Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
Sitemap ·
Our Recipe Book ·
Steven's Recipe Book ·
Ann's Recipe Book ·
Meal Ideas ·
Copied Recipes
Random ·
Random Links
Home > lunch
All for 'lunch'
All sub pages for /_tags/lunch
Taquito Filled Sandwiches -- back to top
I made this for lunch tomorrow. I basically took shredded chicken, with caramelized onions, poblano peppers and spinach. I again tried the fast caramelization but with a tiny bit of baking soda. It worked better this time. I also added laughing cow cheese. Basically, I made taquito filling but I used it on a sandwich. I also had a bit of extra.
I haven't tried the sandwiches, but the filling was very good.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 2967, 2013-01-09_192327
BSTA (Bacon-Spinach-Tomato-Avocado) -- back to top
I made BSTA (Bacon-Spinach-Tomato-Avocado) sandwiches for lunch in the car. I was at Whole Foods and got the black-forrest bacon (5 slices total, ~4/10 lbs). The rest of the sandwich is pretty self-explanatory. Bacon (see below for how I did it), sliced tomato, spinach instead of lettuce, and an avocado. I actually made 3 sandwiches with this but the third was on a smaller roll.
I cooked it in the pan with a bit of water to prevent curling. That failed pretty miserably. It ended up boiling it more than anything. Once it was cooked, I had to pour out the water and then I tried to let it sizzle. I ended up with some tough and wet bacon. Next time, I'll either just let it go in the pan and curl, or I'll use the oven (I have done it before. I'd have to find that post). I was in a hurry so the oven wasn't really an option. Maybe even the microwave would have been better.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 6533, 2013-08-30_111053
Ground Beef Taco-Burritos (make ahead lunches) -- back to top
I wanted to make food that I could freeze for lunches so I made taco burritos with roasted cauliflower rice.
I made the rice and beef then assembled on multi grain (but regular fiber) tortillas (3 p+ each) with cilantro and spinach. The only real problem was that a bunch of of the tortillas ripped when folding. I noted them so we know they may be messy.
I made the rice by grating whole florets of cauliflower then spreading it thin on a covered and greased baking sheet. I salted it and roasted for 20 minutes until it was starting to brown. I think this worked well. I would do it again
I sautéd an onion with some mini-bell peppers. I then added the beef (96/4) and chopped and cooked that. I added a zucchini for bulk and then the spices. I doctored the spices by, in addition to the taco seasoning packet, adding garlic powder, sriracha and a bit of liquid smoke. I think the smoke was actually really good. You could taste it at the end and it was nice. I would use that again!
Skip whole-grain tortillas. They simply do not fold well. Also, I'll make sure to heat them more to be more pliable. And we'll see how the defrost. Maybe I'll cook them a bit next time and wrap them in something other than aluminum foil
This page was converted from Wordpress with a custom script by Justin Winokur. Most links and images should still work. However, if any links are broken, see the HTML (or Markdown) source to try to deduce the intended destination.
Original WP Post ID: 9581
Original WP Pub Date: 2015-01-29_133304
Meredith made a kale salad for lunches. She used this Bon Appetit recipe (no local, See below) for the dressing only and then just did the rest herself. She massaged the dressing with the [Lacinato /"dino"] kale and topped with rotisserie chicken, sunflower seeds, and lite feta.
The sunflower seeds really added a lot of flavor and texture.
Rather than a local copy of the dressing recipe, she essentially just did as follows.
Combine in a mortar and pestle:
She then whisked in:
Massaged this into the kale and tossed in
Topped with other ingredients as noted above
Rotisserie Chicken Lap Salad -- back to top
Meredith made chicken lap for lunches. She used Costco rotisserie chicken (sold separately as just breast meat) and this recipe as a basis. In addition to the recipe, she added:
It worked out well. Petty low points and a nice size lunch. Only down side was that it gave us both onion (shallot?) breath for the rest of the day.
Curry and Buffalo Chicken Salads -- back to top
Meredith made chicken salads for lunch. It was a buffalo chicken salad and a curry chicken salad. Both were made with rotisserie chicken breast and greek (and maybe regular) yogurt.
