Lunch!

Not only is lunch my favorite meal of the day, it is also the second most important meal of the day. Especially on workdays.

I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything worse than getting halfway through a boring day at work, only to be greeted with a super lame lunch.
Lunch needs to be a satisfying half-point that says "way to go slugger! we're half way to dinner!" not a humongous let down that says "I could have been the high point of your workday... but I'm not because YOU suck."

Now, part of the reason I love lunch so much is because I love going out to lunch, especially with good company.
But, that can get pricey and can tend to be on the unhealthy side, so I typically brown-bag it to work. (Although I don't actually use a brown bag. I tend to use no bag, and then end up cramming my purse with non-spillables and juggling my spillables with my keys as I exit house/enter car/exit car/enter office. It's stupid really. I almost always drop my fork.)

The key to not letting you let yourself down at lunch is planning.
Some days, when the fridge is stocked/there's leftovers from dinner, packing a good, effortless lunch is, well, effortless.

Other days, you don't think about lunch at all until you're running late on your way to work and you open the fridge and you realize there is NOTHING there waiting for you.

Those days are ususally when going out to eat is in order, or you're delusional enough to think that grabbing something lame like an apple and a Clif bar is really going to make your mid-way meal a winner.
It's not. At least it never is for me.

So something I have been working on lately is prepping food in advance, so that I always have a good option for lunch that takes relateively no time to prepare in the morning.

This week, I marinated tofu over the weekend (in some random marinade that included soy sauce, vegan Worcester, garlic, tomato paste, liquid smoke, cinnamon and red wine vinegar... I think...), and then baked it up last night while a rice-cooker full of millet cooked.
Pair that with some sort of veggie (I used fresh broccoli) and you'll be good to go for a nutritious and delicious meal that will spread out over at least a couple of days, with little to no work on your part!

For the record, I've recently solved my "fork dropping" problem by keeping an "office fork" at my desk. Genius, I know.

What's your usual lunch routine? Any favorites or planning tips?