Weekday Lunch

Karen, we love the Santa Fe Chicken recipe too!  We usually have it for supper, but that would make an easy lunch.

I try to keep lunch prep under 30 minutes.  We sometimes have sandwiches, but they aren’t a favorite.

• quesadillas-cheese or with chicken, onions, or peppers.  Sometimes we serve these with soup or chips & guac.  I also make tacos with whatever meat/veggie combo I have on hand
• grilled cheese & tomato soup (or other choice of soup).
• breakfast–scrambled eggs and ham, fried egg sandwich, pancakes with sausage, etc.
• homemade soups (broccoli, potato, veggie, etc.) sometimes with biscuits
• hot dogs (I splurge on the all beef ones) with side of baked beans
• Ground beef with baked beans (I also stir in a little ketchup and mustard)
• tuna or egg salad on bread or crackers
• baked potatoes with leftover chilli (the microwave potato bags make these go fast)
• baked potatoes with baked fish

I serve our lunches with fresh fruit or veggies, pudding, cheese, trail mixes, etc.

Well, y’all are ambitious;-) We unfortunately eat a lot of sandwiches here bc it’s all I can do sometimes to be organized enough to put one hot meal on the table a day but thought I’d share some ideas anyway. I don’t have recipes right in front of me but will try to post later. My husband is addicted to Mexican food so that happens a lot here.

Cilantro-lime taquitos with refried beans &/or Mexican rice, chips & salsa. I like to dip the taquitos in sour cream & salsa.

Tacos (chicken- I sometimes just boil/bake a bunch, shred & freeze when cooking for other meals- or beef) with cheese, salsa, sour cream, avocado, etc), can do same sides as above

Baked potatoes with various toppings cheese,broccoli, bbq,sour cream, ranch dressing

Bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwiches…yummy 🙂 My hubby doesn’t like bacon though so I don’t get these much 🙁

I’ll get some ideas from my mom. ..she has way more energy & ideas than me so often cooks 2-3 meals per day. She thinks bread is a must have at every meal to help fill people up lol.

I think the idea of cooking a big mid day meal is great.  I have often thought of it but never seem to be able to pull it off.

You know this makes me think of my grandma- Nanny Hancock.  She grew up and raised her family with a big breakfast early and a huge dinner at noon time. Then that same noon meal was reheated with a few additions or turned into casserole or sandwiches with sides for supper later in the evening.

Even into her 70’s living alone, she cooked a meat, potato, 2 veggies, a fruit and bread for dinner at noon time! She ate small left overs for supper later.  She set the table just for herself and had a centerpiece!

Of course she wasn’t doing mountains of laundry and homeschooling at that time, but when she was raising her family clothes were hand washed.  There was no electricity unitl her youngest child was school age. She sewed the majority of their clothing and if they wanted chicken for dinner, she went out to the woodshed, chopped off it’s head, plucked it and then cooked it!  She used a wood cookstove and they had no indoor plumbing until several years into her mothering. She kept everything running during the depression and my mother says they barely noticed anything was bad during those times. Her husband was a super hard working man so she was on her own to do most of it.

And I struggle to keep it all together!! Of course my Nanny wasn’t out running a hundred errands or carting kids hither and yon. She probably only left the house once a week other than Sunday morning for Mass.

I am happy for electricity and running water.  I am glad I can drive around and be independent during the week and I love that technology affords me free time she never had. I am not romanticizing all the hardships of her time, just thinking.  I wonder what else we have lost to progress.

We eat a lot of rice here!  Rice and lentils, rice and beans, rice and eggs (once the rice is cooked, mix in a few raw eggs and they scramble in the hot rice), peanut butter rice, rice pudding, fried rice… very easy to throw on some rice and then mix in some extras.  I add frozen veggies for easy vegetables.

Tortillas with cheese is another easy one.  I warm corn tortillas right over the flame on my gas stove, add shredded cheese when I flip them… if I’m tired or uncreative, we just eat that, or you can add anything you want (sliced avocados, scrambled eggs, and/or salsa are favorites here).

Eggs and potatoes–sliced or grated as hashbrowns, or made into potato pancakes.

I’ve also started making two chickens in the crockpot almost once a week.  I shred the leftovers after dinner, and that makes for a nice basic protein to put on rice, salad, tortillas, sandwiches, etc.  Picking two chickens feels like the same amount of work as doing one, with twice the reward 🙂  Two chickens lasts us for two dinners and several lunches.  I put the bones back in the crockpot with the meat juices, water, an onion, carrots, and celery and cook stock overnight too 🙂

And I try to keep the fruit bowl stocked and cheese in the fridge for anyone who is still hungry!

I try to convince my kids that they don’t need a cooked lunch everyday.  If they went to school or even when they go to college or join the workforce they will not be able to get a cooked lunch each day.  They need to embrace the sandwich I tell them! They grumble!

We just don’t do leftovers. I don’t know why but I’ve started just doubling and automatically freezing 1/2 of what I cook. I wish soups were a hit too but we live in Florida and my husband works outside so unless it is cold it is just too hot for soup. I love making 2x recipes though because it is the same amount of cooking and effort but 2 dinners. And having stuff frozen keeps us from going out so much.