Lunch Meal Prep - Week of 11/4/19

Each week, we try to plan far enough ahead to make lunches to have throughout the week. Most weeks, we are ok having the same lunch each day. Bringing a lunch with me to the office, saves me from going and buying lunch somewhere, and usually saves me a few calories as well.

This week, I found a recipe on the Food Network from Alton Brown (actually Sarah had saved it from a previous week when we had not got around to making it). It is Artichoke Pasta Salad. It is a great combination of flavor from the artichokes and chicken, as well as freshness from the basil and grape tomatoes. The farfalle (bow tie pasta) gives this meal the heartiness you’re looking for to keep you full throughout the day. One adjustment I made to this recipe is that I had some leftover frozen chicken thighs, so my chicken is a combination of shredded chicken from the Instant Pot, and pan-fried chicken thighs. I actually think that the chicken thighs bring much more complete flavor to the dish than shredded chicken.

We generally add some fruit on the side, this week adding some strawberries, blueberries and grapes. If we’re hungry enough at lunch time, we’ll eat this with our main lunch. However, fruit makes a nice afternoon snack to get us to the end of the day, if we’d like to keep it for that.

This meal has about 400 calories, making it a nice healthy alternative to your regular routine.

Jamaican Jerk Baked Chicken Drumsticks

Chicken is a regular on the dinner list at the Duke home. Whether it is chicken breasts, slow-cooked and shredded or even soup, there are a lot of different ways to make a delicious meal with chicken. One benefit to chicken that I especially love, is the value of it relative to its cost. The other day I bought 5 pounds of chicken drumsticks for under $4. I decided to try a new spice rub on the chicken and make some baked chicken drumsticks for a simple, weeknight meal.

Jamaican Jerk Spice Rub
Recipe found on Recipe.com

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 4 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
• 4 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme, crushed
• 1 tablespoon ground allspice
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 to 3 teaspoons ground red pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

In a small mixing bowl, stir together all the spices and set aside for chicken.

Preheat the oven to 400° F.

Prepare the chicken by patting each drumstick down and getting them as dry as possible, then lay them out on a baking sheet. Drizzle some olive oil over the top of the drumsticks and rub each drumstick with the spice rub you made. Bake the chicken for 30 minutes, flip them, and then for an additional 25 minutes.

We often have rice with chicken, but a side of corn on the cob would be great as well! Enjoy!

(Tip: there are lots of spices in the rub recipe and you may not have all of them each time you cook. There is a cool Herb and Spice Substitution Chart at The Humbled Homemaker. Check it out!)