Since it’s Bike to Work Week, I thought it might be helpful if I shared how Pam and I handle meals when we’re both riding to and from work. To be honest, fixing a decent, healthy meal is the last thing either one of us want to do on a normal night. I get home about 5:50, and quite often, Pam is later than that. Since we get up at the crack of dawn, our bedtime is pretty early, so that simply doesn’t leave a lot of time for gourmet meals. Compound that with the fact that when Pam rides with me like this week, we both need showers when we walk in the door, and you get a recipe for eating out and pre-packaged meals that we know aren’t very healthy.
So, how do you deal with that? It just takes planning. Let me tell you about our Monday night supper….
Actually, it started Sunday afternoon when we fired up the smoker. Probably 80% of our meals involve that thing in some way or another, either as a grill or a smoker/roaster. We roasted a chicken, roasted a pork loin, then grilled some turkey burgers. All for the coming week.
Monday evening, we paired the pork loin with frozen brown rice that steamed in 4 minutes, frozen potatoes and green beans that steamed in 6 minutes, and some leftover bread sticks we got at a restaurant over the weekend. Good healthy stuff (well, except for the bread sticks).
For dessert, it was a cup of vanilla yogurt topped with smashed strawberries and Kasha Go Lean granola crisp cereal. Again, with the strawberries already smashed, it was simple and easy peasy, and as healthy a dessert as you can find.
Now, I’ll be honest and tell you that we’ve had time to refine the process a little bit. Not everything can be pre-cooked like that. For example, I absolutely won’t eat re-warmed fish. In addition, you’ve got to be careful that your meals don’t become instant warmed-over leftovers. By being careful how you cook your meat in the first place and how you re-warm it, you can make sure it’s not dried out like a piece of shoe leather. Trust me, we’ve done that a few times.
I pull the meat off the grill just a few minutes before it’s done. If we were going to eat it fresh off the grill, it would be a little on the rare side, but since we know it’s going to be rewarmed, that gives it the opportunity to finish cooking without drying out. Then, when we reheat it in the microwave, we make sure to warm it in small increments at reduced settings so we can check it often.
So, there you go. It may be a little late for you to try it for Bike to Work Week, but honestly, that’s the way we eat most of the time. It works for us. Hopefully, it’ll work for you as well.
God bless…
TW
