Ready Lunches (Pt. 1)

Ready Lunches, pt. 1

Posted by Lisa on March 21, 2011

In our family we have a structured meal, a somewhat structured meal, and a non-structured meal.  Dinner is always made by Mom and we almost always eat as a family (structured).  Breakfast usually consists of a Green Smoothie (post on those coming up soon!) and maybe some other item which Mom makes and my Mom, siblings, and I eat sometime (sometimes together, other times not) after my Dad leaves early in the morning (somewhat structured).  Lunch is....lunch.  It is non-structured, often consisting of left-overs and make it yourself.  The problem with lunch is we often throw together a bunch of non-healthy and expensive snacks.  So today my sister and I pre-made several lunches which we could freeze down in order to cut down on costs and reduce snacking.  Today we made two types of lunches - macaroni & cheese and pizza!  For today we'll go over the macaroni and cheese aspect (I'll post more about our ready to go pizzas later)!

MACARONI & CHEESE

There are only four simple ingredients to create this ready-to-go lunch before freezing it down for a future lunch time:
Some sort of pasta, a type of cheese, milk, and olive oil.  For this time, my sister and I used Ditalini pasta and Cheddar cheese.  In order to make this quick lunch follow these fast steps!

First put a large pot of water on the stove to boil on high heat. 

Once it comes to a boil, place the pasta into the water for 10 minutes on a medium temperature.  My sister and I used 1.5 boxes of Ditalini since that is what we had on hand at this point in time.

While the pasta is cooking, grate 2-2.5 cups of cheese to set aside along with an olive oil jar and 1-1.5 cups of milk.

After the noodles are cooked, remove the pasta and drain the water from them. Pour 2-4 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of the pan from which you just removed the pasta (this time there is no water in the pot, however).  Placed the pasta back in the pot.  Place the pot with olive oil and pasta on medium-low heat on the stove.  Add 3/4 to 1 cup of milk, and 2-2.25 cups of grated cheese.  Over heat, stir the mixture together until the cheese is melted and evenly dispersed over the noodles.  

Now that this part is done, all you have to do is find several small one-serving containers.  Once you have these, split the macaroni and cheese in between those containers and seal.  All you have to do is pop them in the freezer so that when a family member is hungry at lunchtime they can simply grab one of these!