Lunch for the week 7/23/20

I'm writing this down so that I have it available for the next time I want to try this.

This is based upon a Green Enchilada Chicken Soup recipe a friend makes.  It's one of her go-to recipes, and it sounds fine, but I wasn't too sure about green enchiladas, I've never had them to my knowledge, but looking at it, it looked like I could use it as a launchpad for a week's lunches.  By the time I was done about all that was left was chicken, chicken broth, something dairy,
and the slow cooker.

I am still doing one dish for a week's worth of lunches, they just haven't been that exciting.  How many times can you burble about chicken Caesar salad anyway?  I also figure that assorted cold cut sandwiches with lettuce are likely of interest to nobody but me anyway.

So, to the local supermarket to look for what I could find.  I found boneless chicken thighs, and I found a Korma Curry Simmer sauce that looked good, and went from there.

Slow cooked the chicken with the simmer sauce and chicken brothe over the course of a day, pulling the meat apart as in the original recipe, and adding a can of chickpeas after the first cooking .  Initial bowl was rather ... thin? (not enough meat flavor and the liquid portion of the food was too liquid.  Served over rice, it was nice but, needed some more texture, so in went the beans and it got to cook for a couple more hours.  I have been eating it with local bought "naan" (it's marketed as 'fits in a toaster') and some plain yogurt added after the kit-bash korma (over rice) has been heated up.  The yogurt is recommended as an addition to Korma Curry.  Pictures in a follow up posting, been too busy eating it.

What I Would Change

More vegetables (peppers?), two jars of the simmer sauce, I started out with almost 3 lbs of chicken and the sauce is apparently for 1 lb.  A bit of salt added after initial cooking, the broth was unsalted and ... the current version needs salt.

tales of two lunches

I've continued brown bagging lunch at the job, with varying success.  Haven't been posting or recording.

Reporting on two week's lunches this time, last week's which was surprisingly good (and mostly provided by a trip to the local Aldi.  Total cost was about $10.

Think inexpensive

Bowtie Pasta with Sausage Alfredo, cut up plum tomatoes on top, and some grated parmesan.  Heat in the break room microwave, and dig in.  Apparently I managed to make enough to feed a co-worker who forgot to bring lunch  Total meals, 6,

Will do again, but maybe without the tomatoes, they were sort of an impulse purchase, and didn't make it to the end of the week with flavor intact.

So, yes.  This.

This week's lunch was not as good.

Chicken Italian sausage on special at the local supermarket, with "Steamed Broccoli Stir Fry," some pad thai sauce, some orange bits (waste product from making candied orange peel), and rice.  End result ... the Italian spicing of the sausage fights with the Asian spicing and the orange and the result is oddly bland.

I think if I'd used plain chicken (chunks or pulled), or if I'd paired the chicken sausage with alfredo sauce it would've been better.  Marking this one down as not successful, but I've picked up some more pad thai sauce to pout over the mess, to see if it makes it better.

Or at least less bad.  It makes the warring fried rices almost palatable,

Lunch for the week of 12/24/17

also including the previous two weeks, though those weeks were singularly unimaginative.

For the week of 12/10/17 - something so remarkably un-memorable I didn't even bother to take a picture of it.


For the week of 12/17/17

pre-made Quiche Lorraine from the local super market.  It's edible, and the quality of what the local Shop-Rite makes is pretty good.  A bit too much cheese, which melted out, but solid food.  It snowed the day I began eating it, so comfort food.  That works.


This week's lunch 

It started out as home made hot-n-sour soup, inspired by a posting on G+, the original was used chicken and mushroom stock, but I substituted pork stock for the mushroom (slow cooker made, from scratch and part of a bag of pork bones) and I added a jar of Vietnamese hot-n-sour soup base from an oriental grocery store in Phila.  I've had it for a while, waiting for a reason to use it.  It made the stock too sour though, even with an egg beaten in, so I cooked up onions, added water, toast and cheese (I think it's Swiss, tastes good),and turned it into sort-of-French Onion soup.  It's still rather sour, but edible, and the toast puts a lot into the flavor.

I like it.  French onion soup supposedly has wine in the stock, but I skipped that.  I don't think the job would approve.

What I Would Change

None of the soup base, or at least less of it.  It overpowers the rest of flavors,. I didn't have to add extra salt before eating, so that's to the good.

I still have over half the bag of pork bones, so there will probably be more slow-cooker broth in the future,  Uncertain if it will be a basis for gravy or another soup though.

Lunch for the week of 12/3/17

My pants were a bit tight lately, so I've retreated to something "healthier" so ... salad again.

This week's Lunch

The lunch this week is pseudo caesar salad, I didn't have time to cruise the farmer's market for what lettuce was still available locally, and retreated to the supermarket for a head of romaine lettuce.  Not too pricey, and at least it's green stuff that's not fuzzy (like some of the bread in the house lately).  I didn't feel like chicken on it, so I found a cocktail shrimp ring and divvied it out into four, a little more expensive than the bag of frozen "salad shrimp" but more to it, and there's a mouth feel of actual shrimp not puffs of soggy something that salad shrimp sometimes has for me.  I did hit the local farmer's market/amish butcher for some bacon for on top.

I had leftover grated Parmesan from the spaghetti squash to toss on it, and salad dressing (creamy caesar) and croutons, if i hadn't forgotten them at home.  All together, edible, though because oranges were on sale, dessert was a quartered orange, ... working on candied peel.

