What to eat at work

Because I write a lot about food, when it came to writing the chapter on what to eat when SOLO working, I found I’d written far, far too much. Masses had to be cut before we could go to print. But I kept what I cut so I could publish it here. As a cookbook author, I know what tastes good and also what our brains and bodies need. I also know what it feels like to have too little time or energy to think about mealtimes. In fact, I am so obsessed with the topic that I recently wrote a newspaper article, plus seven recipes, about how to eat when you work alone.

Here is what I do to try and ensure I eat as well as possible when working I’m on my own - I hope it helps you, too. Scroll down to the very end for my favourite solo, high-speed, working lunches.

The main way I stop myself eating crap food is to make sure I’m full of good food, which means making sure that I have lots of things in jars, tins and the freezer that I can make into a meal in under 15 minutes. I find planning incredibly boring but helpful. While I don’t plan each lunch in advance, I do plan shopping so that I’ve got a range of things to hand which can be made into quick, nutritious and, crucially, tasty meals.

It’s also important that they are at least partially prepared by me as well. I find there’s something very grounding and centring about the process of chopping, slicing and assembling. But I think it also demonstrates a level of respect for yourself that slamming something in a plastic tray into the microwave doesn’t quite reach. I felt this strongly during the week I spent away and on my own to write part of the book. In an attempt to maximise this rare period of totally solo time, I bought a lot of ready-made meals so that I wasn’t “wasting” time on cooking. This was a huge error - the food I ate depressed me, and as we now know, working continuously, without mental or physical breaks, is draining and damages our productivity. It only took a couple of days for me to realise I was being daft and and that the time I was theoretically saving was being negated by how miserable pies in tin-foil trays make me.

I don’t prepare everything from scratch though. Instead, I usually just add fresh ingredients to things which are ready made: I’m not above a fish finger sandwich, for example, but I use really nice bread (which I keep in the freezer, sliced up) cucumber for crunch, plus some salad leaves if we have any (I avoid bagged salad though, as it just doesn’t keep long enough if only one person is eating it), or sliced fennel or radishes. And I make a tablespoonful of tartare sauce with some chopped capers and gherkins or dill pickles and pinch of dried dill, mixed with mayonnaise from a jar.

I try to add a little hit of fresh, raw or very lightly cooked veg to my meals, even if the bulk of the meal is coming from a tin or jar. If that’s not possible, I chuck a handful of frozen vegetables in where appropriate - I like peas in a bowl of pasta with pesto, or I’ll cook some frozen whole-leaf spinach, dress it with lemon juice and a little butter, and pile it on toast under a poached egg. Whether fresh, cooked or frozen, they raise the nutritional profile of the meal and add fibre, which helps steady the blood sugar for the next few hours. More than that, though, it just makes feel good to know I’m eating well.

Where possible, I use big flavours - chillies, capers, strong cheese, anchovies, more chillies, garlic, ginger, curry pastes - to make the meal as tasty as possible, despite its minimal effort. Somehow, I’ve managed to keep some herbs alive in pots outside, and there’s nothing like snipped fresh chives to make scrambled eggs feel more glamorous, or a bit of mint and parsley stirred into plain yoghurt and swirled into spicy lentil soup. (I try not to buy bags of herbs any more, just bunches; too much pointless plastic packaging.)

I make sure the cupboard is well stocked with dry stuff for the days when sandwiches won’t cut it: plenty of pasta and dried noodles, but also lots of really nice tinned soups (they do exist - my favourite is a chipotle-and-bean soup which I like to top with feta and avocado). Cooked pulses in jars or tins are useful too: little nutty Puy lentils, chickpeas and cannellini beans are all brilliant in salads. 

When eating pasta, for any meal but especially at lunch, try not to give yourself an enormous portion. Compared to how it is served in Italy, our pasta portion sizes are gigantic, and pasta is fairly high in the refined carbs which can make you sleepy mid-afternoon. If you like, you could experiment with higher protein pastas, made with things like chickpea flour, not because you need extra protein - it’s rare for anyone except vegans to be short on protein in places like Europe and America - but because protein (and fat) helps slow the rate that pasta’s carbohydrates enter the blood stream, keeping your blood sugar and insulin levels steady. If that thought leaves you cold, then just add protein and a little fat to the sauce - there’s one listed below that has some from the almonds and olive oil and the other from egg and smoked fish, but you could experiment with something like a puttanesca sauce, which is made with tinned tomatoes or passata, anchovies and black olives, all quickly melted together in a pan as the pasta simmers. 

Then when I want to eat, I make a broth with simmering water and miso paste, adding about 2 heaped teaspoons to 350ml of water, or to taste - you can add some sliced garlic or ginger too. I add some dried noodles to the broth and whatever veg I have handy which seems suitable - ribbons of carrot, courgette or cabbage, frozen peas or frozen edamame beans, spring onions, mushrooms, or all of the above. Once the noodles are cooked - the veg should still be crispy - I pour the soup into a wide bowl, halve the eggs and rest them so they are just poking out of the broth, to slightly warm up. Then season, scoff and slurp. It’s even better if you have some sesame seeds, sesame oil or hot sauce to top it with. (The picture opposite is with fish instead of eggs - tossed in soy sauce and cooked under the grill.)

