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Pack your own lunch recipes - April 2017

More lunches to share with you.  We always cook in bulk in the weekend and make all our lunches for the following week.  These are ideas for lunch or just bulk cooking.  You can find more recipes in my January postFebruary post and March post. I also share them on Instagram each Sunday or Monday night (you will also see them on the Facebook page).  I hope these posts are inspiring you to cook from scratch and take your own lunch to work - both to save money and eat better.

I'm not great at following recipes, and I'm also not good at writing them, because I tend to just use up what we have in the fridge/pantry/garden, things that are on special or we've been given at our local produce share.  I'll tell you what I made, but I'm not saying you should follow exactly, just use it as a rough guide and use up whatever you have handy too.

Week 1: Beef stir fry
There was a pack of rump in the freezer, so perfect for a stir fry.  I sliced the meat thinly and marinated all day in the fridge.  I always cook the meat first, and put it in another bowl, then cook the veges and then combine it, that way nothing gets over cooked.  You could serve this with rice or noodles, but I prefer to just cook extra veges.




Marinade for beef stir fry:

  • soy sauce to cover meat
  • garlic (minced)
  • honey - 1 tsp
  • sherry - 1 tblsp
  • chilli flakes or chilli oil (how to make these)





Week two and a bit:  Antipasto platters (or if that sounds too fancy, random chopped up food)
We had annual leave the week before Easter, and used the time to move into our secondhand house.  When we are home on the weekend or on holiday we usually eat a range of veges, fruit, cheese and cold meat at lunchtime.





Week Three: Roast beef
We are on a mission to use up the beef from our last homekill (over a year ago), there are just a few roasts left and this was one of them.  I cooked it in the slowcooker with beef stock, onion and carrot, a little wine, bay leaves and rosemary.  As usually, we ate it with lots of veges.  Similar to the rolled roast from February.






Week Four: Lamb shanks
Another slowcooker favourite, I found a packet of two lamb shanks in the freezer and added a packet of lamb chops to make sure there was enough for the week.  Cooked with carrot, onion, white wine, a can of tomatoes, bay leaves and rosemary (and the leftover gravy from the roast the week before).  I wrote out the full recipe for lamb shanks casserole in February.



What are your favourites for bulk cooking?  Do you take your own lunches to work?  I hope you find these posts useful.  Its been interesting to see what we repeat and what is new each month.



Comments

  1. I started doing the same about a year ago. At first it seemed to take so much time and now food prep is just part of my daily routine. I also make a fair amt. of chicken dishes since we raise and butcher our own. I'll cook two at a time. Fried chicken for supper, cold chicken for lunch the next day then followed by chicken salad sandwiches.

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