Lunch Logic: April 2013, Week Two

Posted on April 10, 2013 by redroundorgreen

This week’s menu is a menu absolutely rife with lunch-packing possibilities.  Some weeks are like that; you practically don’t have to think at all to make home-run lunches that the kids will Hoover down happily.  With a Sunday meal of homemade chicken nuggets, it’s easy to start things off on the right foot by just putting the leftovers into the lunchboxes the next morning and humbly accepting the adoring accolades of the children.  (As a totally non-lunch-related side note, the use of even more leftover nuggets to make the fastest Chicken Parmigiana you’ve ever done in your life is an absolutely genius way to keep the family happy, while transforming a usually labor-intensive meal into quick comfort food.)

This kind of week makes Lunch Logic really easy on me.  I could have stuck with the nugget theme and given you a bunch of ways to dress those up (chicken nugget wraps — take THAT, McDonald’s!), but there are so many other things on this week’s dinner menu that lend themselves perfectly well to great re-purposing that I decided to move away from the chicken.  Whether you’re packing for kids or for yourself, these lunch options are satisfying and range from super-simple to just a little bit sophisticated.

Meal Plan Refresher:

Monday, 4/8: Farfalle with creamy wild mushroom sauce, asparagus
Make it GF: Use brown rice, kamut, or quinoa pasta – we prefer Jovial and Tinkyada brands
Tuesday, 4/9: Slow cooker – sloppy joes, sweet potato fries, salad
Make it GF: There’s no law that says sloppy joes have to be on buns.  We have in the past served the filling over baked sweet potatoes, and it’s delicious.
Wednesday, 4/10: Weekend Warmup – Chicken nugget Parmigiana, using the leftover nuggets from Sunday.
Thursday, 4/11: Easy Lamb meatballs, quinoa, roasted vegetables
Friday, 4/12: Fend night
Saturday, 4/13: Dinner out with friends!
Sunday, 4/14: Sunday Roast Chicken dinner

The full April 2013 Meal Plan

The Lunch Logic:

Lunch logic April 2013.2a

Essential Links:
Picnic Muffins

Lunch logic April 2013.2b

Essential Links:Meatball Club Sandwiches
Quick Dill Dip

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Monday Menus: Illegal Lamb

Posted on April 9, 2013 by redroundorgreen

Illegal LambOn Easter Sunday, I made a boneless leg of lamb for our family dinner.  I hadn’t planned on it; actually, I was going to do something nice with a pork loin, maybe, until two weeks prior to Easter when Whole Foods ran a special on lamb.  Realizing I could get a nice piece of meat for the family at almost 50 percent off, I seized the opportunity to change plans, and nestled the lamb into the freezer until it was time to press it into service for our special meal.

There was only one problem: I’ve cooked lamb before, plenty of times, but none of the things I had ever done with it seemed…Easter-y enough.  Plainly put, nothing was exciting me, and I wanted to be excited about our dinner.  A quick consultation with my sister, D., yielded her recommendation of a recipe that called for stuffing the lamb with arugula.  I figured I’d go with it.  Except, well, I didn’t have arugula, and I was decidedly NOT going to the store; spinach would have to do.  Also, it didn’t seem like it called for enough garlic.  I didn’t have the right herbs.  And…

Oh, heck with the recipe.  I was going off on my own lamb tangent, and I was pretty sure it was going to be good.

As it turned out, it was better than good.  J. took two bites and then said “This lamb should be ILLEGAL.”  The boys devoured seconds, then thirds.  And I’ve got a confession to make: I’ve kind of been jonesing for it ever since.  In fact, the mere act of writing this post has made me uncontrollably ravenous, even though I just finished dinner a couple of hours ago.

This isn’t all-occasion lamb.  It’s not the simplest recipe on this site.  It’s not a throw-together meal.  But it is amazing, I promise you.  The next time you need a show-stopper for a dinner party, I highly recommend that you consider making some Illegal Lamb.  But make sure to make extras, because you will be very, very sad if there aren’t any leftovers the next day.