This was a long time ago so we do not recall all of the details. But on the buffalo she also used cabbage for bulk.
The Indian one is based on The Cozy Apron (local). We do not recall all of the changes but she (with everything doubled or tripled):
Again, this was a bit ago so we do not remember it all.
Curry Chicken Salad (from The Cozy Apron)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, lower case)
Meredith and I threw together Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps for lunch. But we also tried to make it healthier. First of all, we used rotisserie chicken. But instead of some of the noodles, we used cabbage which worked perfectly well. We also made a smaller portion but forgot to reduce the sauce so it was saucier than usual.
Still, it came out really good. It is such an easy sauce (3 simple ingredients) and it works out to pretty few calories; especially when you use cabbage as filler. To be done again for lunch.
Lunches: Lentil Salad and Broccoli Soup -- back to top
This was a lunch meal we planned and packed a few times this week. We made this Smitten Kitchen recipe (local). We followed it pretty closely except we used onions instead of shallots.
It came out pretty good. Very briny pretty flavorful. It wasn't very good by the last day, but for the most part, it was pretty good. It was actually a good bit more work than expected....
We also made the regular Roasted Broccoli Soup with just 3 oz of cheese. As usual, this came out really good, low in points, and pretty easy. It was super blended from the Vitamix but still good.
Crab Rangoon Style Stuffed Jalapeños -- back to top
Meredith had been wanting to do this for a while. She made a healthier version of crab rangoon filling and stuffed it into raw jalapeños. To make it healthier, we used a Greek Yogurt cream cheese that saves a lot of points (pictured below)
Meredith's original recipe is below but she ended up playing it a bit by ear. She did:
She mixed it all together and filled in seeded jalapeños
They were pretty good and easy to make and were good. And it was a pretty low in points.
Black Bean Salad with Cucumber, Feta, and Crab -- back to top
Meredith had the idea to make a black-bean salad for lunch. It is heavily based on This Kitchn recipe (local). We essentially cut the recipe in 1/3 and made some minor tweaks.
It was pretty easy and made quite a bit of food and it tasted very good. Fresh flavors that went well together. We were a bit nervous about the crab but honestly, it was fine in the final result. I would consider doing this with canned tuna or something in the future. Basically, any way to add some protein.
In the future, we will also likely follow the Kitchn's note and add jalapeno. Also, Meredith pointed out that this would work really well with avocado.
[Smart] Points were also low. About 5 for the bean, 1-2 for the feta, and 0-1 for the crab.
Chilled Black Bean, Feta & Cucumber Salad (from The Kitchn)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: Name of my dog, all lower case)
Rotisserie Chicken Laap Salad -- back to top
Meredith made modified chicken laap for lunches.
She did the stated recipe (except very light on the fish sauce and replaced some with soy). Plus the following
Of course, everything was really done to taste, but this is the general idea.
The biggest thing was the (untoasted) ginger and the lack of bite from the fish sauce. Meredith really doesn't like it so she went very low on it, but I think it really needed the bite and saltiness. She replaced some of the fish sauce with soy but not completely. I would do that next time. It would no longe be as Thai flavored but should still be good. Also, the ginger was extremely strong.
But, it was still a pretty good lunch.
Black Bean and Feta Salad -- back to top
Meredith made the Black Bean and Feta salad (from 2016-03-09) with the same basic changes but without crab. I do not know what else she changed but it wasn't much. These were what we took for lunch two days this week
Tofu and Broccoli Salad with Peanut Butter Dressing -- back to top
We made Tofu and Broccoli Salad with Peanut Butter Dressing from this The Kitchn Recipe (Local). We followed the general gist of it but made some changes to the dressing.
To cut down on the calories and fat in the dressing, we used half peanut butter (1/4 cup) and 1/4 cup of PB2, the powdered peanut butter. I was a bit weary since I know that you usually do a 2:1 PB2:water ratio but this was certainly still peanut buttery enough. You could even go a little higher and still save a ton of calories. We also did it in the Vitamix.
For the tofu, we just chopped up the Trader Joes "Super Firm" tofu which is really easy and very good. I think we figured about 9 points plus total for the whole thing.
