad.
As a midmorning snack I brought some leftover Spanish potato omelette. My omelettes don't usually turn out nicely, so my boyfriend is the one who makes them.

Fried Rice and Potato Chips

A big lunch, I had fried rice with omelette strips, little skewers with pineapple + papaya as dessert and homemade potato chips (from the oven) with ketchup as a midmorning snack.

Lentil Soup and Nut Bread

I feel like such a bad blogger, lately I'm just not in the mood to prepare nice lunches for the office, and I often buy something.
For this day I just made a lentil soup and nut bread with lentil spread (so I could empty the jar) and grated courgette. I still had a storebought carrot croquette at the fridge in the office.

Polenta and Pumpkin Goulash

 For this lunch I brought polenta with pumpkin goulash, I still had to urgently use a piece of pumpkin and found this recipe on the internet.
I also brought a little container for a mushroom-tofu filling for my second breakfast - I bought rolls a the bakery before I went to the office.
As an afternoon snack I brought these incredible healty-looking cookies and some early cherries my mother-in-law gave me.