I started batch-cooking when my kids joined a nursery and I needed something I could make them in the 15 minutes after evening pick up before they were too exhausted to eat at all. It turned out to be so useful that now I make double quantities of much of what I cook, and not just for them: lasagna, mac ’n’ cheese, carrot and cumin soup, squash soup, black bean soup, lentil curries, bolognaise sauce, fish cakes … sometimes I even batch great piles of baked potatoes, so there’s always something good in there for those lunches when you really do need to stick something in the microwave and forget about it. (Rather than cheddar, I top mine with feta cheese and a handful of chopped herbs.)

There are a few foods which are touted as being good for brain health. The reality is that the science of nutrition is far from simple, and just eating more blueberries isn’t going to give you a better memory. But making sure you get the right amount omega 3 and 6 fatty acids is worthwhile. Most commonly found in oily fish like salmon and mackerel, a slightly less easy-to-access form of it is also available through flaxseeds/linseeds, avocados and walnuts (take a supplement if you really think you aren’t getting enough). Other foods which won’t do your brain or gut any harm include green leafy vegetables like kale and broccoli, dark (but not milk) chocolate, red or purple-coloured berries and whole grains like bulghur wheat, freekeh, quinoa and pearled barley (actual whole grains that is, not packaged stuff labelled ‘made with whole grains’). Between them give us a good range of vitamins (especially B and K) and antioxidants, all thought to help keep our brains healthy and perhaps even slow long-term cognitive decline.

Here are some of my favourite high-speed lunches:

- pasta sauced with a tablespoon of red pepper paste from a jar, plus a teaspoon of chopped capers, a heaped teaspoon of ground almonds, drizzle of good olive oil, crushed garlic (optional), dried chilli (optional), all whizzed together and stirred into the cooked pasta to heat through. The whole thing takes as long as the pasta does to cook.

- a riff on a carbonara - carbonara is usually made with diced smoked pork and spaghetti, tossed together with a raw egg when the pasta has just been drained, off the heat, which cooks the egg. But I do versions with things like flaked smoked mackerel instead, or chopped smoked salmon (I buy cheap, slightly shredded trimmings from a local fishmonger and freeze them; I don’t care what they look like) and some dill (dried or fresh). Toss in the shredded fish when you add the egg to the drained pasta. Or skip the fish and do it with slices of asparagus, in the summer, or cooked frozen peas, or sautéed mushrooms and lots of salty grated parmesan.

- sliced mushrooms gently cooked in a pan (with optional crushed garlic) in butter or oil, piled up on hot buttered toast with a little crumbled feta and chopped herbs (optional). Or swap feta for a poached egg. Or leave out completely.

- baked potato with whipped feta (plain yoghurt and feta thoroughly mixed together) and chopped herbs (dill, parsley, chives or whatever you have handy), plus lots of black pepper.

- On really cold days, I make what I call a quick dal and what anyone from the Indian subcontinent would call not-a-dal-at-all: fry a spoonful of Indian-style curry paste from a jar (I use Madras) until fragrant, then add ready-made lentil soup (mine’s from a tin) and heat through, stirring. I have this with ready-made warmed-up flatbreads, like naan, and a swirl of yoghurt, if I have some in the fridge.

- spicy bean burger (from the freezer) in a toasted bun (also kept in the freezer) with a slice of cheese melted on top (optional), under the grill, stacked with a smear of chipotle paste, mayo and crunchy sliced vegetables: carrot, fennel, cabbage, radishes, cucumber, crispy lettuce.

- fish finger or vegetable finger sandwich, in good quality crusty bread, with cucumber and salad leaves, plus home-made tartare sauce (see above).

- Eggs are the saviour of the home worker (at least, this one): poached and served on toast on top of hot, buttery wilted spinach (can be kept in the freezer); scrambled and topped with a few herbs, or with some flaked smoked mackerel stirred in.

- A fried egg served on top of a warmed corn tortilla flatbread, with some tomato salsa and some hot refried beans (from a tin), is a thing of joy. Even better if you happen to have some avocado, or can scatter over some finely chopped onion and a little lime juice.

- I don’t recommend toasted cheese sandwiches as a regular lunch, as they’re pretty rich and gooey, but if you really need something hearty, they do the trick. If I succumb, I try to add something which will cut through the fattiness, like kimchi (cheese and kimchi are surprisingly happy partners).

- smoked mackerel sandwich - either flaked smoked mackerel on its own, or mixed with something like creme fraiche, sour cream or mayo, plus some of the crunchy vegetables above. You do need crusty bread for this one.

- in the summer, I make a lot of huge salads. If they don’t contain soft leaves like rocket then they keep well in the fridge for the next day (though get them out half an hour before eating as fridge-cold salad is as bland as hell). Try: smoked fish with hard-boiled egg and chopped potatoes (make double for a meal the night before), leaves and a wholegrain mustard, cider vinegar and olive oil dressing; or chickpeas, feta, olives, tomatoes, peppers, parsley and a toasted pitta bread; cannellini beans, tomatoes, anchovies or tuna and roasted peppers. 

Whatever else you take from this - if you read this far! - I hope one thing is that you deserve a good lunch. You deserve a break. You deserve to eat delicious things. You deserve to take care of yourself. You deserve to recover.