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Lunch Logic: April 2013, Week One

Posted on April 5, 2013 by redroundorgreen

This week’s Lunch Logic is really all about planning ahead.  Oh, I know most of what I post here on RRG is focused on planning (that’s one of the side effects of sharing a monthly “meal plan,” ahem), but this week I really, really, extra mean it.  See, sometimes you get an effortless lunch-packing experience just from using the leftovers in the fridge; and sometimes, you have to make sure that you CREATE those leftovers ahead of time.  For example, I’m recommending this week that you use some cooked pasta from Thursday’s goulash — but of course, that means that you’d have to make enough pasta in advance for both the goulash and some lunches.  (I don’t usually find that’s a problem, since the way I make my Mom’s old-school goulash recipe, there’s a lot of eyeballing and guesswork and I never know quite how much pasta I’ll need, so I generally dump a whole package into the boiling water and sort it all out later.)

In order to find yourself well set-up for the week’s lunch packing, this time around, you need to think about manufacturing some extras while you’re doing your regular cooking.  It’s not any harder, and it doesn’t take any more time, to make a pound of pasta versus a half-pound; you just have to know that you’ll need it.  With a few minutes of thought at the start of the week, and a gentle reminder to yourself once or twice in the middle of things that the future you will want help from the present you, there’s no need to stress over what to pack for lunch.

Meal Plan Refresher:

Saturday, 3/30: Parmesan Chicken cutlets, roasted vegetables
Sunday, 3/31: Easter Sunday!  Not totally sure of the menu right now, but probably roast pork, artichokes with hollandaise, a medley of vegetables, and some popovers.
Monday, 4/1: Tyler Florence’s Spaghetti with pancetta and peas
Make it GF: Use brown rice, kamut, or quinoa pasta – we prefer Jovial and Tinkyada brands
Tuesday, 4/2: Slow cooker – honey-mustard chicken thighs, roasted potatoes, and broccoli
Wednesday, 4/3: Weekend Warmup – Roast boneless turkey breast, sourdough dinner rolls, and salad
Make it GF: Don’t bother with the dinner rolls; substitute either leftover potatoes from Tuesday night, or a quick-cooking grain like quinoa.
Thursday, 4/4: Another weekend warmup – Mom’s old-school goulash
Make it GF: We always use Tinkyada brown rice pasta shells for our goulash, and they’re perfect.
Friday, 4/5: Fend night

The full April 2013 Meal Plan

The Lunch Logic:

Lunch logic April 2013.1a

Lunch logic April 2013.1b

Essential Links:

Roni Salad

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Monday Menus: Great Grilled Chicken

Posted on April 1, 2013 by redroundorgreen

002It actually hit 60 degrees here in Rhode Island recently – today, in fact, and yesterday, and another day before that.  It won’t stay that way, because the Atlantic Ocean makes our weather entertainingly unstable (that’s my positive-spin outlook on “Temperatures that richochet in 20-degree swings all Spring long, like a game of weather pinball”), but at the very least, I’ve gotten a taste of what’s coming, and it just makes me want to grill.

Yes.  COOK OUTSIDE.  I want to be in the fresh air, I want to let the clean-up be as easy as a scrape of the grill grates, I want to eat food that hasn’t been braised, stewed, roasted, or otherwise winter-ized.  I want things to be less heavy (and so do my jeans).  I want food that tastes of summer, and if I can’t have Farm Tomatoes yet, then the grill it shall be.

I drew this particular line in the sand last week when I just couldn’t bear the thought of another slow-cooker chicken thing.  Outside my window, the sky was blue and there was a faintly Spring-y breeze teasing me to come out and play.  So abruptly, I changed plans – and oh, am I glad that I did.  A fast marinating exercise in the morning gave way to a completely delicious – and also fast – chicken dinner that night.

This Grilled Citrus Chicken isn’t citrusy in the pucker-up way you’d think.  There’s not a defined, punchy, pronounced lemon or orange flavor to it.  What you get when you leave your chicken in the mixture of different fruits, onions, and coriander for the day is a mysteriously tender, moist piece of chicken with a subtle and slightly addictive flavor.  It’s one of those “What did they do to this chicken?” kind of effects, the sort of blending of tastes that doesn’t scream any one thing but hints at many lovely things.  Or, to be less poetic about it: This is chicken that your kids will take off the platter with their bare hands before they’ve even finished the first piece you served them.  At least, that’s what happened in my house.

