How many lunches have been ruined the minute you open the office fridge and see that your lunch has disappeared? It’s annoying, frustrating, and baffling. While we’ll never understand how grown adults can steal each others lunches, here are a few strategies to hopefully keep it from happening to you.
The weather on Friday and over the weekend looks to be sunny and warm — anyone in the mood for a picnic?! We’re definitely planning on pulling out our old picnic blanket and heading to the nearest patch of green for a lazy afternoon. And of course, we’ll need some lunch to sustain all that relaxing!
Soup for lunch is great – except when it ends up all over the inside of our lunch bags. We’ve tried a lot of strategies over the years, from rubber bands around the outside of the container to isolating it in a plastic bag. Really, we’d just like a soup container that works! Maybe one of these products will do the job?
We love a good potluck, but having one at the office can definitely pose some issues. Unless your office kitchen is fully equipped or you’re ok lugging in your slow-cooker, hot dishes are out. The fridge also fills quickly, so dishes that don’t have to be refrigerated are best. Here are a few ideas for office potluck dishes – what are yours?
Talk about the ultimate dinner-to-lunch meal! Find a good meatloaf recipe and you’ve got yourself a fantastic Sunday dinner (your mom would be proud!), plus lunch for the week. We’ve been craving meatloaf and its sandwich iteration for a while now. As far as lunches go, this might just be the endgame. Don’t you agree?
This recipe makes far more than enough for one meal, and the leftovers are great warmed or straight from the fridge. Hence, a dinner-to-lunch recipe! The fresh-cracked black pepper really makes the dish, so don’t be shy about laying it on.
Bell peppers are one of our all-time favorite vegetables. They can be hollowed out and filled with rice stuffing. They can be cut into strips and dipped in dressing for a quick afternoon snack. Or they can be diced and used in any stir-fry, frittata, or pasta sauce. This method works well for prepping any bell pepper for any dish you want, but it’s certainly not the only way! How do you slice your peppers?
Normally we wait until it’s 5:00 (somewhere!) to crack open a beer, but the occasional beer to accompany a relaxing midday meal can sometimes feel just right. In these cases, we like to stay on the lighter end of things. Lighter in alcohol, that is – definitely not lighter in flavor!
We can think of few things more frustrating than trying to slice an apple with a plastic knife or picking through a bland salad for lack of black pepper. Enter the Office Lunch Survival Kit: just a few essentials that can be tucked away in a drawer and that make a world of difference come lunch time!
There’s a tub of miso paste wedged near the back of our fridge. We pull it out when we get the odd craving for miso soup or find a recipe that calls for a few tablespoons. Ever wonder if there are more ways you could use that miso paste in your cooking? Sally Schneider was on The Splendid Table last week with a few great ideas!
We very often make a big salad over the weekend, leaving out the greens and using grains like barley, farro, or brown rice as the base. This becomes our lunch all week long, something we look forward to eating and that keeps us away from the leftover pizza in the office fridge! Here are our favorites – what are yours?
If you work in an office, chances are high that the only tool at your disposal for heating your lunch is a microwave. And chances are also high that you already know how to use one and hardly need a tutorial! But there’s one microwaving tip that you might not have heard before.
Tuna fish gets a bad rap for smelling up shared kitchens and having no respect for cubicle walls. But still, tuna fish salad persists as one of the most popular lunch food items! What do you think makes the best tuna fish salad?
For the longest time, we thought granola was dry, tasteless, and boring. And then we tried the Olive Oil Granola that Faith reviewed last year and now we’re absolutely addicted! We love the control and creativity of making granola ourselves, and we’re ready to branch out into other recipes. Here are a few we’ve earmarked to try soon!
Breakfast burritos are all the best parts of breakfast (plus a few other meals!) rolled up into one soft and warm tortilla. The ingredients take a little time to gather together, so we usually save this one for weekend brunches. It’s especially great for a crowd because each person can assemble their own burrito to taste! Here’s how we make our breakfast burritos. How do you like yours?
Sure, they’re kind of a kitchen uni-tasker, but who doesn’t love a nice heart-shaped pancake for breakfast? Or how about a cow? A space alien, perhaps? There are so many fun pancake molds these days, it’s hard to choose!
If you love grapefruit for breakfast, you’ve got to try running it under the broiler for a few minutes. We realize this might sound a little strange. Fruit? Under the broiler?! But trust us, it’s the perfect treat to get your day started off right!
This recipe represents exactly what we love about Amy’s Breads. It’s a basic, hardworking sandwich loaf that can toasted for breakfast or used in sandwiches throughout the week. But you’ll also be amazed at the incredible depth and complexity a biga starter and a few spoonfuls of honey and molasses can add!
Eggs warmed to room temperature will mix more easily into a rich dough or batter and also help increase volume. Some recipes call for it specifically, but we’ve gotten in the habit of using room temperature eggs in most of our baking. Warming them up is a piece of cake (no pun intended)!
Whenever we’re in New York, Amy’s Bread is one of the first stops on our list. The rows of burnished artisan loaves and pastry cases of treats draw us like a kid to a candy store, and it’s always agony deciding which one to get. With this cookbook, now we can make (or at least attempt!) some of these same loaves back at home!