Salad days ahead: Return to office lunches

 

The corporate powers that be are herding people back into the offices they pay for, at least a few days a week. It's time to gear up for options I can quickly assemble before trudging off to the office, but still work as lunches left behind for the guy whose company embraced the virtual office permanently.

That means Sundays spent grilling, grating and chopping so I can always at least grab a salad with a container of dressing to mix in while I east at my desk. I keep the salad ingredients in separate containers, partly so they last longer than they do mixed together, and partly so I can customize the salad components. (I adore Rubbermaid's Brilliance line of stackable glass containers for this. They fit perfectly in the crisper drawer and keep greens from wilting rapidly.)

Early on in the pandemic I came to rely on those prebagged chop salads that you can turn into lunch by tossing in your protein of choice. But they aren't free, they don't last super long in plastic bags and the dressing to salad ratio is sometimes off. (We'll skip the issue of the calorie/salt count in those dressings.) And my goodness, so much plastic. Each salad kit is like a Russian nesting doll of plastic sacks.

So prechopped ingredients, a handful of leftovers and a couple of homemade dressings on hand.means at least one aspect of my workweek is manageable. I like to use a mandolin for the shredded cabbage, but I go old school with the carrots. Yes, I still own a Salad Shooter. Stay tuned for a workweek's worth of salad/dressing recipes in case you, too, want to ditch the plastic. 

If you want a bonus topping, try these quick garlic croutons.

Quick garlic croutons: Cut 3 slices of a sturdy bread like sourdough into 1-inch cubes. Place on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, some dried thyme and a bit of powdered garlic. Bake for 5 minutes at 350 until brown and crispy.

Roast chicken with gravy and multiple sides

This meal counts as an official extravaganza* and then some. Six new recipes, five of which are from different cookbooks that I get to cross off the annual list.

But unlike some extravaganzas, which more or less put me under the table by the time I’ve got them on the table, this time I got smarter and approached it more like I would a meal if I was entertaining: I prepared as much food ahead as I could, and made sure to keep some of the courses simple. The result: I got to take a much-needed winter’s nap Sunday afternoon and still had time to make chicken broth on the side in time for use in the evening meal.

I say this not to boast of what I accomplished, but to promote my message as an evangelist for advance prep and how it can improve your life. Here’s the recipe and the game plan:

Roast chicken 101

Adapted from “The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook”

Ingredients:

1 large roasting chicken

2 tablespoons softened butter, divided

2 medium onions, sliced crosswise into thick slices

1 lemon, pricked all over with a fork

3 large garlic cloves, smashed

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 cup chicken broth

Method:

Let chicken and butter stand for a half hour. (Just enough time to get in my belated walk on the treadmill.) Remove any giblets from chicken. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Tuck wings under body. Sprinkle chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. Insert lemon, thyme and garlic cloves into cavity. Rub outside of chicken with 1 tablespoon softened butter. Tie legs together with twine (or use a washable food loop.)

Place onion slices across the bottom of a stove-top-safe roasting pan to make a bed for the chicken. Place chicken on top. Bake for 1½ hours at 425 degrees or until done (180 degrees on thermometer). Remove the chicken from the pan and let rest while you prepare the gravy.

Try to drain off the fat. Place roasting pan over heat. Add broth to the pan, scraping up any brown bits. Cook until liquid is reduced by half. Add butter. If your aim is making traditional gravy, strain and serve. If you’re more in the market for a pan sauce, remove the lemon from inside the chicken, cut it open and strain the juice into the sauce for a tangier touch. Remove onions for another use (awesome on roast-beef-Havarti Panini).

Rating: Really basic, really tasty chicken. Easy and repeatable. Makes a fairly dark gravy, if you care.

The menu:

Roast chicken and gravy

Goat cheese mashed potatoes

Carrots with garlic persillade

Three-vinegar salad

Benne wafers with pimento cheese

The game plan:

Two days before: Start thawing chicken.

Day before: Make goat cheese mashed potatoes. Mix up benne wafers in food processor, form into a log and chill. Chop garlic and parsley for persillade.

Morning of: Bake wafers. Mix up pimento cheese. Slice carrots, steam and refrigerate.

Late afternoon: Set out chicken and butter. Slice onions for chicken. Wash and assemble chicken, put in oven.

Meanwhile: Mix up salad dressing. Slice up radicchio for salad. Bring potatoes and persillade to room temperature, mixing oil into garlic and parsley.

Take a break: Set out wafers, pimento cheese and wine. Your chopping is pretty much done by this point so it’s OK to dip in.

Shortly before: Saute carrots with remaining ingredients and add persillade. Add butter lettuce to salad and toss. Bring chicken out of oven and put in mashed potatoes at reduced temperature for 20 minutes. While potatoes cook, make gravy. 

This approach gave me time to get the resulting dishes done in stages, leaving me with a manageable stack after the final prep. Altogether, it was a reasonable meal. I wouldn’t have been horrified if there had been guests present, although then I would have had to clean the house on top of it.

*To be an official Sunday extravaganza, the meal must involve five dishes, four of which are new recipes. I know it’s silly, but I made the rules.