Rice and Beans - Time and Money Saving Lunch

Lunch for the week prepared on Sunday. Time and money saved.

Buying lunch while you are at work is a huge money suck, not to mention that the food is usually over-priced for the quality that you get.  For our first week in Pittsburgh, I did a great job of making salads the night before work and was extremely healthy.  That quickly turned into whatever leftovers we had in the fridge. And that quickly turned into scrambling in the morning to find something to bring with me.  Not the ideal situation to eat healthy and avoid eating crappy food, plus I would end up "supplementing" my lunch at the cafeteria.

To combat this, we started making a large batch of rice on Sunday that could be taken for  lunch every day of the week. What's that you say? "I want something interesting and rice is boring?"  There my friend, you are wrong.

We add the basics to the rice and then spice it up throughout the week.  Here is our basic recipe:

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked brown rice (or white - brown has more fiber and is a little heartier)

1 can sweet corn - drained

1 can chick peas (or black beans)

1 cup chopped jalapenos

1 cup choppen onion (red, white, whatever)

1.5 cups cooked chicken (roasted*, sauteed, whatever)

Seasonings

Recipe:

Put the beans in a small pot over low heat and cover.  Let them cook slow and low.

Heat up some olive oil in a LARGE pan - we use a wok like thingy.  

Throw in the onions, cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add jalapenos and corn.  Add seasonings such as garlic, salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, oregano; cook for 2-3 minutes.

Drain the beans of their liquid.

Add chicken, rice, and beans to the vegetables - mix thoroughly.

Season as needed.

Multiple Colors = Multiple Flavors = Happy Tastebuds

*Our chicken cooking trick - pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees.  Throw the chicken on a pan lined with foil and season both sides (may we recommend some Montreal Chicken Seasoning?).  Cook for 17 minutes.  The chicken with be slightly crispy on the outside and very juicy inside.  From there, we will finely chop the chicken and add it to the rice mix.

Potential additions to the base mixture include finely chopped ham (left over from Easter dinner), a small can of crushed tomatoes, any other of your favorite vegetables.  

How to keep it interesting throughout the week:

Use the full arsenal of your refrigerator.  Add salsas, hot sauces, soy sauce, whatever you can think of to add a little zing.  Our finding is that flavor is very important in how satisfied we are after lunch.