Lunch Simplified

Hey, it's a new school year! Sorry I have not been posting pictures, but there should be some next week.

Today's post is about how to use your freezer to make mornings less hectic. Remember the cute little square silicone cupcake liners that you separate food with? Well, I don't use them for baking because they discolor, but they work great for freezing 1/2-cup portions. So for instance, if you make hummus, make a lot. Line up your silicone cupcake liners on a cookie sheet, then fill them with hummus. You can adjust the portions by how much you fill the cups; you can even mound it up. Freeze overnight, then peel away the liners and store the hummus-sicles in a ziplock bag.

This strategy would work great for runny foods that you might serve with rice, such as curries, teriyaki, chili, thick stews, or whatever. You could even do it with beans for salads. Thaw them overnight and, if appropriate, warm them in the morning before you pack them.

Silicone Cups and Sun Chokes

Even Nikola Tesla wants a bite of this: Hummus with carrots, celery, tangerine, sun chokes and gluten-free pretzels.

Now that you have yourself a sandwich box, the next thing you need is silicone muffin liners. They are flexible and can hold a variety of foods, soft or hard. For soft foods, make sure the liner is tall enough. Notice how the green cup holding the hummus is slightly taller than the sides of the container? Once the lid is on, it touches the top of the liner and helps hold it in place. Don't put in anything wet or runny, but thick dips are fine, and juicy pickles won't leak all over everything else.

Silicone cups also keep dry foods from getting soggy--for a while, anyway. Eventually, these pretzels would soften from being in the same container with the moist vegetables, but not before lunchtime. (If you're going on a long plane trip and your lunch might get jostled around, definitely put the pretzels in a separate container.) The silicone cup is able to stretch to accommodate the long shape of the pretzels.

Hummus is a frequent player in our lunches, so I try to change up the vegetables. Apples are good, and carrots or celery are a no-brainer, but if you have anything else crispy, like jicama or sun chokes, that adds interest. The kids dug these red sun chokes in the garden. If you like them, plant a few in a part of the yard where the kids can dig, and where their spreading habit won't be a bother. You'll be rewarded with tall sunflowers in summer and tasty tubers through the fall, winter and spring.