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Meal Plan for a Busy, Busy April

Posted on March 30, 2013 by redroundorgreen

I’m quietly freaking out.   Except…now that I’m writing about it on a public blog, I guess it’s not so much “quiet” anymore, right?  So now I’m PUBLICLY and NOISILY freaking out.

It’s all good stuff that’s making me this way.  But I’m looking at the calendar and realizing that I am just absolutely booked SOLID for the foreseeable future.  And since I’m the type of person who almost never acknowledges, for real, just how busy I am…you can imagine how bad things must be for me to be using the term “booked solid.”  “Calendar stuffed fuller than a Thanskgiving turkey” is probably a more accurate way to describe the next few weeks of my life.  I’m blessed to be singing in a concert with my choral group (nine seasons and still going strong!).  I’m blessed to be preparing for the Family Dinner Conference, at which I will be — unbelievably! — presenting in just a few weeks.  And I’m blessed to have been invited to be a part of a fantastic event, Listen To Your Mother, which starts rehearsals this week and will be taking place in early May.  Plus there’s, you know.  The full-time day job.  The kids.  J.  The house, the guinea pig, the laundry, and somewhere in there, I’m sure one day we’ll find my sanity.

I’m not complaining, because REALLY?  How amazing is it to be able to have all of this?  What I am is…yup.  Just busy.  And the meal plan reflects that.  You’ll see lots of make-aheads, lots of juggling, and some nights where I’m not even going to be around at all.  But this is the whole point, people.  The whole point of RRG in the first place was to prove to everyone that it IS possible, really and truly, to cook real food and take care of yourself and your family even when life is borderline insane.  So consider this meal plan living proof that “busy” does not have to equal “take-out.”

April meal plan graphic

WEEK ONE:

Monday, 4/1: Tyler Florence’s Spaghetti with pancetta and peas4.13 Quick Tip 1
Make it GF: Use brown rice, kamut, or quinoa pasta – we prefer Jovial and Tinkyada brands
Tuesday, 4/2: Slow cooker – honey-mustard chicken thighs, roasted potatoes, and broccoli
Wednesday, 4/3: Weekend Warmup – Roast boneless turkey breast, sourdough dinner rolls, and salad
Make it GF: Don’t bother with the dinner rolls; substitute either leftover potatoes from Tuesday night, or a quick-cooking grain like quinoa.
Thursday, 4/4: Another weekend warmup – Mom’s old-school goulash
Make it GF: We always use Tinkyada brown rice pasta shells for our goulash, and they’re perfect.
Friday, 4/5: Fend night
Saturday, 4/6: Easy make-ahead dinner – BLT Panzanella, using leftover sourdough from the week
Make it GF: I think you can make a great cornbread panzanella.  Just make any cornbread recipe you like, substituting masa harina for any wheat flour called for in the recipe, and cut it into cubes and toast before making the panzanella.
Sunday, 4/7: Another easy make-ahead – Homemade chicken nuggets, with salad and fruit
Make it GF: My favorite GF breading mixture is 50% ground up puffed brown rice cereal and 50% ground up popcorn.  You can also use pure oat flour in place of the popcorn, or ground almonds, pecans, or pistachios.

WEEK TWO:

Monday, 4/8: Farfalle with creamy wild mushroom sauce, asparagus
Make it GF: Use brown rice, kamut, or quinoa pasta – we prefer Jovial and Tinkyada brands
Tuesday, 4/9: Slow cooker – sloppy joes, sweet potato fries, salad
Make it GF: There’s no law that says sloppy joes have to be on buns.  We have in the past served the filling over baked sweet potatoes, and it’s delicious.
Wednesday, 4/10: Weekend Warmup – Chicken nugget Parmigiana, using the leftover nuggets from Sunday.
4.13 Quick Tip 2Thursday, 4/11: Easy Lamb meatballs, quinoa, roasted vegetables
Friday, 4/12: Fend night
Saturday, 4/13: Dinner out with friends!
Sunday, 4/14: Sunday Roast Chicken dinner

WEEK THREE:

Monday, 4/15: Grilled steaks, salad, and broccoli
Tuesday, 4/16: Slow cooker – Moroccan spiced chicken thighs over quinoa
Wednesday, 4/17 – Friday 4/19: I’ll be in New York City for the Family Dinner Conference!  J. and my parents will be in charge of dinner back home.  (Yes, I’m aware that’s very slightly ironic.)
Saturday, 4/20: Chicken piccata with artichokes and spinach
Sunday, 4/21: Porchetta, potatoes and vegetables

