9/21/2012

Lunch Jars

This is some kind of new fashion in feeding at work or school to feed yourself from a jar. AFAR. A mason jar, to be exact. But in Poland we don't have mason jars, we have snazzy pickles jars. Which are the same size. So what?
I've been sceptic about this because:
a) I'm lazy
b) I don't belive in preparing a week ahead my lunches  to eat because I rarely want to eat something that I planned or whatever. I'm weird like that. OR maybe not.
c) I thought it might go bad in the fridge, or we'd forget about it and so on
d) The jars are heavy and I don't want my food to break with glass

But, I had a few jars leftover after making pickled pickles and stuff, I HAD to go on a salad diet  (when you quit smoking you have to watch out for binge eating), and I had the time to test it out, but I decided against the weekly planning, so I would make a salad each every evening. In the morning, I'd just get it out of the fridge so I wouldn't forget it, and go.
 And zo, DAY 1.
 I started on sunday, just preparing a jar for myself and T, only for the next day lunch.
I made caesar salad for myself, and a regular salad with vinaigrette dressing for T ( he hates cheesy dressings) both with rotisserie chicken.
I didn't have the energy to make my own chicken for the salads, so I bought 2 rotisserie drumsticks, whick I cut up. Financialy it came out cheaper this way, but maybe not so, you know, healthier or that you know what you put inside, apart from the meat.
First, I chopped and sliced and diced what I had to for the salad, so there was for my caesar salad/jar: half a carrot, half a medium tomato, half small romain salad, croutons, 1 drumstick chopped up.
The sauce came out a little bit too thick, but thanks to that I could store it in a jar up to 2 weeks in the fridge, using as much as I needed with new salads, just weaken ? it with more olive oil.  You make it with parmigiano cheese, 1 egg yolk, half a small garlic clove, some salt, and lemon juice. And lots of olive oil. You can add some anchovies, but I don't like them so I skipped them and it came out well. First, get a blender, and blend the egg, garlic, salt and lemon juice. Gradualy add the cheese and the olive oil. I gave too much cheese, so 1/4 of a cup would have done, instead of my 1 full cup :) Basicly, thats the caesar dressing. So, pour half an inch on the bottom of the jar, next the carrot, chicken, tomato, salad and the croutons on top. Put on the lid, pop in the fridge and you're good to go.
For T, in his jar was: half a carrot, shredded, 1 drumstick chopped up, half a tomato, a large handful of ready salad mix, croutons, half a cucumber sliced up, and vinaigrette.
Make he dressing by putting in the jar 1 small teaspoon of dijon mustard, 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, olive oil, lemon juice, S&P. Screw the lid and shake your heart out. When you're done, fill the jar up the same way- on the sauce carrots, chicken, tomatoes, cucumer, salad and croutons.
If you belive in yourself and love to eat what you prepared before, this is a good idea for you. Plus it looks really pretty all stacked up in the jar, and when you want to eat, just turn upside down the jar, and plonk it out on a plate to mix and eat. Or you can eat straight out of the jar, but I didn't find that easy, hence the plate.

Other salads I made was a nicoise one, with the same vinaigrette dressing, half a soft boiled egg, some green beans, tomato, bell pepper, cucumber, salad, tuna flakes and carrot. Same way of arranging it in the jar. That was ok, but on day 3 I made pasta with mozzarella, tomatos and basil and that was a mistake.
To be truthful, I made this for 3 days. It was ok for salads, but for pasta dishes it didn't pass the exam for me- maybe because the amount of pasta which fits in a big mason jar is too much for me. Same goes for couscous. Too much for one person.

If you're interested in how a lunch jar looks like, I suggest image googling it. Looks real nice.
The jar is a little bit heavy, but it's glass, it's reusable, it doesn't stink the way sometimes some plastic containers smell after a few uses. If you make more, for sure someone would love to have lunch with you - I got comments from people on that- so no more lonely lunches.
Making this every evening along making supper takes a minimum of effort, you just plan ahead for that. But I couldn't make on sunday 14 jars for the whole week. We wouldn't eat it and it would go to waste. So from me, it's ok Go only if I make it the evening before.

 Voila. What is your opinion on this?

2 comments:

  1. I think you could use plastic containers for soup to make it lighter [look after your back mrs!]. Or even one of these little flasks for coffee if you want to come across as a bit ex-centric in front of your work mates [or if you already do ;)]

    szycha

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  2. Sure you can use plastic containters- if you have a lot leftover from takeaways this is a great way to get rid of them. I'd propose the glass jars, because:
    -1 jar filled with salad is really half as heavy as a jar of pickles
    -it's eco
    -looks way prettier than in a plastic container
    -you can use the jar as a weapon if you really need to ( dark alleys, coming back home in lonely place, weird neighborhoods, etc:))

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