Lunch

[Naethyn]

Eating out every day during lunch has gotten quite expensive. I'm sick of sandwiches. I need some ideas! What do you guys eat for lunch?

[Evermore]

LEftovers usually.

[Jay]

Costco microwaveable whatever will save you money. Basically, eat what you ate when you were in college.

[Griever]

Buy some chicken breasts and cook them all at once and put them in ziplock bags for the week. They are good by themselves or with toast. It's inexpensive, healthy and really easy especially if you have a Foreman Grill.

Buy some apples too and slice them up and put them bags.

[Evermore]

Hey where you shopping? I used to do that myself but the price of chicken has soared lately..

[Griever]

I just get the Shopper's brand bag of frozen chicken breasts for $7.99. I'm not too picky.

[10sun]

I buy the frozen chicken breasts from Costco. 10 pound bag (about 30 chicken breasts) for $25ish. Lasts me about a month. I cook them in the morning before my breakfast, let them cool down and then make a sandwich w/ lettuce, tomato, & salt/pepper. Kills the mid day munchies and isn't too bad for me.

-Adam

[brinstar]

Eating out every day during lunch has gotten quite expensive.

she makes you pay? find a new girl, m8

[Tikker]

another easy one os to take leftover steak/chicken/pork, some sauce and a pack of ichiban and mix that together

[Kramer]

usually assorted fruit, yogurt, and for an entree:
peanut butter/honey
peanut butter/jelly
Chicken breasts cooked in olive oil, salt/pepper, onions (sauteed) and garlic
Red Beans and Rice and spinach cooked in (above ingredients)
Oatmeal

[Evermore]

today's lunch Leftover Italian roasted pork with sharp provolone on a roll. No Rabe. ( hate it ) Also have linguini in a bolognese I am probably going to give to my supervisor as she loves it and will not go away once she smells it...

Friday,

Roast Beef in Au Jus on Kaisers with horseradish and chips.

bringing in the crock pot and gunna make the whole office smell...

[Naethyn]

Eating out every day during lunch has gotten quite expensive.

she makes you pay? find a new girl, m8

I don't each lunch with my girl =)

Unfortunately!

[Jay]

Yeah, I do. Zing!

[brinstar]

Eating out every day during lunch has gotten quite expensive.

she makes you pay? find a new girl, m8

I don't each lunch with my girl =)

Unfortunately!

whiff

[Drem]

can't go wrong with triscuits, sharp cheddar, and lunch meat of your choosing.... stack it up etc. easy quick snack

[leah]

i usually bring a microwavable can of progresso chicken & wild rice soup and a piece of fruit. yum!


unrelated note: anyone have any good/easy/requiring-few-ingredients smoothie recipes? i've fallen in love with juice stop but i can't feasibly spend $4.50 a day on a breakfast smoothie so i'd like to make my own.

[Drem]

yeah you can buy cans of fruit concentrate and put one in a blender with a bunch of ice and milk

or put real fruit like strawberries with some yogurt, a peach, and ice

etc etc just experiment, don't use recipes

[Ndaara]

Leah I just got my braces on finally (yes, being 42 with braces is such fun...) so my blender is my best friend til my teeth line up again. I can't wait to CHEW! I so miss sandwiches ><

Smoothies don't really require a recipe. Here's what I do every morning for the past 3 weeks (3 weeks down, 101 to go!):

1/2 c frozen fruit (I've used peaches, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries so far)
1/2 - 1 banana depending on size of banana
1/2 c yogurt
1/2 c milk
1/4 c? (big spoonful) frozen orange juice concentrate
1-2 heaping tablespoons protein powder
1 pear, cored and cut into chunks, if you have one (mostly just makes it sweeter)

Dump everything into the blender and blend. Poke a spoon around in there to scrape the protein powder back in (haven't figured out how to make it blend in well yet...). Blend again, and eat.

That's a rough approximation of Jamba Juice's recipe (which I assume is the same thing as your Juice Stop, the price is the same at least!). I don't actually measure anything. I've only got half an eye open in the morning as it is. I feel much better after getting this big dose of fruit! I had never made a smoothie before and found it ridiculously easy and cheap. I have not used ice, but I do use frozen fruit along with fresh, whatever we have handy. Add or leave out pretty much anything, as far as I can tell.

So far I don't have a favorite, every single one has been delicious, and they are all different. Good luck and enjoy saving your money!

[Drem]

all the ice does is thicken it up. unless you plan on carrying it around for a while in which case it will probably all melt down and just make it runnier heh

[Gypsiyee]

ya what ndaara said leah - i love tropical smoothie and smoothie king but they get pretty expensive. just get the really big bags of frozen fruit, it's like 7 bucks for a huge bag of any frozen fruit. use a little bit of water or juice in the blender so the fruit can get going, and vanilla yogurt. almost all smoothie places use a good bit of sugar in their smoothies so they're deceptively 'good' for you - a lot of them have fruits that are in syrup too. for me the mixed fruit blends don't need any sugar when mixed with the sweet yogurt, but if you get a combo that's a little tart i just use a tsp of splenda.

using the frozen fruit makes it thick enough where you don't need ice at all, and sometimes with ice you get stuck with chunks.. frozen fruit is also cheaper and won't go bad.

[leah]

hmm looks like a trip to the grocery store is in order . . .

do you think i'd be better off going to sam's club for frozen fruit?

[Drem]

sometimes with ice you get stuck with chunks

um do you put everything in your blender at once and then press start? because that's not how you turn out good results

similar to making salad dressing, anything large and solid like the fruit itself and ice if you so choose to use it should be put in first and blended by itself until it's to the consistency of your liking (food processors and robo coupes work better for this part). then thicker product (anything with oils in it) like yogurt should be put in last and very slowly because it's an emulsifier

don't ever just dump everything in and press puree and walk away unless you're not mixing water with oils. and since smoothies usually require dairy....

also vanilla yogurt is probably good for some smoothies but really plain yogurt will keep your smoothie tasting like what you put into it. and if you can't or don't want to get nectar for it, get yogurt that's flavored as per the fruit you're putting in

i cook for a living so i'm just passing this on fyi since it seems like you having trouble with your blender...

[Ndaara]

Drem, you are a genius! Adding the protein powder a little at a time made it blend in much better.

PS on emulsifying: I made Hummus a couple of days ago. The recipe called for adding the tahini/olive oil slowly while the food processor was running. That made the Hummus WAY smoother and lighter than what I've made in the past. I love Cook's Illustrated! It amazes me that something so simple would make such a huge difference.

[leah]

MAN i need to learn how to cook ><

now that i have my very own kitchen, i think it's high time i learn how to use it.

[Drem]

Drem, you are a genius! Adding the protein powder a little at a time made it blend in much better.

PS on emulsifying: I made Hummus a couple of days ago. The recipe called for adding the tahini/olive oil slowly while the food processor was running. That made the Hummus WAY smoother and lighter than what I've made in the past. I love Cook's Illustrated! It amazes me that something so simple would make such a huge difference.

glad it helped)

i love hummus. i worked at emerald valley kitchen briefly and we got to make massive batches of hummus in these huge cauldrons. it was a crazy process... first we soaked the garbanzos over night. then we put them into the kettles in the morning and let these huge blenders go to work on the beans + water. it had some sort of steam injector that kept the temperature at 180+. we would drop huge buckets of tahini butter into it and then start adding all the spices one spoonful at a time from a 50lbs. bucket per kettle.... took all day to make a batch but jesus it's the best hummus i've ever had