lunch crew

Breakfast is one of those pieces of good advice I struggle to apply to my daily routine. As I get older, setting and maintaining good habits becomes much more important to me, and I figure breakfast is as good a starting point as any to make my good living fantasy an incremental possibility. Tasty self actualization, I suppose.

I could take the easy route, and make yogurt with some fruit, or thaw out a premade smoothie the night before, or make some overnight slowcooker oatmeal, but then i thought, naaah. Let's make some cheddar veg egg cups, baby!

These are impossibly simple to make, though the pan is an absolute bitch to clean. Lube up a muffin tin with oil, spray or pour, it doesn't matter, just get it good and greasy.

Cook up some sausage or bacon, then some onions, and some kale or spinach, whatever veg you're into.

Put these toppings in each muffin cup, then sprinkle some cheese on top (i use shredded sharp cheddar, use what you have) and pour some scrambled eggs over it.

I crack a dozen and whisk them up fluffy with a little water and pepper, but you can use milk or cream or whatever you have on hand. I may add sour cream next time, sounds bomb as hell. Pour the egg over the toppings and shove in the oven at 350F for like 20m, until stabbing one with a knife comes out clean.

Let these cool before removing, which is tricky and a bit infuriating, I'll be totally honest with you. I drag a knife around each egg muffin to loosen, then pry that tasty bitch out with a spoon. Stick them in a tupperware in your fridge, or freeze for later. I have eaten these every morning for the past week or so with hot sauce, and holy hell are they filling.

Regarding hot sauce, and my love for it. I was never a big spicy food fan until after I had my daughter. Suddenly, my tastebuds changed, and I began craving spicy things, in a real and immediate way.

Tabasco is so-so, and Crystal is less-so, much to the chagrin of die-hard cajun chefs reading this. I know it's the hot sauce to use in your freaking food, that's why I keep a bottle of the shit on hand for my andouille red beans, okay? Fuck's sake, man.

Then I discovered sriracha, the ubiquitous big plastic bottle of red rooster sauce. I enjoy the paste-like consistency, and the subtleness of the spicy, the impact of the hotness is not as intense as it is all-over, if that makes sense. Less direct, I suppose. I adore the stuff, and really need to try out a recipe for it. I add it to everything, especially my bechamel sauce and fried chicken wet batter.

Tasty as it is, my work has yet to restock a bottle in the kitchen fridge, substituting it with a couple versions of El Yucateco (red and green). My first experience with this sauce is like a flashbulb memory: I was pregaming at a Mexican restaurant next door to a venue my fella and I were catching a rap show at. The margaritas were ridiculous, and when the food came, I doused my fajita plate with the tableside bottle of hot sauce, not thinking to look at the label.

Upon first bite, I was unable to chew any further. An eight dollar plate of food, ruined by this obscenely intense red shit. I looked at the label, mouth hung open to alleviate the persistent, undulled sensation of my tongue meat being chemically melted off. Habaneros. Fucking habanero sauce.

Good lord, what a fuck up. I can still feel residual pain in my cheeks just thinking about it.

Holy jesus, this is not a mild sauce. This is not that weak ass red vinegar you're used to. This sauce is not fucking about at all, just WHAM, spicy city, all over the mouth. I wasn't even offput initially by the strength of it, either. I was impressed. Serves me right for not respecting such a sassy, potent condiment.

So when I saw a bottle of it in our company fridge earlier, and could not be helped to play with that bargain brand louisiana hot sauce (red vinegar juice), i threw a couple scant dashes of the good stuff on my egg muffins this morning, not much, just enough to soak the egg bright pink in a couple places, and was not disappointed.

Tried a bit more sauce on my tilapia and kale lunch, with a heaping teaspoon of garlic I found hiding behind the ketchups (we have three in the fridge, it doesn't need refrigerating, what the hell?!? who is using all this ketchup??), and was golden.

