Sorry for the delay in replying but I was at work. LOL Here's some suggestions I had posted before.

My whole family packs lunch about 4X a week and often itÂs our main meal of the day. We tend to like vegetable salads without greens and with some meat, poultry or seafood with them. Her are some things we make for lunches (usually with some type of fruit or dessert with them):

-Margarita scallop salad (grilled scallops w/a corn salad)
-Grilled portabella and eggplant salad w/sesame ginger dressing
-Hummus w/pita triangles and a Greek salad (and sometimes a grilled stuffed kibbee with it)
-Ham and cheese on mini-bagels with chicken rice soup
-Tomato and mozzarella salad with a couple of slices of French bread and some salami
-Tomato stuffed with chicken salad, crackers
-Baked chicken breast, baby carrots and sugar snap peas with dip
-Caponata and some slices of smoked provolone
-A fruit and cheese platter with rolled up slices of ham and turkey and assorted crackers
-Shrimp and asparagus salad with mustard-dill dressing, bread soldiers
-Cream cheese, blue cheese, horseradish and dried beef spread with garlic melba rounds, pepper cabbage
-Cold salmon with a container of yogurt, cucumber and mint sauce and green beans cooked with tomatoes and onions
-What we call Italian tuna salad (tuna, little cubes of tomato and onion, mixed with basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar), thin slices of French bread
-Stuffed onions or eggplant or zucchini (good use for leftover meat) and marinated mushrooms
-Shrimp and corn salad with mini corn muffins
-An avocado stuffed with crabmeat salad with breadsticks
-Barley salad topped with sliced London broil steak
-Gingered carrot soup with cucumber and onion sandwiches

These are summer lunches. In winter, the menu leans more towards soups and stews. I try to either make up a few things on the weekend, and when weÂre grilling, we can throw some portabella or eggplant slices on there for a salad or incorporate lunch for the next day into dinner. For example, if IÂm making pasta with red crabmeat sauce, IÂll get enough crabmeat to make a salad for the next day while dinner is cooking.

I really think the most creative thing you could do for your lunch is get AWAY from your desk. Take something you can eat "on the run" with you, or - eat it when you get back.

Life is short. Too much time in the office is not a good thing.

Both my husband and myself work in an isolated industrial area where the only places to buy food are fast food emporiums, the only place to shop is one drug store, no parks to take your lunch to and eat it either. We do have a lunchroom where I work but I prefer to eschew the tales of online dating and deer hunting from some of the 19 men I work with.

Eating at my desk is not my preference but it beats eating in my car in the parking lot. LOL

Hi Ruthanna,

Thanks for re-posting the info. I remembered that you had some creative lunches posted at one time, but couldn't bring them up doing a search. Do you use a recipe for the eggplant salad? I love your ideas, and plan on using many of them.

Seagrass, many times during the spring and summer, I leave the office and have lunch in my garden. I only live 5 minutes from my office, and really enjoy the outdoors break. But in the winter, I usually don't feel like going out and brushing my car off, so I just eat at my desk or in the conference room. I don't work through lunch, and I do pop my head outdoors for fresh air. I do love your attitude.

In summer, I grill eggplant and portobellas sliced about 1/2 inch thick. In winter, I put them in a single layer in baking dishes, add salt, pepper and granulated garlic (not garlic salt or garlic powder), drizzle with olive oil and bake at 375 degrees, turning once, until cooked but slightly firm. The mushrooms take less time than the eggplant.

I usually cool them and put them in a covered container in the fridge, where they will keep for a couple of days.

The night before I want the salad, I cut them both into 1/2 inch cubes, add chopped parsley, thinly sliced scallions and some sweet red peppers cut in little cubes. Then I mix in some Cape Cod brand sesame ginger dressing or homemade ginger dressing and divide and pack for the next day.

Seagrass, I do put my phone on Do Not Disturb, pop a CD into my computer and escape into a book or magazine.

Ruthanna, how about some good winter suggestions? I am hoping to walk to work this session, Jan-April, and I can drive in on monday's with a week's worth of lunches...if I can make them in advance. We have a fridge and micro.

I'm open to all suggestions.