So you have heard it before, one way to quickly save money is by making your own lunch throughout the work week. With this in mind, and honestly a bank account that wouldn't let me eat out everyday, I have been planning my lunches since I started working.
Ahhh... the golden days of being able to walk into a campus dining hall and swipe a "wonderful" card with your schools logo, that magically takes invisible money out of some random account that I don't think about has now caught up with me. So, I guess making lunch is the least I can do to help pay back my student loans and work towards ridding myself of those freshman...sophomore, junior, and senior pounds gained :)
I have been on a salad marathon for 2-3 months. Last week, I hit a wall!! I couldn't stand the taste of spinach! So I decided to revamp my lunch routine. I went into Cooking Lights March 2014 Issue determined to come out with something I wanted to eat for 5 days in a row. I came across a two-page spread for rice bowls.
Now I know that I am probably a bit more nostalgic when it comes to rice bowls then most people. When I was working as a server at a Mexican restaurant it became a staple of my diet. Most nights I usually got a bowl of rice with black beans (yup I was frugal even working two jobs). I use to top it off with shredded carrots, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo, a nice spoonful of guacamole and a dollop of sour cream. Mixed up it looked discussing, but tasted like heaven at 10pm :)
Okay back to the story, I can't seem to find an online link to this recipe, but I will check back and add a link later if they add it to their site. All of the rice bowls begin with 3/4 c of brown rice topped with roughly five ingredients: a protein, veggie, cheese, herb, and something extra. Looking through the many choices, I decided to go with a salmon based bowl. Nick is allergic to fish, so we made his with chicken instead.
The salmon was tricky. Since I normally don't cook fish, I did a bit of research in advance on the best method to cook a 3 oz piece. I know that reheating fish isn't good, so I wanted to find an option that would let me cook it at work. I found a recipe that baked the salmon for 15-20 minutes at 350 degree- PERFECT I would use my office's toaster oven and eat a later lunch to avoid hogging the toaster oven :)
I took a 3 oz piece and topped it with salt and pepper some fresh dill and a slice of orange and wrapped it in a tin foil pouch. It tasted great, and I think the orange was imperative to the taste and moisture!
All of the other ingredients were packaged in separate containers on Monday to last us the week. Each day, once I cooked my salmon, I heated my rice, 1/2 c peas, and 1T of goat cheese.
Once heated, I added the salmon, parsley, dill, and 1/4 of an orange mixed with appx 1T of Greek yogurt. The citrus flavor mixed with the goat cheese gave this meal a very smooth taste.
So I think it is time to put the numbers to the test. How much is an average bought lunch, versus making a pretty decent home cooked lunch?
To buy lunch, a few options that I see around the office and being conservative with my cost estimates:
Lean Cuisine, at Costco I did see 5 for 10, so we will say: $2.00
Subway Foot Long, lets assume you just get their deal: $5.00
Food by the Pound, popular in DC, I would say easy to spend $13, but to be conservative: $8-10
Okay, so this weeks lunch (Chicken or Salmon Rice Bowls):
Salmon, 11.99 for 8 servings = $1.50
Chicken, 8.99 for 5 servings (Chicken was on sale this week!) = $1.80
Goat Cheese, 7.99 for 10 servings = $.80
Bag of Brown Rice (it does pay to buy by unit price, more on that in a future post) $5.99 and used 1/4 bag for 8 servings- so 1/4 bag cost $1.50 turn that into 8 servings and we have: $.19
Dill and Parsley, 1.09 for each bunch and we used 1/2 for lunch, so .55 for 10 servings, $.055- since the parsley and dill are the same price dill will be $.05 and have parsley at $.06
Oranges, $1.20 each 4 servings = $.40
Greek Yogurt, 32 oc container cost 2.99 or .09 per ounce, the serving size is 1T or .5 Ounces, rounding up= $.05
TOTAL COST for Monica's Salmon: $3.05 for Nick's Chicken: $3.35
So I may not have beat out Lean Cuisine in cost but maybe in taste :) At least now when I say it is cheaper to bring your lunch, and a complex lunch at that, I can be assured that it is not a lie.
