Spinach and other stuff salad

In an effort to detoxify my body after a bit of a french fry (and let's face it, booze) binge, I decided to have spinach salad for a few lunches. The great thing about spinach salad is that all you need is a box of baby spinach, some protein, some quinoa (which keeps very well in the fridge), some fruit and some dressing. Basically, I kept everything in the work fridge (separately) and assembled the salad every day.

Ingredients
Two handfuls of baby spinach
1/2 cup of chickpeas
1 mango, diced
1/4 cup cooked quinoa
homemade balsamic dressing

Let's do it!
I don't really like prepared salad dressings, so I keep a little jar of 1:1 balsamic dressing and olive oil with a dash of salt in the work fridge. The olive oil solidifies in the fridge, so you need to take the jar out of the fridge for maybe 15 minutes before you eat it. Or you can hold it under the tap.

Basically, I threw everything into a plastic container, shook it up and dumped it on a plate. The mango really elevates this salad from torturous to delicious.

This is the ultimate healthy lunch when you have a grocery store nearby and don't feel like splurging on prepared restaurant food. For the protein, you can also bring canned salmon (make sure it's one of the SeaChoice picks), hardboiled eggs, other beans, or meat. You can obviously also add whatever other veggies or even fruit you like.

Quinoa and Other Stuff Salad

Otherwise known as the "Quinoa and whatever else I have laying around" salad.

Quinoa is supposed to be super good for you, so I try to make it as often as I can.

Ingredients
1/2 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed well
3/4 cup water
Any veggies, beans, etc. you have laying around
1 lemon or some kind of vinegar
Same amount of some kind of oil
salt

Let's do it!
Throw the quinoa and water in a rice cooker and turn it on. If you don't have a rice cooker, boil the water, throw in the quinoa, simmer and cover. Drain if necessary.

Rinse/chop any veggies you have laying around. I had frozen edamame, chickpeas and tomatoes.

Measure up 1:1 lemon or vinegar and oil in a glass jar. Put in some salt. I also tossed in a bit of dried basil. You can use fresh basil or whatever light herb you like. Shake shake shake!

Mix everything up in a container with a lid.

Enjoy!

Crunchy Chicken Salad Sandwich with Raw Kale Salad

What do you do when you have one chicken thigh that you want to spread over two lunch servings without making some sort of stew thingie? Chicken salad sandwiches!!

But first, let's start with the kale salad, as I made that while the chicken was cooking.

Raw Kale Salad

I love this salad because it's ridiculously easy, lasts in the fridge for a few days and tastes great. It's also full of vitamins or something.


Working time: 5-10 minutes




Ingredients:
6 cups shredded/chopped kale (spines removed)
1/2 lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste

Let's do it!
Put the oil, lemon juice (keep the seeds out, or the salad will have some bitter surprises for you) and kale in a big bowl. Put in a dash of salt. Using your hands, squeeze and mush up the kale until it's all mixed and it looks like you have about 1/4 of what you started with. Taste, salt (if needed). That's it. Really. That's it. And as an extra benefit, the lemon and olive oil feel great on your hands, I usually just give my hands a quick rinse after without soap, since it feels so nice. On the downside, you will discover that you have a tiny cuts all over your hands during this process.

Crunchy Chicken Salad

This is my first time making this, but not the first time making a chicken salad. To me chicken and egg salads need a few things: protein, onion, something crunchy and something creamy. Instead of the usual boring (and nutritionally empty) celery, I subbed in a nice tart and tasty green apple.

Working time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
1 chicken thigh
1 green onion, cleaned and chopped into thin slices
1/2 green apple cored and diced
1/2 cup of cucumber, diced
1/2 lemon
1 tsp grainy mustard
1-2 tbsp mayonnaise (to your taste)
Optional: Chopped up cilantro would add a pretty wicked kick to this. Too bad I forgot to buy some.

Let's do it!


Rinse and season the chicken with salt and bake in a toaster oven at 350ºF for about 20 minutes. If you don't have a toaster oven, you can cook it on a pan. It's done when you can pierce it to the bone and the liquid runs clear. If you're not sure, err on the side of undercooking. You can always cook it a little more, but you can't save a burnt, dried out chicken. You can also use chicken breast if you're really believe that fat has no place in your life (of which I heartily disagree). When the chicken is done, set it aside to let it cool down.

Meanwhile, chop up the green onion, apple and cucumber and mix them in a bowl. Squeeze half the lemon over it (again, keep the seeds out by squeezing through your other hand) and mix.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin (or dice it and add it for extra flavour). Reserve the juices. Tear all the meat off the bone and chop it up finely. Mix the chicken, mustard, mayo and 1 teaspoon of chicken fat (yes yes YES) into the other stuff.

Quick tip: Get a big zipper freezer bag and store all the bones from the meat you cook. Ideally, you should be cooking with meat attached to bones, since they're cheaper and more flavourful. Once you have a decent amount of bones, you can simmer them with onions, carrots, garlic, herbs and celery for some stock which you can use for soups, gravies, stews... basically anything that requires a stock. You can freeze that stock into single servings in smaller freezer bags. I'll post a how-to on stock sometime soon.

