Tortellini Salad, Beans + Grains Bowl and Lettuce Wraps.Julie Van Rosendaal/The Globe and Mail
For most of us, September means a return to our usual work, school and extracurricular programming, and added pressure on the daily question of what’s for lunch.
Now that schedules aren’t quite so lax, strategizing helps: putting another pot on the stove, or making extra to ensure there are leftovers – simmering a double batch of pulses or grains, roasting more chicken or salmon, or whizzing up a sauce or dressing that can do double duty means you’ll have some building blocks for meals to last throughout the week. (There is also an opportunity here to give kids mini cooking lessons: How to cook pasta, how to make a vinaigrette … oh look, lunch is taken care of!)
From a cost perspective, it helps to be flexible with food choices, able to roll with whatever is more affordable or on sale from week to week. And of course one of the best ways to save on groceries is to actually use what we buy, whether it’s leftovers or produce that’s starting to wilt. (Another helpful life skill to develop in both kids and grown-ups: Let’s look in the fridge and see what we have, and think of ways to use it.)
These recipes are adaptable to whatever happens to be in your fridge and pantry, with elements that can be prepped ahead of time. There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but we can aim for cheap and easy.
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