Lunch

[poorpete]

What do you usually have?
Where do you usually eat?
Alone or with people or with your TV or your phone?

Is it your ideal?

[Phoebe]

Lunch happens in three ways:
(1) at work with other people, where we buy food and usually I can get a good, healthy option, but I don't like having to pay so much for lunch.
(2) at work when there is no time to stop and eat lunch so I end up eating a bag of popcorn at 3pm and whatever other food I can get my hands on, which usually means junk food, so I end up extremely hungry by supper time yet have had as many calories as I should have had with a healthy lunch.
(3) I'm alone and can eat whatever I please, in which case usually something I love that is healthy, like a piece of fish and a salad, or leftovers from a good dinner, or a black bean patty with various toppings on it.

[Tahlvin]

I work from home, so I usually eat lunch with my wife, and usually sitting on the couch watching a little TV.

What I eat is whatever's available in the house. Sometimes it's leftovers, sometimes it's frozen pizza or frozen burritos or other frozen-type meals that I heat up, other times it's a sandwich, or occasionally we'll go out for lunch.

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

Wasn't it Kyle who was also on the gluten-free diet for a while? It seems really difficult to do unless you're preparing most of your own meals yourself. We're trying to eat a low-carb diet generally here, but we don't have any deep reason to avoid wheat or carbs besides getting old and trying to keep it together health-wise. We also attend a lot of those events where you don't really know what the meal is going to be, and sometimes you're grateful to have the croutons and the dinner roll as basic edible alternatives, so it would suck to not be able to eat them at all. Gluten sneaks into a lot of foods where you wouldn't expect it to be, too.

Oh and also I do not get the joke but I am thinking about it... I don't know... I can think of a reason why that's amusing but I can't imagine that that's the reason you think it's amusing? I must be totally missing it.

[Zen]

Yeah, I recall Kyle mentioning gluten free stuff on occasion. He and I have a LOT of similar health issues, actually. I don't have a gluten allergy, at least not one that has been documented, though I am allergic to MALT, but I appear to have a gluten intolerance. I refer to it as an allergy when I am at a restaurant though, because I want them to treat it seriously. Generally, if I have something that is contaminated with gluten, I will have an IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) flair of major proportions that lasts between two to five days and, generally, includes at least one sleepless night. (As in entirely sleepless, as opposed to the two to five hours that I normally get.)

For a hint about the joke that is waiting to be made, refer to the posts starting with in the "Top Grossers: Weekly Win Standings" thread...

[Kyle]

[Zen]

McCormick spices are a safe bet. If anyone wants to cook for you, tell them to use McCormick seasonings because they are 100% gluten free unless they are labeled as having gluten.

Black Pepper, believe it or not, is another potential source of cross contamination. Wheat husks are sometimes used in the processing of peppercorns.

[Kyle]

[Zen]

Yep. At some point, I'm just going to start carrying a McCormick pepper grinder and a McCormick Cajun seasoning around in my car so I can add pepper to things and make my own Cajun fries at Meatheads, since theirs is not gluten free. (They started carrying Udi's buns recently though. It had been SO LONG since I'd had an actual burger on a bun at a restaurant!)

[Walrus]

More alone than with others, and often in front of a computer (I'm sure my employer would be unhappy to know that but stiff cheddar)

As to what I have - when it comes to food, I don't do regular common things every day or weekly or even monthly - it bores me. So it really depends on what I feel like and what is available.

[Mike]

Usually at my desk. Usually something small I've brought from home.

But you said black bean patty up above, and I am inspired. I've never had one, but I have black beans at home just waiting for a purpose. So I made up a batch last night. Beans, onion, garlic, pepper, eggs, spices. $5.25 to make 8 patties. I had one, and it held together and was tasty as hell.

So imagine my disappointment that Yancey is out today and I had to make an emergency run out west, and I totally forgot to bring my lunch with me.

[mimekiller]

Not a HUGE lunch guy, with my work schedule I usually eat a breakfast/brunch at home and a later dinner. I keep some basic snacks in the office to prevent me from making bad choices at the nearby gas station so if I do eat something in the middle of the day its usually peanut butter, cheese, yogurt.

[Phoebe]

What about Penzeys spices? I would be shocked if they weren't high quality ingredients? Will have to investigate this.

The black bean homemade patties sound WAY better than what I'm eating. Would like to try that. An interesting thing I find about beans: the darker the bean, the lighter the cheese that goes with it, and vice versa. Not sure why. A schmear of avocado is really good on the spicy patty, with hot sauce.

[Mike]

I'm thinking of adding hot sauce directly to the next batch.

I literally went with the first recipe I found online.

2 cans (15oz ea) of black beans
1 and 1/3 cups of bread crumbs
1 small onion
1 bell pepper
1 clove garlic
2 eggs
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
salt/pepper

Drain the beans and pat them dry. Mash them in a bowl with a fork.
Puree the onion & pepper & garlic. Dump them out onto a paper towel to remove excess moisture.
Add all ingredients to the beans and mix by hand.
Form into patties (about 8).
Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Flip them over and bake another 10 minutes.

They freeze really well. They are softer than beef patties and more likely to crumble, but mine held together without trouble on my first try.

Like I say, next time I'm adding some Sriracha to the mix.

[Ronster]

I usually walk at lunch after eating a Whole 30 leftover meal. I eat, then walk & talk

Eating grilled salmon today

[Kyle]

Black bean burgers are the bomb. They're not the same as burgers, but they're damn good.

[Mike]

[poorpete]

I'll need to try it, but agree that words matter. I never liked veggie burgers until they were rebranded (at least in my household) veggie patties.

[Phoebe]

That recipe looks awesome. Yeah, if you go into a black bean burgers expecting a burger, it's a setup for disappointment, but if you look at it as a leftover burrito in patty shape... Mmm.