Make Your Own TV Dinner (or Lunch)

I can't tell you the number of times I've had a conversation with someone about eating healthy and changing food habits.  When talking about work lunches, an almost equal number of responses of Lean Cuisine, or some other variety of frozen meals.
I get it.  They are easy, affordable, don't take up a ton of room in the fridge / freeze, and it is made by Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice or whatever so it has to be good for me, right?
An example of a Lean Cuisine meal:
Chicken & Veggies
Calories: 240
Fat: 5g
Cholesterol: 30 mg
Sodium: 648 mg
Fiber: 3.6 g
Protein: 20 g
I know some of the nutritional data is missing, but I pulled this from the Lose It database.

Last year, when I moved in with the most awesome roommate (I know you are tired of hear about her, but really!!!!), she introduced, to me, something that will change the way I cook for the rest of my life.  She would have these cooking parties, usually at 3:00 AM, waking me up as I hear the sounds of pots and pans clanging in the middle of the night, but the next morning, I would wake up to anywhere from 3 - 6 huge meals, individually portioned and packaged, some in the fridge, some in the freezer.  And we wouldn't have to do much cooking until our 'homemade TV dinners' ran out!!!!
I would do this, and could easily go 3 weeks without needing to cook a lunch or dinner!!!  
I will say that only having the 2 of us living in the apartment and having a general agreement on most things made this much easier.  If I were to try this now, living back at home with anywhere from 2 - 4 other people in the house, there would be a massacre over space in the fridge and freezer, and probably a free for all on my food and I would be doing it all over again tomorrow...  

But still, I have adapted and now make some seriously killer 'TV dinner (lunches)'.
I found these nice divided containers at the local grocery store.  Maybe $4 for 2.  I recommend you buy enough to last a full work week.  The containers I bought have a 1/2 section, a 1 cup section, and a generally large space.
The food chosen has a lot to do with the food I like to eat and my own calorie budget of over 2500 calories.  Someone with a smaller budget of 1500 - 2000 calories, would need to make some adjustments.
Let me tell you, hitting 2500 calories in a day is not an easy thing to do without hitting up the nearest fast food joint.  And that 240 calorie Lean Cuisine listed above....  Doesn't do squat towards hitting my budget!!!!  Also, check out the sodium level.  Over 600 mg for only 240 calories!!!!  That is 2.7 mg of sodium per calorie!  The average sodium budget is 2300 mg.  With just these 240 calories, I have used almost 1/3 of my days sodium!
I always start my lunch with some fruit.  Fresh if I can, but honestly, canned is cheaper and last longer... (Ugh!  The pros and cons of canned food!)  1 serving of fruit is 1/2 cup.  Why stop there?  I fill the 1 cup section with fruit.  2 servings of fruit, right off the top!  :-)
After fruit is veggies right?  I generally switch it up between various frozen veggie varieties.  Someday, I may precook fresh veggies, but honestly, just about anything I use is going to be better than TV dinner veggies.  Again, 1/2 cup is a serving, so lets make it a full cup.  It goes into the large space.
Next we need protein and lots of it!  I aim for 20% of my diet to be protein and that takes a lot of protein!  4 oz of chicken.  I find the freezer section to be my friend again.  There are several options of precooked chicken, whole, sliced, or diced.  After I finish up the current bag of frozen chicken I have, I will be switching to fresh chicken, precooked using my own recipe so I can change the flavor from week to week.
I don't think that is enough protein for me though and I am an egg-aholic, so I scramble up 2 eggs and add it to the large section as well.
This week, in an effort to add more calories, because I was still too far from my 2500 budget, I added a little bit (1/2 cup) of instant rice.  In the future, this may change to brown rice, but I haven't gotten along with brown rice up to this point, so I am not sure we will be friends in the future....
I also love dairy, especially cheese.  If I could eat cheese every day, all day, I would!  Love cheese!  So I add a mozzarella cheese stick to the top of the large section. 
And because I have behaved up to this point and ate my yummy and healthy lunch, I add just 1/2 cup of pita chips to satisfy any salt or crunchy craving I may be experiencing.
My TV dinner (lunch):
Calories: 788
Fat: 27 g   (31%)
Cholesterol: 489.4 mg
Carbs:  83.8 g  (42.8%)
Sodium: 1011 mg
Fiber: 3.4 g
Protein: 41.2 g  (26.2%)

I could still use to add some more calories into this.  I think ideally, about 1000 calories would be very solid.  The cholesterol is higher than the Lean Cuisine, but cholesterol is not something I am overly concerned with.  Sodium is only 1.28 mg / calorie.  Over 50% reduction from Lean Cuisine!  I included the percentages so that we can see that protein is 26.2% of the meal.  That is very healthy for my chosen lifestyle of at least 20% protein.
Obviously this is not the perfect meal for everyone, but it takes me 30 minutes to prep my meals for the week and I get to eat like this, instead of the offerings from the fast food joint across the street?  I am certainly very happy with this.
Hopefully you will give it a try.  Please let me know what you use.  I may just borrow your idea and use it in my lunches next week.  :-)