I started eating fish at lunch once I began logging my intake on My Fitness Pal. Aside from keeping me mindful of my intake in a general way, logging my intake has revealed the macronutrient breakdown of what I shove into my hungry maw. Speaking specifically, carbs and protein, and sugar to a lesser extent.

I've been doing the StrongLifts weight program three times a week, so protein has become much more important to me. That and fiber keep me full and don't result in sharp crashes in mood or energy I tend to experience during midday on a higher carb diet.

I was craving salads, of all things, last week. I forgot my chicken soup I made myself for lunch at home, and didn't want to go the Popeye's route with the spicy chicken fingers and the red beans and mardi gras mustard, so I stopped by the nearest grocery store for some salad fixins. Not the salad bar, but actual produce red lettuce and deli ham and pineapple turkey, green olives, feta, a bottle of local romano dressing, and some artichoke hearts.

The result was delicious, filling and low-calorie, but was lacking a bit in the macro department. $16 for five meals is a win, however you look at it, but it could use some improvement, nutritionally. I figure, if I'm gonna eat, I might as well make every bite count, right?

I looked up some chicken thighs, and a thigh has 6g protein, which is only so-so when I'm trying to eat almost 70g of protein daily. That's a lot of fucking chicken. No hate on chicken, I do love it so, but it's hardly the protein power player I had previously assumed it to be. See what logging your intake and looking up ingredients does to your understanding of personal dietary consumption? How revealing! Total eye-opener for me, for real! Still, I eat chicken damn near every night, and will continue to do so. Mother fucking yard bird, I can't get enough of it.

(EDIT: just looked up chicken thigh again on mfp? 16g of protein. I KNEW 6 looked too low! Always double-check! Trust your skepticism, folks!)

I looked up canned tuna on a whim, because fuck it, might be worth adding to my weekly lunch routine, and holy shit, dude. 20g of protein per tin?? Tilapia fillets, same thing! Which is good for me, as I totally blanked out while I was doing my weekly shopping last week and forgot to pick up tuna, and you got me fucked up if you think i'm gonna go back to the grocery store on a saturday for canned fish when frozen fillets will do just as nicely, no freaking way.

Tilapia is insanely easy to make, and makes for an economically friendly lunch. A bag of eight fillets cost me five bucks, maybe. Parsley was a buck, parmesan was two (grated, not shakey), lemon juice was on-hand, as was the garlic and onion and butter. Kale is a buck or two for a shitload, so we're looking at under ten bucks for five lunches. That's two bucks a meal, you can't beat that.

I lay the fillets on a baking pan and pour melted butter over them, then cover with lemon juice, parsley, chopped garlic and a little bit of parmesan and shove it in the oven until it starts to go brown along the edges and is no longer soft in the center. The center should feel set, and the flesh should flake off with a fork. Such a lovely meat, really.

The kale was a cinch, too. I sautee a big ass onion and some garlic in a little oil until golden and translucent, and pull them out. As this cooks, I cut up the kale, get rid of the stems if you want, and shove in the empty onion pan with some broth. That's it. Salt and pepper it as needed, add some red wine/apple cider vinegar to it to taste and wait for it all to wilt down to a manageable amount. Mix the onions in with the kale and portion out into five containers. Once the fish is finished, spat it off of the pan and into the kaled tupperware and shove it all in the fridge.

The hardest part of home cooking a week's worth of work lunches is remembering to walk out the door with it in the morning. I cannot tell you how many times I have had my breakfast and lunch ready to go, only to realize I had forgotten it as I turn onto the highway heading to work. Embarrassing and frustrating, to be sure. I dunno, little moments of stupidity like that really reinforce the habit somehow, and I haven't forgotten my lunch at all this week.

I could take them all to work with me, but I don't wanna be "that guy" who's taking up all the fridge space with her weird ass tupperware lunches. Keep judging my fish, you fucks. I see you eating out every day, ya rich unhealthy bastards. Mindlessly expensive! I can't wrap my head around it!