Recently in lunch Category

Summer sausage English muffin sandwich

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ate.2012.05.03.l.jpgThis is a simple but tasty lunch sandwich. Mom used to make this with Hickory Farms "beef stick" though this one is made from a Vermont Smoke and Cure summer sausage.

Just toast an English muffin and while that's going, thinly slice the sausage and lightly brown in a sauté pan. That's it.

Pictured with Kettle Chips barbecue potato chips. The English muffin is a Barowski's wheat English muffin.

Grilled chicken for Caesar salad

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I pre-cook and freeze portions of sliced grilled chicken for Grilled chicken Caesar salad. It's super easy to make a tasty salad when the meat is already cooked and ready.

Season chicken breast (tenders, in this case) with salt, pepper, granulated garlic and a little olive oil. Vacuum seal and sous vide for an hour at 160°F. The sous vide isn't completely necessary, especially for the thin breast tenders, but it does eliminate the problem of the outside of the chicken getting too charred before the chicken is cooked through and lessens the risk of cross-contamination with raw chicken.

Immediately chill the vacuum bag in cold water.

On a grill over high heat sear the chicken for 1:30 to 2:00 on each side. Let cool.

Slice, portion into 2.8 oz. portions, vacuum seal and freeze.

Barbecued pork sandwich

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There's no real recipe for this, but when I have leftover pork spare ribs I often cut off the meat, warm it up in the microwave, add a little barbecue sauce, and put on a Barowski's whole wheat hamburger bun. Quick, easy and tasty!




Jalapeño poppers, tortilla chips and homemade guacamole

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This was an unplanned lunch - the grocery store was out of loose jalapeños so I had to buy a whole bag of them, which then got me wondering what to do with all of the extra jalapeños.

The obvious answer was a jalapeño poppers! I made a fresh batch of my homemade poppers, stuffed with shallot, garlic, jalapeño and cream cheese.

I had leftover homemade guacamole from a few days ago. It was still good because I had vacuum sealed it, but it was getting to the point where I'd either have to eat it or throw it away.

The rest was just 1.0 oz. corn tortilla chips. 

And a little raspberry chipotle sauce for dipping the poppers.

Delicious!



Sautéed spinach, sardines and rice

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ate.2011.01.27.l.jpgThis is one of those lunches that I ate so often I kind of got sick of it and stopped making it. But it's quick, easy and healthy.

If the rice is refrigerated, plate one serving, cover with plastic wrap and microwave for 0:40. Top with furikake (seaweed, sesame seeds, etc.).

Serve either a half tin or a full tin of sardines with a little soy sauce. These are Wild Planet sustainably caught California coast wild sardines packed in water. 

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat. Add a little oil, 2 cups of spinach, and wilt the spinach. Add freshly ground black pepper, hana katso (Japanese dried bonito fish flakes) and soy sauce.

That's it!

Spinach salad

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This delicious salad is something I crave in the spring time.

When I'm in the spinach salad mood I often take a package of baby spinach, wash it, and divide it into pint-sized wide-mouth canning jars and vacuum seal. This works out to a perfect serving size of spinach and it keeps quite well in the vacuum sealed jar.

This salad has a homemade sherry vinaigrette, though I also make it with balsamic or raspberry vinegar. I use a tiny Pyrex bowl with a rubber lid. Add a few splashes of vinegar, olive oil, a dash of Dijon mustard, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Put the lid on and shake it vigorously. That's it! I usually make dressing for exactly one salad at a time.

There's 1.0 oz. of goat cheese on top. I buy the little 4.0 oz. log of Vermont Butter and Cheese goat cheese then score it in quarters. I use one quarter for each salad. Vacuum sealed, it lasts for a long time in the refrigerator.

And 0.5 oz. of homemade candied walnuts. They can be made ahead and keep for weeks in the refrigerator.

Finally, on the side a homemade whole wheat and oat roll, toasted, with butter.

Grilled chicken Caesar salad with roll

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ate.2011.07.16.l.jpgI seem to crave this dish in the summer more than the winter, as with salad in general.

The chicken I grill ahead of time. Season chicken breast with salt, freshly ground pepper and granulated garlic. Vacuum seal and cook in the sous vide for 1 hour at 160°F. Remove from the sous vide, drain, the grill for 1:30 on each side on a very hot grill. I use an infrared propane grill but charcoal would be even better. Let cool, then slice, divide into 3.2 oz. servings, vacuum seal and freeze.

For the salad I use Romaine lettuce. When I'm eating this frequently I pre-cut and wash multiple salads' worth of lettuce and vacuum seal them in quart-sized wide-mouth canning jars. Then I can just grab one salad's worth of lettuce, pop the top and dump it onto the plate - ready for serving.

Add Caesar dressing and toss. Add the defrosted grilled chicken, freshly grated Parmesan cheese and freshly ground pepper. Optionally add anchovies.

Excellent with a homemade whole wheat and oat roll, split and lightly toasted, with real butter.

Spicy green bean lunch

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ate.2011.07.23.l.jpgNormally I made spicy green beans as a side dish, perhaps with salmon. But especially during green bean season, I sometimes make an extra large serving as a healthy and tasty lunch.


Tofu, broccoli and scallion stir-fry

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ate.2011.07.24.l.jpgThis dish is delicious, but I inexplicably go between bouts of having it a couple times a week, and then not having it for months at a time. Go figure.

I usually make this with half a cake of extra-firm tofu in the plastic tray with the plastic film lid. Of course this leaves half a package of tofu. It will keep for a week or two in a container if you change the water every few days. It can also be made from the tofu in the aseptic package, and then you can use the whole package. 

This dish works best in a non-stick sauté pan, or a very well seasoned pan, because the tofu is much better when it gets browned, but it also really will want to stick to your pan. Beware.

Cut 3-4 scallions into 1" pieces, keeping the white and green parts separate.

Cut a handful of broccoli into small bite-sized pieces.

Heat a sauté pan over medium-low heat and add oil, such as canola or olive oil. Add the white part of the scallion and cook for a few minutes.

Add the tofu and cook until browned on one side, periodically moving the pieces so they don't stick to the pan.

Season with granulated garlic and freshly ground black pepper, then flip over each piece of tofu. Add the broccoli to the pan. Add more oil if necessary.

After several minutes, add the green parts of the scallions to the pan.

Season the second side of the tofu with granulated garlic and pepper.

When done, turn off the heat and add stir-fry sauce. I like Lee Kum Kee vegetarian stir-fry sauce, which I curiously use mostly on beef and pork dishes, but in this case, it's all vegetarian. It has a mushroom flavor. Also add a little soy sauce.

Serve with rice. I keep Japanese white sushi rice in my refrigerator. Plate one serving, cover with plastic wrap and microwave for 0:40. 

Add the stir-fry and serve.

Ham and Swiss cheese sandwich

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For years, ham and cheese was my go-to sandwich. But, really, compared to my other sandwiches, it's kind of lacking in anything green. And in volume, if you compare it to my turkey club.

Like all of my sandwiches, it's actually a half sandwich. With one slice of Barowski's wheat bread, cut in half. With Dijon mustard.

There's 3.0 oz. of deli ham in this sandwich. Since I use deli ham so infrequently I vacuum seal and freeze it in 3.0 oz portions.

The trickier part is the Swiss cheese. Like most hard cheeses it can be frozen. It does, however, become extremely brittle when defrosted. So pretty much don't expect to separate any slices of bend it after it's defrosted!

My bread is usually frozen so I wrap one slice in plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for a few hours. The ham and Swiss cheese are vacuum sealed so they get defrosted in cold water for a few hours.