4.13 Quick tip 3

WEEK FOUR:

Monday, 4/22: Pasta with ham and roasted peppers4.14 Quick Tip 4
Make it GF: Use brown rice, kamut, or quinoa pasta – we prefer Jovial and Tinkyada brands
Tuesday, 4/23: Slow cooker – “Midwest” chicken and lentil soup, cornbread
Wednesday, 4/24: Weekend Warmup – Sourdough English Muffin pizzas, salad
Make it GF: If you don’t like any gluten-free pizza dough recipes or alternatives (I don’t blame you if you don’t), then I’d recommend doing “pizza burgers” – always a hit in our house.  We simply melt the sauce and cheese over beef or turkey burger patties in a skillet and serve those instead of pizza.
Thursday, 4/25: Mom’s fish dish, rice, asparagus
Friday, 4/26: Fend night
Saturday, 4/27: Herbed turkey burgers, broccoli salad
Sunday, 4/28: Provencal chicken, cous cous
Make it GF: Substitute quinoa for the cous cous

Monday, 4/29: Spinach ravioli with creamy tomato sauce, salad
Make it GF: Gnocchi would be a good alternative to pasta, and you could make them gluten-free by substituting an alternative flour for any wheat flour used to bind the dough.
Tuesday, 4/30: Slow cooker – Apple-barbecue Pork Shoulder tacos

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Lunch Logic: March 2013, Week Four

Posted on March 27, 2013 by redroundorgreen

Tonight’s Lunch Logic seems, well, uber-logical, at least to me.  I guess what I mean is that many of these ideas are the types of things I would toss into lunchboxes on my most tired, least inspired mornings.  It’s all about the reuse of leftovers, after all — and some days, reusing those leftovers is more creative than others.  Of course, creativity isn’t necessarily the point of packing lunches, though I know we all give ourselves parent bonus points if we happen to execute some sort of genius lunch idea.  The point is that we pack wholesome, homemade lunches because we care about what our children are eating, and we want to give them the right kind of fuel to get them through the day.  And that is precisely what this Lunch Logic post is all about.  No fluff, few frills, virtually no flourishes.  Just lunch.

Meal Plan Refresher:

Saturday, 3/23: P.’s birthday party — no cooking tonight for me!
Sunday, 3/24: Lasagna with meat sauce
Make it GF: Use gluten-free pasta — if you can’t find lasagna noodles, make it as a baked pasta dish with shells or penne.
Monday, 3/25: Potato-leek soup, “pickies” platter (a plate of fruits, vegetables, cold meats, etc. from the fridge)
Tuesday, 3/26: Slow cooker — Citrus chicken, spinach salad
Wednesday, 3/27: Weekend warm-up: Turkey tacos
Thursday, 3/28: DIY wraps on spelt tortillas, sweet potato fries, fruit
Friday, 3/29: Fend night

The full March 2013 Meal Plan

The Lunch Logic:

Lunch logic March 2013.4a

Essential Links:
Sweet Apple Quesadillas
Thermos Queso Dip

Lunch logic March 2013.4b
Essential Links:

Cashew Chicken Spring Rolls

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Monday Menus: Charlie Bucket and the Easter Baskets

Posted on March 26, 2013 by redroundorgreen

Did you ever read “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?”  I remember that book very clearly, as I remember most books from my childhood that made it onto the “read over and over” shelf.  One of the things I remember best about it — now that I’m a parent — is how Charlie Bucket’s family scrimped and saved each year to provide little Charlie with a single Wonka chocolate bar on his birthday.  This was a family that needed…well, pretty much everything.  As I look back on the story, I realize that Charlie had to need shoes.  He had to have needed new clothes, mittens, something practical every year at birthday time, and certainly he could have used a meal more square than the family’s nightly cabbage soup.  But when they’d saved up their pennies, his parents and grandparents didn’t offer Charlie any of those practical things.  They offered him candy.
It would be easy for me to roll my eyes and huff about it now, and moan about the poverty that exists in our own time and our own reality and the ways in which we as a society have failed to provide the basics of a healthy diet to all the Charlie Buckets of this millennium.  I could do that.  But I’m not going to, because I kind of agree with the Buckets.  I kind of get why they turned to candy.

