Meal ideas for a food flask to take to work?

[Time Waster]

My significant other bought me a stanley food flask for Xmas and I am wondering if anyone uses a food flask and what do they put in it? Anyone got a suitable recipe to make something for it? We are talking about a wide shaped stainless steel flask but it is only about 0.4 ot 0.5 litres capacity.

I was thinking that a bulk cook of some kind of stew might be a good option. Then early in the morning I microwave it and warm the flassk with boiled water before pooiuring it away and adding the hot food. It has 12 hours hot or cold rating so should be pretty good at keepin food warm. Can you make a nutritious and sufficiently filling meal and put it in a 0.4 litre flask?? My work day on site starts at 5am and I leave home at 05:55 but lunch starts about 12ish. Then I get home about 5pm so it iss a long day with just that meal. Anything nutritious in terms of a cost effective and energy effective recipe suggestions?

 

[fossyant]

Bulk cook stew or similar. Check the average size of a bowl (measure liquid) and is that enough. I bulk cook and pop enough into single meal sized containers for microwaving at work. Transport them frozen though.

 

[Jameshow]

Curry and rice. Put a layer of rice just cooked around the edge and put your curry in the well in the middle?
Ideal for left over turkey etc

 

[PaulSB]

I have and used 0.5l Stanley for many years, usually through the winter. There are plenty of things you can consider, hearty soups, stews, curries etc. The question is will it be enough to sustain you for, based on your post, 12-14 hours. I think the answer to that will be no if that's your only lunch. A bowl of soup is 0.4/0.5l and wouldn't keep me going for 12-14 hours. For example that's one tin of a standard canned soup.

I would use the flask as part of lunch. A great way to transport warm, nutrious food which can be bulked out with something you carry separately. Pre-cooked rice, pasta, couscous, to reheat in a microwave. Good bread, a sandwich, fruit etc.

 

[Emanresu]

Aren't these just portions of one-pot meals?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/0_best_one-pot_meals

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/one-pot-recipes

 

[Kingfisher101]

Sounds like a lot of faffing about.
Cant you just warm things up at work in a microwave?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Beans and mini pork sausages.

 

[LCpl Boiled Egg]

Don't do anything like packet noodles, where you add water and leave for 5 minutes. In a food flask, they work like expanding foam and by lunchtime you'll have trouble getting them out of the flask.

Don't ask me how I know that

 

[Time Waster]

If course. I have a bad habit of making pot noodles (well, posh ones not the branded ones) then forgetting to go back and eat them. They usually end up dry with thick noodles that aren't that nice. I know how bad noodles left for some time can get.

Been given a cast iron, enamelled casserole pot. The label called it a Dutch oven but that's something different I think. We had another one but this one is actually very light for such a pot. The lid has loads of pints on the underside of the lid so condensation drips back into the food.

I plan to do meals like stew and casseroles. I used to make a sausage casserole with Booths Westmoreland sausages de-skinned and fried in the casserole pot. Then that's taken out and I fry onions in the pot and other vegetables get added, plus tin of tomatoes and stock before meat added and the whole goes into the oven on whatever temp setting I randomly choose. Usually 150 to 200C range. If I have more time I cook at a lower temp. It has other ingredients which also vary as I just chuck stuff in that I think might be nice. I'm a big fan of cooking with Worcestershire sauce.

For awhile I did that in a crock pot / slow cooker. I would fry the meat in a fry pan then with the meat removed to the slow cooker I would deglaze the pan with the onions and then veg. AIUI the bits stuck to the fry pan after the meat is browned adds flavour. With a casserole pot this all stays in the cook pot but you can't start a stew off in a slow cooker pot.

I agree with the flask being a bit small. I did have a 1 litre one once. I tend to go from breakfast at about 5am ish and eat dinner about 5pm ish so lunch would ideally be about 1pm. I currently eat canteen bought sandwiches with crisps or a polystyrene tray of hot food about 400 to 1000kcals so tbh a pot of thick stew might be just a high calories. Actually 425g of lamb stew is about 425kcals, I just googled it. Cheese sandwich is about 285kcals. Crisps about 192 kcals. 477kcals in total. Plus probably more healthy.

I do like the idea of chilli. I never thought about rice in it with sauce would a flask keep the rice warm enough to be safe? I'm wary with rice.

 

[steveindenmark]

Museli with hot milk.

 

[PaulSB]

Museli with hot milk.

Knowing exactly how much milk to use would be important!!

 

[Gillstay]

Dahl. Lentils and chorrizo.

 

[Time Waster]

Lentils? Eurgh! I can just about cope with a few added to another sauce. For example my partner slips a few into Bolognese sauce or even chilli (beef based sauces that is). I will eat a few meat curries which have a bit of lentils in but usually I cannot stomach them. Partly due to at one stage using lentils from scratch in some cooking which ruuined it. It happened to be a particular type of lentils, the black ones you do not see that often. I must have cooked them wrong because they went all powdery and pretty dire texture. So it put me right off lentils of all kinds. It is a shame as lentils make a good ingredient ot pad out meat dishes or instead of meat (with other things of course, not a direct meat replacement).

It is interesting about the muesli with hot milk. It makes me think that you could make a porridge in the flask so it kinds of cooks in the flaks along with perhaps dried fruits and nuts too. More breakfast than lunch though.

I think the best option might be stews and casseroles of a thick consistency, or possibly a sauce with bread or somehow add cooked rice if that is safe and possible. It would be nice to eat a nice bowl of chillli at work (or rather flask cup of chilli).

 

[steveindenmark]

Knowing exactly how much milk to use would be important!!

Test it.

 

[dicko]

Buttered finger rolls wrapped in silver foil in your lunch box and hot cooked Bratwurst Sausages in the flask in water (at least four Bratties).