I’ve got the dinner-planning-formula down. Monday is friends dinner, and my turn every six weeks no longer stresses me out. Tuesday is Spaghetti Speusday which is pretty self-explanatory. Wednesday I just wing it and we either eat leftovers or throw together something from the pantry. Thursday is Stirfry Stursday and I make a stirfry. Friday a kid cooks and decides our menu. What stresses me out more is lunches. I make lunches every day, and I often over-think it, so here’s my attempt at simplifying/planning which is actually likely to make things more complicated. Here we go!
Monday I didn’t actually start planning yet, so I just packed sandwiches and some cuties. If you’re not familiar, Cuties are the best citrus for lunches. Period. End of story. Forever.
Tuesday is Taco (salad) Tuesday! Just this week. Not forever. I cooked up some chicken breast (sauteed, with just seasoned salt and pepper), diced, then piled into a container along with romaine lettuce, cilantro, red cabbage, and a mixed up concoction:
- Black beans (drained and rinsed)
- Corn (thawed frozen kernels)
- Red onion (diced and rinsed)
- Cubed pepper jack cheese
- Pickled jalapenos
- Halved grape tomatoes
- Seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, and lime
Tortilla chips and tomatillo salsa on the side. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am for lunch today.
Wednesday we are back to sandwiches, but this time with greek-style chickpea salad on the side: drained/rinsed chickpeas, quartered grape tomatoes, feta cheese, pepperoncini peppers, cucumbers, red onion, and red cabbage with greek dressing. Also probably some grapes on the side. Also probably a cookie or two. I’m clearly writing this while hungry.
Thursday will be soup! Chicken wild rice soup, because right now I’m in a chicken wild rice soup phase. We’ll have a crusty roll on the side, and probably some fresh fruit or veggies. I MADE A SALAD THAT WAS SO TASTY THAT I HAVE TO YELL ABOUT IT. I was at a client’s office on Wednesday and one of my friends here had a salad from Walmart. I fell down a Pinterest hole, and after looking at 12,532 beautifully photographed salads, I threw together leftovers from salads past and came up with the following:
- Chopped romaine lettuce
- Shredded carrots
- Shredded red cabbage
- Thawed sweet corn
- Chopped up sugar snap peas
- Quartered grape tomatoes
- Sliced roasted turkey
- Deli Ham lunchmeat (from the deli counter, cut a little on the thick side)
- Bacon (Hormel’s Real Bacon Pieces to be exact)
- Leftover chickpeas
- Plenty of fresh cracked pepper
- Croutons (in their own baggie until I was ready to eat)
- And finally, LiteHouse Chunky Bleu Cheese Dressing on the side
Those 13 ingredients combined into a Mega Salad, and convinced me that more is better when it comes to salad ingredients. My next challenge is to hit 20 ingredients in one salad.
Friday is going to be soup! Chicken wild rice soup, because right now I’m in a chicken wild rice soup phase. We’ll have a crusty roll on the side, and probably some fresh fruit or veggies.
So there you go! Again! Lunches for the week. I’m still not guaranteeing that I’ll run out of time and just pack sandwiches and plain fruit, but I get a lot more excited for fancier lunch plans.
CrustyBeth 