No, I’m not reversing my position on people throwing candy at my kids — or any kids, for that matter — on any old occasion.  Not every day is a holiday.  And no, I don’t think most of us are in the same position as the Buckets, with such strict boundaries imposed upon us by circumstance that we simply CAN’T treat our children to candy and sweets more than once in a very, very great while.  But I can understand and identify with the one simple truth that makes “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” translate so perfectly to each new generation: Candy, when treated properly, when treated as a TREAT, is a sweet and wondrous little pleasure of life.

If you’re shaking your head at me, I’ll ask you to do something for me: Remove, for a minute, all the negative connotations the word “candy” conjures up for you.  (For me, I have to rid my mind of terms like “artificial dye,” “unhealthy rewards,” “bribery,” “overblown sugarfest,” “junkapalooza,” and “childhood obesity.”)  It’s not easy to ignore the negativity; after all, it’s where most of us live at least part of the time, as we’re trying to negotiate a sugary world without raising kids who end up hyped up on sweeteners and dyes until they’re acting more like candy-crazed monkeys than children.  But you can do it.  Stop thinking of the awful stuff, like Fun Dip, and start thinking of the good stuff.  Real chocolate.  Pillowy marshmallows.  Old-fashioned toffee.  Think of the smell of a good, old-fashioned candy shop, the kind that still makes their caramel in copper kettles on site.  And tell me that you’re not smiling just a little bit.

All this is by way of saying: There are times in our children’s lives to police them and their candy intake, and there are times when we might do well to think about the Bucket family and offer up some treasured, high-quality treat for no reason other than the fact that a little bit of good old candy — candy like it used to be, candy that hasn’t morphed into some disgusting nuclear-neon festival of artificiality — is a pleasant and lovely part of living a life with balance.  I feed my kids really well most of the time, and worry and wring my hands about the challenges of trying to protect them and our lifestyle from all the temptations out there, so that I can actually enjoy the “treat” moments with them when they come around.

This is a “treat” moment for us.  I know it’s not that way for everyone, and if you don’t do any kind of candy on Easter (assuming you celebrate Easter at all, of course), I respect that.  But we do candy.  Not lots of it.  Not exclusively.  But candy, yes, candy.  We enjoy some of the good stuff together and welcome Spring, and it’s a sweet, pleasurable time.  Without all the negativity about CANDY CULTURE (cue scary organ music) clouding my brain, Easter is a moment where we take a breath and enjoy a little bit of a Charlie Bucket moment.

This year’s baskets will contain Beatrix Potter books and Egglings, which are just little seedlings inside eggshells that the boys can plant in the yard when the weather gets warmer.  (Optimistically, I hope that we’ll end up with actual basil and strawberries from these things, but we all know what the reality is as far as my prowess with growing stuff.)  And they’ll also contain the candy.  I’ve already been to Whole Foods, where I can happily shop for dye-free, somewhat unjunked candy with impunity, and I was able to bring home a beautiful assortment of sweets that don’t make me cringe — sweets, in fact, that conjure up just a little bit of that Charlie Bucket sense of wonder.

 

Dye-free Easter Sweets: Chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, dark chocolate bunnies, dye-free jelly beans, and organic marshmallows on lollipop sticks, moistened with water and rolled in dye-free sanding sugars

Dye-free Easter Sweets: Chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, dark chocolate bunnies, dye-free jelly beans, and organic marshmallows on lollipop sticks, moistened with water and rolled in dye-free sanding sugars

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Monday Menus: Magic Meatballs

Posted on March 19, 2013 by redroundorgreen

Of course they’re not really magic.  Don’t be silly.  How could a meatball be magic?
Unless you mean “magic” in the sense that every time they show up on the dinner table, or in a lunchbox, or wherever, there is a noticeable lack of whining and whole lot of quiet eating.  Or “magic” in the sense that they seem to make everyone reach some sort of agreement, no matter what else has been going on just moments beforehand.  Or “magic” in the sense that no matter how many I make, there will never be enough to feed everyone.  In that case, then yeah, these are totally magic.

