Thursday, October 6, 2011

Trying something new with my lunches

I am notorious for waiting until the last second to scramble to put something together for my lunch.  It usually makes us a couple minutes late and I often am disappointed with what I bring to work and am dissatisfied overall with my lunch.

I've allowed myself one luxury of one frozen meal a week so that I don't have to think about lunch one day.  And I can often get leftovers one time.  So then I only have to think about it 2 days.  But the frozen meals can be cost prohibitive, small and/or not very good or healthy.

In an attempt to make life easier, I'm trying something new.  I should really make and bring my lunch every day.  I should use fresh and healthy ingredients.  Avoid deep fried foods and lots of carbs.  So I'm going to pre-make several frozen lunches for myself.  I often hear of families making frozen dinners in preparation of a baby being born or surgery or mom being out of town.  But those are entire meals for the whole family to eat.  I want to try this with single portion lunches.

So here's my plan.

Have a menu of 5-6 entrees that I make and rotate through.  
Each week I make one entree and freeze single portions.  To freeze the best, use the food saver freezer system.  I should get at least 4 portions from one entree.

It will take about a month to 6 weeks to really get a good supply built up, but it will be worth it.  In the mean time I stick with sandwiches for the days I don't have a frozen option.  After I get my initial stash built up, I have plenty of variety in the freezer and am not stuck eating the same thing every day.

Entree Ideas I have:
  • Chicken Pasta
  • Tacos (cook and freeze the meat and veggies; take the other fixings fresh)
  • Lasagna
  • Homemade Pizza (I rock a homemade pizza and keep wanting to try it frozen)
  • Sweet and Sour _______________ (insert meat here)
  • Chicken Pot Pie
Any other entree ideas I could add?
How do you do your work or other take and go lunches?

2 comments:

Heather said...

I love when I have left over chicken enchiladas for dinner.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-chicken-enchiladas/detail.aspx

Also another idea is to double whatever you're making for dinner and then freeze single portions for your lunch. I do that with dinner, double or triple my dinner and freeze the rest.

Unknown said...

Oooh .... enchiladas. Good idea. Thank you.

Our dinners are sxuch that we never have leftovers, and boring enough that I wouldn't want it for lunch anyway. I used to do leftovers for lunch a lot, but we changed our menu to eat healthier ... hence my conundrum