Eating well – quick dinners and healthy snacks – inspiration please!

[MildWest]

I?m in a bit of a rut with dinners and snacks for work ? any suggestions? I seem to be putting away either a packet of crisps or bar of chocolate, plus a can of coke each week day ? not very healthy! Trying to stop filling up on sugar and having healthy snacks instead but lacking inspiration ? any ideas? And also lacking energy to cook for long when I get home, so any suggestions for quick, healthy (mainly veggie) suppers would be great. Need to put a stop to this as can't be good for the baby or my ever-expanding waistline!

This is what I do, the night before as I am preparing dinner I also prepare lunch to take into work, so if I am cooking fish I just do a double portion for the next day, I always eat also a salad ( raw or cooked vegetables) both at lunch and dinner, I was told by dietitian to put for example pumkin seeds, or sunflower seeds or other seeds in the salads, also have a piece of bread a day. Twice a week I cook pasta and rice, the other times y either have fish, or meat, or cheese, or eggs but never all together, just one of four I mentioned.
I have one day off when I eat what I like, I only drink water and soya milk at breakfast and in the morning a freshly squezed grapefruit juice. I have a kiwi in the morning and fruits and a yogurt in the afteroon. I also take advantage of sundays where I wash and prepare all the vegetables so during the week I don't waste too much time in the kitchen, as like you, I never have ideas and am not a very good cook, I just do simple things. Ah, also 5 teaspoons a day of virgin olive oil and apple vinegar, little salt and no sugar, obviously once a week I have ice cream or chocolate or whatever I fancy. Good luck!

I work part-time but for my snacks at work I tend to drink a fruit smoothie and water followed by chopped carrot or apple (chopped the night before) and cereal bars (I particularly like the marks and spencer ones as they are quite filling but the special K ones are quite good too.

As for evening meals when I was feeling rough I made huge portions of chilli and spag bol and froze them. I got in microwaveable rice (not as good as the boiled stuff but needs must) and I also used ready done noodles from the supermarket. Quite often, I'd just do a quick stirfry which you could do with tofu or just with loads of veggies (ready prepared by supermartket?)

You also can't go wrong with pasta if you can add a salad or some veggies on the side.

Other than that, a favourite of mine was beans on toast!

I am an expert on this.

All fruit is good.

Cereal is good desk snacking food too.

Breadsticks/chopped up veg and dips

Packets of nuts

Cereal bars

I go mad at the supermarket and buy all the healthy snacks that I can find, then take them all to work at once in a big bag next to my desk. This means that I have a choice about what I eat and I don't go to the fat pig machine at 4pm because I didn't have enough food with me. I'm a veggie too, so I try to make sure I've got the main food groups covered in my bag of goodies (cereals in bread/cereal/breadsticks, protein in nuts and seeds, vitamins in fruit). I eat pasta or rice dishes when I get home cos they're easy to cook and then I've eaten carbs.

Finally, I try to have a low-fat pudding like yoghurt or rice pudding for supper before bed.

Hmmm... what can I have now...

Apples are brilliant! Really portable, don't make a sticky mess or smell a lot. I can eat two no troubles!