Happy Friday!
Ahhh... the golden days of being able to walk into a campus dining hall and swipe a "wonderful" card with your schools logo, that magically takes invisible money out of some random account that I don't think about has now caught up with me. So, I guess making lunch is the least I can do to help pay back my student loans and work towards ridding myself of those freshman...sophomore, junior, and senior pounds gained :)
I have been on a salad marathon for 2-3 months. Last week, I hit a wall!! I couldn't stand the taste of spinach! So I decided to revamp my lunch routine. I went into Cooking Lights March 2014 Issue determined to come out with something I wanted to eat for 5 days in a row. I came across a two-page spread for rice bowls.
Now I know that I am probably a bit more nostalgic when it comes to rice bowls then most people. When I was working as a server at a Mexican restaurant it became a staple of my diet. Most nights I usually got a bowl of rice with black beans (yup I was frugal even working two jobs). I use to top it off with shredded carrots, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo, a nice spoonful of guacamole and a dollop of sour cream. Mixed up it looked discussing, but tasted like heaven at 10pm :)
Okay back to the story, I can't seem to find an online link to this recipe, but I will check back and add a link later if they add it to their site. All of the rice bowls begin with 3/4 c of brown rice topped with roughly five ingredients: a protein, veggie, cheese, herb, and something extra. Looking through the many choices, I decided to go with a salmon based bowl. Nick is allergic to fish, so we made his with chicken instead.
The salmon was tricky. Since I normally don't cook fish, I did a bit of research in advance on the best method to cook a 3 oz piece. I know that reheating fish isn't good, so I wanted to find an option that would let me cook it at work. I found a recipe that baked the salmon for 15-20 minutes at 350 degree- PERFECT I would use my office's toaster oven and eat a later lunch to avoid hogging the toaster oven :)
I took a 3 oz piece and topped it with salt and pepper some fresh dill and a slice of orange and wrapped it in a tin foil pouch. It tasted great, and I think the orange was imperative to the taste and moisture!
All of the other ingredients were packaged in separate containers on Monday to last us the week. Each day, once I cooked my salmon, I heated my rice, 1/2 c peas, and 1T of goat cheese.
Once heated, I added the salmon, parsley, dill, and 1/4 of an orange mixed with appx 1T of Greek yogurt. The citrus flavor mixed with the goat cheese gave this meal a very smooth taste.
So I think it is time to put the numbers to the test. How much is an average bought lunch, versus making a pretty decent home cooked lunch?
To buy lunch, a few options that I see around the office and being conservative with my cost estimates:
Lean Cuisine, at Costco I did see 5 for 10, so we will say: $2.00
Subway Foot Long, lets assume you just get their deal: $5.00
Food by the Pound, popular in DC, I would say easy to spend $13, but to be conservative: $8-10
Okay, so this weeks lunch (Chicken or Salmon Rice Bowls):
Salmon, 11.99 for 8 servings = $1.50
Chicken, 8.99 for 5 servings (Chicken was on sale this week!) = $1.80
Goat Cheese, 7.99 for 10 servings = $.80
Bag of Brown Rice (it does pay to buy by unit price, more on that in a future post) $5.99 and used 1/4 bag for 8 servings- so 1/4 bag cost $1.50 turn that into 8 servings and we have: $.19
Dill and Parsley, 1.09 for each bunch and we used 1/2 for lunch, so .55 for 10 servings, $.055- since the parsley and dill are the same price dill will be $.05 and have parsley at $.06
Oranges, $1.20 each 4 servings = $.40
Greek Yogurt, 32 oc container cost 2.99 or .09 per ounce, the serving size is 1T or .5 Ounces, rounding up= $.05
TOTAL COST for Monica's Salmon: $3.05 for Nick's Chicken: $3.35
So I may not have beat out Lean Cuisine in cost but maybe in taste :) At least now when I say it is cheaper to bring your lunch, and a complex lunch at that, I can be assured that it is not a lie.
What are you planning for lunch next week?
I am thinking another round of rice bowls with a Mexican flair, can you say AVOCADO?!
Happy Friday!
No comments:
Post a Comment