Fattoush with Grilled Chicken -- back to top
Meredith made Fattoush for lunches using the linked recipe. She followed the recipe pretty much except no mint or parsley.
I grilled up a bunch of chicken tenders to cut up and go in as well. I just topped them with salt and za'atar. After grilling it, I chopped it up but it wasn't a ton of meat so we also added a can of chick-peas to it as well.
For the bread, we used Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Middle Eastern Flatbread. We toasted it in the morning and then put it in for lunch. It actually didn't end up too soggy so that worked well.
Collard Greens Wraps -- back to top
This is less about the actual wrap (though I describe it below) and more about the method. Meredith had originally heard of the idea from Inspiralized, though I also later read about it in The Kitchn (they may have gotten it from Inspiralized's instagram).
Essentially, you just use collard greens as a wrap. They are large and strong leaves that hold up well to being wrapped like a tortilla. I thought it worked out pretty well!
Anyway, this particular wrap was:
For other ideas are:
Anyway, this is a pretty cool idea and certainly something we will do again!
Chili (Big Batch) -- back to top
I made a double batch of Kenji's Chili using roughly the same changes as the first time. That is, essentially make his chili paste but but do the rest on my own.
Meredith was working on other things so I struggled a bit with the dried peppers. I ended up doing about 5-6 (for the double batch) of:
That was the major change on the paste. Otherwise, I kept the paste pretty much to his standards.
I did end up making other changes. I do not recall them all, but some are:
I was a bit worried as it wasn't super flavorful at the start of the simmer. I added some soy sauce, salt, and pepper. That seemed to help a little, but after it simmered down for about 2-3 hours, I tasted it again and was very happy with it.
We got two dinners (with one being a larger portion) and 5 lunches, 3 of which are getting frozen for the future.
Brussels Sprout Hash with Bacon -- back to top
Meredith and I made brussels sprout hash with bacon. We started with four slices of Whole Food Black Forrest Bacon which we fried up in the pan. When that was getting crisp, we threw in a bag of sliced brussel sprouts plus
She also deglazed it as we went with some white wine.
It was a nice, quick, and easy lunch. We didn't want or need a ton of food since it was late, so this worked well.
I didn't really make this but I wanted to record this. I found the above at Costco and decided to give it a try for lunch prep.
I followed what they said and did it in the slower cooker for about 12 hours on low with water to just cover it. (Fat side up).
After it was cooked, I trimmed the fat off as much as possible and cut it up/shredded it. It made only about 1 to 1-1/4 lbs of meat. (I ate a bunch while bagging it). I then froze two potions of it. I am kind of surprised how much cooked off and/or was cut off with the fat.
What I ate of it (which was probably way too much) was really good. I don't really get credit since it was mostly store made. But it kind of makes me want to try to make it myself (and maybe with sous vide)
Pulled Pork Stuffed Sweet Potato -- back to top
Not much to this, and I do not have a real photo, but we bought this Whole30 pulled pork and mixed it with green chile to stuff into sweet potatoes.
We used this pork which worked fine, but it was a bit fatty. By cooking it on the stove, we rendered out some of the fat.
Not much to it, but it was pretty good.
Salsa Chicken Salad -- back to top
We made salsa chicken like the other days for lunch. I hammered down the chicken to be roughly uniform thickness and baked it at 375°F for 20-25 minutes. We sliced it up and again made a dressing with cilantro sauce.
Crab and Avocado Hand Rolls (Temaki) -- back to top
We made Crab and Avocado Hand Rolls (Temaki) from The Kitchn (local). It is pretty simple. We used Whole30 Mayo.
We followed the recipe pretty closely except we didn't have scallions or micro greens. We also used seaweed snacks instead of nori. That worked pretty well, though it was hard to fold so we kind of just did it like a cracker.
I liked it though it got a bit too gross from the crab. I think that flavor can be a bit strong not baked into something.
We figured this is a good most pantry style meal we should keep around. And it was nice getting to eat outside.
Smoked Salmon Black Bean Salad -- back to top
Meredith made another batch of Smoked Salmon Black Bean Salad. She again doubled except the black beans