Simple Home Living: Lunch in a Box

Showing posts with label Lunch in a Box. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Lunch in a Box - I Ate an Ant

I'd just gotten off the phone with a friend from Ireland and decided that it would be a Lunch in a Box day. So, I grabbed my kitchen shears and snipped some spinach, arugula, and some curley leafed lettuce. I'd so enjoyed the Nasturtiums from the other day and I read that Pansy's are edible as well, so I snipped away.

After taking great care to rinse my salad off, I carefully set each piece on my plate. I like to make things look lovely. I admit, that I played a bit with the position of the flowers. It was like designing a room or something.

Isn't this lovely? Almost too lovely to eat. Until my darling little four year old grand daughter drew close to admire the pretty pansy's and to see if I was really going to put those flowers in my mouth.

She drew close enough to notice a tiny ant trekking across that lovely white pansy. After my moment of horror, I regrouped to find the little varmit on my mission to destroy.

Not fast enough. It disappeared midst the laughter that darling daughter and I had.

I was hungry and decided that perhaps adding my olive oil and white wine vinegar would help me ignore the reality that I'd be ingesting a itsy bitsy ant soon.

Would you have eaten the ant?

Related Posts
1. Lunch in a Box - Eating Flowers
2. Dinner in a Box

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Dinner in a Box - Celebrating Swiss Chard

When was the last time you thought about gardening and growing your own food and live a sustainable lifestyle in the city?

What if you could only eat what you grow - or at least primarily - how efficient and or creative would you become to thrive with Lunch in a Box or Dinner in a Box?

I began this concept recently, because I decided that I needed an attitude overall toward gardening. If I thought of each garden box (raised beds) as lunch or dinner, then I would (hopefully) be sure to not waste anything, be more frugal and be more self-sufficient.

The thought of Lunch in a Box and Dinner in a Box has made me work our family meals and find recipes around what's in the Box.

So, here's our Dinner in a Box from Tuesday night. It's a great recipe for Dinner in a Box using Swiss Chard (compliments of Cookiemag.com)

Start your Dinner in a Box with 1 bunch of Swiss Chard - washed and drained.

Trim the leaves from the stems and roughly chop the leaves and pat them dry. Then, in a large skillet saute 2 cloves of minced garlic in olive oil. I use a liberal amount of olive oil, but use what you'd like. Boil water for linguine (or spaghetti) and cook a good amount al dente - then set it aside.

Next, sprinkle red-pepper flakes into the oil and garlic and saute for about 1 minute.

This Swiss Chard's been in our garden wine barrel for 3 seasons. It's prolific!

Add the chard and saute until it's wilted - then remove it from the heat. Now, add the pasta. Toss with salt and pepper and then - the fun part - toss a handful of grated Parmesan.

Serve and watch the eyes begin to smile. If you like you could serve some baked chicken pieces with this - I generally don't. Just a big plate of this along with my home made whole wheat bread.

Related Posts
1. Lunch in a Box
2. Eating Flowers - Lunch in a Box
3. Visit Amy's Kitchen for More Celebrations
4. More Inspirations Visit Melissa's Inspired Room

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Eating Flowers - Tuesday's Lunch in a Box

Three seasons ago, my husband built these boxes - these raised beds - so that we could begin a journey in experiencing gardening here in the desert.

And, now, in our third gardening season, I must say that Michael and I are thoroughly enjoying this journey.

He builds boxes and designs the flow of our garden space. He created this special pathway that since has been called by little princesses a Princess Pathway.

As we partner together, my part is to figure out what to plant in the season at hand, and how/when to harvest what we're growing and to find new and creative ways to prepare the food that comes from our garden.

One of the creative ways I've come up with is to think of each box as LUNCH or DINNER. Having the mindset about Lunch or Dinner in a Box stretches me to find recipes and ways to serve what we're growing like this Tuscan Kale Salad or this Comfort Food (using lots of rosemary).

Today, Lunch in a Box included a big fresh clipping of Arugula.

I not only snipped away at the Arugula, but felt that our lunch needed some additional color . . . so, I selected a few of these lovely Nasturtium - knowing that those joining me for lunch (darling oldest daughter and husband) might not think it as wonderful as I do - to eat flowers for lunch.