Needless to say, there are reasons that the 'healthier' up top is in quotes.  This is healthier than McDonalds or a greasy spoon diner, but it's not going to be featured in on any diet sites in the near or distant future.  It's still yummy, and not too over priced (compare to buying lunch every day for a week), so it suits my needs.

What I would change

Remember the croutons, maybe leave them in the desk drawer.  The dressing is already in the break room refrigerator 

I want to get a fitness tracker to remind me to move more, but that's got to get sorted into the "needs-wants-desires" list to be handled when "spare cash" is available.

Lunch for 2 weeks (and late too)

I forgot to create last week's lunches post, though I was rather proud of it.

Last Week's Lunch

Italian Sausage in Cream Sauce baked over Spaghetti Squash  (think Sausage Alfredo sauce over Veggie Noodles)  The squash came from the local farmer's market and I cooked it in a crockpot after finding a recipe online, and the sausage was from a local supermarket's reduced meats section.  the combination turned out well, although I've been told that spaghetti squash should be eaten with "a hearty sauce"  like marinara.

see? seed

I even got a seed I forgot to clean out ... well, a couple of seeds.

What I would change

I'm not too happy with using the crockpot for cooking up the squash, it took two hours, which wasn't a problem, but when I took it out, part was a bit too browned to eat..

I am pleasantly surprised that the dish went together as well as it did.  The sauce didn't puddle too badly (always a risk with a sauce-n-noodle meal) and the squash didn't get yucky even when re-heated.



This week's Lunch
Turnips, cooked with carrots and all mashed together (it's peach colored!) with chicken bits that were dredged in flower with salt, pepper and garlic, then baked.  Not too imaginative, but filling, even if it needs to have salt added.  Dessert is either plain greek yogurt with raspberry jam spooned in or a soft flour cake

What I would change

... a bit less milk when mashing the 'neeps, but maybe put the butter in after the mashing when it's cold, that way it may stand out more.  Still seasonal food though, and yummy.

Lunch for the week of 11/11/17

First, Happy Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, Veteran's Day, what you will.

This Week's Lunch

The adulterated can of chili last was a bit too greasy and rich for me, and I wanted to move away from buying something in a can or a box or a bag and turning it into lunch.  It's easy, but it's not as much fun.

This week my stomach wanted something like comfort food, so it was chicken, gravy and noodles.  Sort of.

The noodles are oriental egg noodles, not as broad as western ones, with a slightly different mouth feel, a bit firmer and fatter, and certainly longer.  They frequently come in bundles, and one makes a person/meal.  I normally use them with psatay sauce.  I cooked them up this time with peas added after they were mostly cooked, mainly to get some veggies into lunch.

My stomach decided it wanted chicken chunks in gravy, so off to the supermarket yesterday.  I got chicken leg quarters (none in the freezer), brought it home, cooked two of them in the oven with a bit of salt on the underside (about 2 lb).  I didn't buy bottled gravy.  It's frequently too watery and too salty.   I wanted to make it myself, and checked our cookbooks to see what each suggested.

They all called for chicken drippings, flour, chicken broth, maybe some light cream (if I wanted a richer gravy) and time, but didn't agree on what ratios, or exactly how much time.  They all seemed to presume that I was either making it with pan cooked chicken, or the like.  I took guesses, tasted and came up with rather tasty.

I didn't have enough chicken drippings in the baking so I added some drippings from previous baked chicken and some butter (about a teaspoon).
I wanted to make it richer, but didn't have light cream.  I used half and half, about an ounce.
I used about 2 tablespoons of flour, and mixed it, the butter/drippings and heated it until the flour was cooked and everything was sticking to the pan.
No chicken broth on hand (I didn't want to use a full pint), so I heated water and chicken soup base from Penzey's

you can't see the gravy!

The result was rich, golden, and a bit under-salted, once I got the chicken off the bones, cut it up and threw it into the pan for some last heating.  then divided it all up and put the two parts of the dish into separate containers, so I can heat them up separately and combine.  I find that cold noodles frequently clump so I like to heat them with some water, dump the water and then throw the heated sauce on top.

But I understand why medieval recipes are frequently just a list of ingredients without instructions on how to combine or any sort of intermediate steps.  I look at what I wrote and I could re-create it or something very close to it, but I'm not so sure a stranger could.

Dessert is a snack box of raisins, because sweet and yummy.

What I would change

A bit more salt in the chicken as it's cooking, remember to drain the drippings back into the pan after I've gotten the meat off the bone.

Lunch for the week of 11/5/17

Last week I over-bought lettuce, so I'm having side salads for lunch, not chicken, because it's not the main course, just some greenery, too much dressing, and crunchy bread bits.

This week's lunch

A while back I bought a can of artisan chili (no beans) with the intention of having it for dinner some night.  Didn't happen, and when I found ground beef in the local market when shopping for this weeks lunch ingredients, i decided it was time to use the can.

Added to this was 1 chopped onion, fried up, a pound of ground beef and then simmered.

Today's lunch included that over some rice and with a bit of cheese, plus a salad and some leftover halloween candy.

What I would change

Add some crackers or remove some of the fat, possibly throw some salt into the dish when re-heating it.  The ground beef was quite rich and between it and the olive oil used for the onions, I'm glad I took a walk after lunch (3 flights down, 3 flights up) to put my lunch bag away.  The salad is a nice touch though.  It's late in the year and cold for "salad as main course" but it's still good for "salad as added munchie"

It's certainly healthier than adding potato chips.