Soft food ideas for the lunch box

Hi, this is my first post, but I have been reading the posts for several months now and there is some great information here and some very experienced bandsters so I hope to get some help with my issue. My partner and I both had the lap band placed 10 days ago. We are getting ready to move on to the soft foods stage in a couple of days. I have some great ideas from my Dr. and from this board, however, few of them are suitable for my partners 'lunch box'. He drives a truck all day (is home every night) but works long hours. He won't eat hard boiled eggs, tuna or any kind of tinned fish that I can puree. Things like pureed chili are not great cold (although I could do some in a thermos) and he is getting pretty tired of soup!  Since I work in an office and have a microwave etc, plus I eat a wider variety of foods, I am not worried about myself - I just want to make sure he gets enough nutrition. 

At this point, he is just thinking he will stick to to liquids including protein shakes and puddings until he is ready to move to regular food. I am worried that he won't experience the transition from liquid to soft food to regular food and may have some issues because of it. Any help is appreciated!

Thx

P.S. I do have the Baked Ricotta recipe from this board and plan on making that for dinner this week.

I would try some ideas for him instead of going right from liquid to solids.  He really needs to ease into the solids. 
Does he like refried beans?  I eat refried beans with salsa and some shredded cheese on top and it was heaven, in fact I still fix it.

 I was a tad different.  I was able to tolerate foods more quickly.  Sliced turkey deli meat was good.  I took small bites and chewed till the cows came home.  Greek yogurt was good even with fruit or honey or almond butter stirred in.  Grab one of those thermos bags that keeps things cold for up to 3 hours and throw in an ice pack.  If he likes v-8 juice that can be filling-but buy the low sodium.  Applesauce and all those things keep well-and those fruit cups without cherries(packed in pear juice) if chewed well can help break up the silliness of the same ole' thing.  I hated anything pureed, was like baby food.  THough my mom suggested buying some of the fruit or dessert baby foods to break things up and it wasn't that bad.  Earths best baby food was decent.  Hummus was a life savior.  I bought traders joes whole wheat crackers and used it with the hummus.  No issues.  Sweet potatoes with a bit bit of brown sugar and very small amount of butter and salt tasted good hot or cold, almost like sweet potato pie without the crust.  Not sure if any of this helps, as most people that drive trucks all day long are used to eating on the fly and not the greatest of food choices.  Packing a lunch can be difficult.  Protein drinks help but shouldn't be the end all to be all-as for a man and depending on his current weight he'd probably have to consume a lot of protein.  A  lot of the drinks are high in sugar, so you have to be careful about that.  Just have to do trial and error type foods to see what he likes and what can pack well. You have some definite challenges with packing lunches.   Good luck with everything!!!

Thanks to both of you. I have seen the refried bean dish posted multiple times and am going to try that. I also have a call into the clinic to see if deli meat well chewed would be OK.   Some great suggestions - thanks!  He does like the Atkins shakes (Vanilla and Chocolate) so he is getting some protein.

It is definitely a learning curve and one that would be made easier if he would try new foods more often.....  He claims he doesn't like hummus but I know he has never tried it so I will feed it to him and tell him it is something else and only reveal the truth after he has said how good it tastes (this usually works with new foods!) Oh the games we play

Hummus.. My husband loves it, we use it insead of mayo on bread now..Hummus is very easy to make and men like it.. It's nor "girly" like yogurt :)

Petra

 How about chicken or ham salad made with low fat mayo?  I also did alot of refried beans with fat free cream cheese.  Fruits pureed are not bad at all.  Yogurt is an excellent choice or greek yogurt.  What about a string cheese chewed really well?  

Thanks. I just managed to convince him to try the canned chicken, pureed with mayo, although he also tried to convince me that soft white bread was a 'soft food'! Thank goodness I talked him out of that!

My doc's office gave some suggestions for pureed stage: ricotta (there's a faux lasagna recipe on here); light laughing cow cheese wedges, cottage cheese; canned chicken; blended soft cooked meats (taco meat with mild flavoring maybe with cheese?). For soft foods stage: they suggest ground beef, shrimp salad, turkey, crab cakes (one of my favorites!!), scrambled eggs (egg salad), and peanut butter. There's also a protien frozen dessert: artic zero.
I hope you find some ideas that work for your hubby's lunch.
Congrats to both of you on your surgery and new life!

PS. I don't know if there are any recipies that will work on Jean's blog, but you can check it out: Band-Friendly Recipes: http://jeanslapbandjourney.blogspot.com/

Hi Lin 2. Thanks for the input. I notice we were banded on the same day. Wishing you a successful journey.

No way! really? 
I haven't figured out how to put it on my profile that shows when I make a post.
Was yours on 6/24 too? 
We're band twins :)
I wish you the best too!