I can give quite a lot of thought to dinner while failing to make any arrangements whatsoever for lunch. Apparently the meal I need to eat first is less pressing than deciding what to have in six hours.
Then it is 2pm, I am hungry and everything in the fridge seems to require either cooking or a level of enthusiasm I no longer possess. There is cheese, although there was cheese yesterday. There are vegetables bought with perfectly sincere intentions. Somewhere, there may be leftovers.
These are five lunches I actually eat. They do not happen in a particular order, and some appear considerably more often than others.
Feta, grains and whatever looks reasonably lively
Couscous is useful because pouring boiling water over something is generally within my capabilities, even on a busy day. Bulgur works too, particularly if there is some already cooked.
I add chopped cucumber, tomatoes, peppers or whatever needs using, then crumble over some feta and dress it with olive oil, a little lemon juice if I have it, and black pepper. Fresh herbs are lovely when available, but their absence has never caused me to abandon lunch.
The important thing is enough feta. I want to enjoy eating it, rather than spend the afternoon thinking about the cheese I could have had.
Leftover mash with an egg
Leftover mashed potato is a very good reason to have made too much mashed potato.
I heat it in a frying pan with a little butter or oil, letting the bottom catch and turn golden before making a space for an egg. A lid helps the top of the egg cook while the potato gets on with becoming the best bit.
It is warm, filling and particularly welcome when the weather is miserable. There is also the quiet satisfaction of having turned yesterday’s leftovers into something I actively wanted.
Soup and bread worth eating
Sometimes lunch is a tin of soup. I am very comfortable with this arrangement.
What makes it a lunch I look forward to is the bread. A crusty roll, some sourdough or a thick slice of whatever is in the bread bin, preferably with butter. Soup and a disappointing piece of bread always feels like a missed opportunity.
If there is spinach that needs using, I might stir it in. I might equally just heat the soup and eat it.
A cheese and tomato sandwich
I think the cheese and tomato sandwich suffers from being familiar. We have started expecting lunch to contain ingredients that need explaining, when a good sandwich remains a very sensible use of everyone’s time.
Decent cheese, tomato, black pepper and bread I like eating. Sometimes pickle, depending on my mood and the state of the fridge.
The tomato does need slicing shortly before eating, unless you enjoy discovering that your sandwich has quietly become a sponge.
Hummus, crunchy things and some bread
This is the lunch I assemble when I cannot quite face making lunch.
Hummus, carrot, cucumber, perhaps a pepper, with pitta or toast alongside. The bread matters because, for me, a few vegetable sticks dipped in hummus are something to eat while deciding what to have for lunch.
It is also a useful way to finish the odds and ends in the vegetable drawer, although I draw the line at anything that has become a small conservation project.
None of this makes a particularly impressive weekly menu. There is repetition, a fair amount of cheese and some reliance on having cooked too much the night before. Still, these are lunches I enjoy and can usually manage between everything else. Given how easily I can spend half my lunch break deciding what to eat, having a few familiar options helps.
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