Every now and again I get inspired, usually while avoiding some other work, to cook a lot of food. Sometimes a week’s worth of lunch at a go. After violating one of the cardinal rules of grocery shopping – don’t go while hungry – I came home and whipped up a week of lunch. There’s a weird zen to mass production of lunches. Past experience suggests this will last longer than a week because I will forget to bring them to work, forget to eat them, and/or get lunch invitations that I cannot pass up. So I guess it’s a week of lunches and maybe dinners. Maybe more.
Bento it’s not, but here’s a week of beet couscous, steamed broccoli and teriyaki salmon. It seems a little out of balance greens to fish, but maybe I’ll add a supplemental salad. Even shopping at whole foods, the price isn’t too out of whack with what I’d pay for probably much lower quality prepared lunches. The sockeye salmon alone clocks in at almost $4 for each of the five lunches, but the rest cost very little. On the other hand, I don’t have to wash up after a purchased lunch.
Have you forgotten about $3.95 for Ma Po Tofu? Sounds like you are net negative at least one day this week.
Nice work. Although the only problem with mass food production is that you only get to take one photo of 5 lunches instead of 5 photos of 5 lunches 😉
Good point, Jonno. Next time I’ll give each of the five its own closeup. Each one is special in it’s own way, after all.
I’ve tried this approach before. My problem is that the food goes bad before I eat it, so I can’t prep on the weekend for a week’s worth of food, unless it is something like chili or soup, that I can freeze and then defrost in the office… Life would be so much easier with a private chef, sigh… @ambersafa
Looks delicious but needs more veg. I read this in the morning and added a salad to my own lunch. Sort of like when I would wear a sweater because my grandmother was cold. In your honor, the salad did have baked beets.
Looks great! And don’t forget that the beets count as a veg too.