They’re nothing special.  They’re just meatballs.  But I think that when it comes to feeding families, there are time-honored staples that will always deserve a space on the menu, and meatballs are definitely one of those things.  I mean, think about it for a second.  They’re PERFECT for family dinners.  They’re crowd-pleasing in taste and texture; they’re versatile; they’re relatively cheap; and they freeze well.  That’s a…what, a win-win-win-win situation?

Whenever I make these basic meatballs, I make a triple batch.  Yes, triple — as in six pounds of meat to begin with.  I make six pounds of meat into meatballs, and I cook them all up, and then before I put them into any kind of sauce or anything, I throw half the batch into freezer bags and freeze them for another time.  They never wait in the freezer for very long before I grab them for quick lunches, pizza toppings, sandwiches, or to toss into pasta for a Friday night supper, but at least it stops us from eating all six pounds of meatballs at once.  Because, I’ll be honest, I think it could happen.

007

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Lunch Logic: March 2013, Week Two

Posted on March 14, 2013 by redroundorgreen

Tonight’s Lunch Logic was fun for me to envision.  The ideas here are very simple, but they bring back some of our family’s favorite lunchbox items — favorites both for me, as the lunch-packer; and for the kids, as the lunch-eating afficionados.  Nothing could be easier than a fast “lunchable” style offering made with leftover sausages from dinner, or a simple chicken salad scooped into the lunch container and served with your kid’s favorite sides, but somehow every lunch here becomes greater than the sum of its parts when kids lift the lids of their lunchboxes and find these ideas inside.

Meal Plan Refresher:

Saturday, 3/9: Sausage and peppers, homemade sourdough bread
Make it GF: Omit the bread and serve with crispy roasted potatoes instead
Sunday, 3/10: Sunday Roast Chicken with vegetables
Monday, 3/11: Grilled cheese sandwiches and roasted tomato soup
Make it GF: Make quesadillas on corn tortillas instead, or serve cheese and gluten-free crackers with the soup
Tuesday, 3/12: Slow cooker — Green chile pork, rice, avocado salad
Wednesday, 3/13: DIY Salad night
Thursday, 3/14: Vegetable fried rice (using leftover rice from Tuesday) and sesame-coated chicken bites
Friday, 3/15: Fend night

The full March 2013 Meal Plan

The Lunch Logic:

Essential Links:

Fruit and Nut Chicken Salad
Pizza Chicken

Essential Links:

Soft Pretzel Sandwiches
Pizza Dough

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Lunch Logic: March 2013, Week One

Posted on March 7, 2013 by redroundorgreen

Tonight I’m excited to announce a new feature for the blog — Red, Round, or Green “Lunch Logic.”  I’ve realized over time that it’s not only dinner planning people need help with, and while I’ve also got plenty of lunch-packing resources available, the hard part sometimes seems to be putting the two things together.  How do you pack easy, creative lunches without buying lots of extra items at the store each week?  How do you stretch the leftovers you’ve got on hand to save time and money, without boring the family to death?

Each week, I’ll be sharing a “Lunch Logic” post with you, showing just a few options that would be possible for packed lunches if you happened to be following the meal plan I’ve posted.  Hopefully these simple ideas will help to inspire you and give you some insight into the way my mind works when I’m deciding what to pack for lunch (but not too much insight; I wouldn’t want to scare you away!).

Meal Plan Refresher, Week One (here’s the full March 2013 Meal Plan)

Friday, 3/1: Fend night
Saturday, 3/2: Jamie Oliver’s chicken tikka masala with rice and homemade samosas.  You could also serve pita or naan with this.
Make it GF: Omit the samosas and get some Ethiopian-style injera bread, which is made with teff flour and is naturally gluten-free
Sunday, 3/3: Roast leg of lamb and vegetables
Monday, 3/4: Pumpkin risotto and salad
Tuesday, 3/5: Slow cooker — Mom’s meat sauce over spaghetti, salad
Make it GF: Use gluten-free pasta — we like Jovial and Tinkyada brands — or serve the sauce over polenta.
Wednesday, 3/6: Weekend warm-up: Shepherd’s pie, using the leftover lamb
Thursday, 3/7: Buffalo-style lettuce wraps, fruit

Essential Links:
Homemade Pita Bread


Essential Links:
Open-Faced Bolognese bread pizzas
Mom’s Meat Sauce

 

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