For the sandwich portion of this meal, I bought Vietnamese sub buns from the Asian grocery store (4 for $1!) You can use whatever bread you like.

For all the people who hate mayo out there (*cough* Asians *cough*), it's possible that you actually hate Miracle Whip, which is not mayo, but some kind of quasi-edible abomination. Many people in my mom's generation don't differentiate between the two, so it was probably the MW (which really needs to tone it down) that ruined all the potato salads and sandwiches of your childhood. Give it a shot, you might be surprised.

Quick tip: This recipe is also a great way to use up leftover meat. Just sub that in for chicken, unless it's got some kind of heavy sauce on it, in which case, just slice it up and eat it in a sandwich!

Lunch it up
To package, keep the kale, filling and bread separate in order to keep the bread dry. Put it together at work. If you have a toaster at work, you can toast the bread before putting in the salad. Prepare for your coworkers to marvel at your lunch, and poke at their freezer-food meals in disappointment.

This is a great meal for a hot day. The cucumber and green apple really add a coolness and freshness to the sandwich. I'd recommend this sandwich for the heat of summer, as opposed to a cold and wet spring day. Brrr...

Simple pasta in tomato sauce

This is one of my standards since it's reasonably easy to make, I usually have all the ingredients laying around in my kitchen and it's quite versatile.

Working time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: At least 20 minutes


Ingredients:
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion
3 cloves garlic (or more if you're into that)
1 can of whole San Marzano tomatoes (yes, they cost 50 cents more, but they're worth it. If you want to save the 50 cents, make sure you still buy whole tomatoes, diced/crushed tomatoes have a tart flavour to them)
1 tbsp tomato paste

chopped up fresh basil

salt to taste

Boxed pasta (as opposed to bagged pasta)
Optional: olives, sundried tomatoes, chili peppers, chili flakes, cut up meat, chopped up veggies, leftover sandwich meat, really whatever. In the photo above, I put in chopped up olives from a jar, sundried tomatoes and chili flakes.



Let's do it!

Heat up the oil in a saucepan with a lid to medium low heat.

Chop up the onions and toss them into the saucepan when the oil swirls around the pan quickly. Give them a stir. Peel and mince the garlic and set aside.

Open the can of tomatoes and pour them onto a sieve, over a bowl. Pinch the individual tomatoes open to extract the juices/water inside. Tap the sieve to get all the water/juice into the bowl. Fill a separate bowl of water and rinse the seeds out of the tomatoes. At this point, you can either mix the tomatoes in with the juice and puree it in a food processor, or you can smoosh them with your hands before mixing them back into the juice, making for a chunkier sauce.

Quick tip: I always make sure I have canned tomatoes in my kitchen, they're quick, they're good and you can put them in a billion dishes like stews, curries, sauces and soups. Plus, they last forever which will be great after the rapture happens and you've already gone through all the food in your saintly neighbour's fridge.

Every once in a while, give your onions a quick stir and check to make sure they're not browning too quickly. If the stove is set low enough, you'll be able to work on the tomatoes while the onions are slowly cooking. When the onions are translucent, throw in the garlic and stir. Watch this carefully. Garlic burns quickly and will ruin your sauce. Sure, you could always start over with new onions and garlic, but let's not be silly. When the garlic starts to turn colour, throw in your tomatoes. Stir stir stir.

Now add tomato paste and let it simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. The longer you simmer, the thicker and mellower (less tangy) the sauce will be. The less time you simmer, the fresher the sauce will be.

Quick tip: If you find yourself with 4/5 of a tin of tomato paste leftover, spoon it all into a zipper freezer bag, push all the air out and flatten it. Stick this in your freezer and it will keep for months. When you need sauce, just break a piece off.

5 minutes before you're ready to finish cooking the sauce, throw in the basil. I don't measure a lot of stuff, so I'm guessing you can put in a handful. 

Salt to taste.

While the sauce is simmering, make the pasta, make sure you follow all the directions on the package! I recommend the Barilla brand of pasta. You pay a little more, but if you follow the directions exactly (I set my microwave clock timer to ensure I get it right), you get perfect pasta, instead of that starchy, soggy mess you get with the cheap stuff. The Barilla Rigatoni is my favourite type. When it goes on sale (88 cents at No Frills, last time), I stock up like crazy.

When you're packing your lunch, you can put all sorts of things in the sauce (see optional items above) for variety. I do this as a last step so I can change it up from one day to the next. This recipe will make enough sauce for 2-4 servings (depending on how much you eat). If you store it in a airtight container in your fridge, you can keep it for up to 5 days, but don't take my word for it. Do the sniff test every time. If you're not certain after sniffing, do a taste test. If you're still not sure, throw it out. No sense in making yourself sick to save a buck.

Lunch time tips


If you are like me, you get incredibly angry when your pasta is overcooked. Like.. really angry. Like getting called to HR angry.

To avoid being suspended for inappropriate behaviour, make sure you pack your pasta and sauce separately. To heat up the pasta, boil some water in a kettle or microwave and pour that over the pasta. Shake and strain. Heat up the sauce as you normally would. If you don't have access to a microwave, heat the sauce up that morning, then put it in a thermos. Also beware of heating things up in plastic, as the chemicals will apparently give men boobs, and make women's boobs fall off or something.