A few ideas for lunch with Philadelphia

Sometimes I just don’t know how I get myself in such a mess. Each weekend starts with grand plans for exciting ideas for lunch; all planned in to use everything up in the fridge, easy to make and delicious too. Yet somehow I never get past the ideas stage. I just somehow think that all this food will appear in my kitchen and I’ll sail through the week with something different for lunch each day. You can imagine my surprise every lunch time when I’m greeted with the same old sandwich, and sometimes in moments of absent bread desperation, cereal at work.

When Philadelphia asked if I would like to try out their new whipped soft cheeses I thought this was an ideal opportunity to force me to try out some new lunchtime recipes. Three flavours of soft cheese meant three different lunches for me in one week; almost too much excitement.

Lunch 1: Original with Cucumber, Dill and Rocket on Soda Bread
I did think about smoked salmon and cream cheese as it’s such a classic but I wanted to stick to a vegetarian lunch so I just had everything but the salmon. It was nice to chop the cucumber in the morning and assemble everything at lunch to prevent dreaded soggy bread. I liked this one, it was clean and fresh.

Lunch 2: Garlic and Herb Wrap with Speck and Rocket
As I hardly ever eat wraps I thought I’d give them a go for lunch. Wrapping this up tightly in clingfilm was crucial to prevent the whole lot unravelling in the fridge. The faint garlic and herb was really good with the smoky speck and peppery rocket. I only had one wrap but it was surprisingly filling.

Lunch 3: Olive with Tomatoes on Seed Crackers
This was an ‘assemble at work’ lunch so that the crackers remained crisp, although they did break up into many pieces during the walk to work. Never mind. It was good that the olives in the cream cheese were diced quite small so that you got a piece with almost every mouthful. The tomatoes I had were really ripe and sweet which was really nice with the salty olives and toasted seeds on the crackers.

I liked the challenge of making something different for work each day and now we’re coming into the winter season I think some weekend soup cooking will serve me well. I don’t normally have cream cheese in the kitchen but I did find it easier to think of a lunch with it available as it’s sort of a two in one; I don’t need butter and cheese, I can just use cream cheese. If I bought some more I think it would spur me on to have more interesting lunches; no bad thing.

Thanks to Philadelphia. I was reimbursed for the ingredients I used. All opinions expressed are my own.