Today's Lunch

I figure I'd post my lunch plus an easy recipe for those who like to save $$$ and bring their own food to school.

Today, we have goat cheese tortellini with marinara sauce, mini chicken and apple sausages, and roasted garlic yukon gold potatoes. That all sounds complicated, but it's pretty easy to make.

Pasta Recipe:

Buy ready-made tortellini in your flavor of choice and a jar or cup of marinara sauce. Boil pasta according to the directions. Drain pasta and spoon desired amount of sauce on top of it. Add parmesan cheese if you want.

Sausage Recipe:

Buy a pre-packaged bag of mini sausages in your flavor of choice. Saute in a pan for 8-10 min. over medium-high heat until done (brown).

Roasted Potatoes Recipe:

(Okay this one is kind of hard, but it's so worth it! These potatoes are soooo good.)

1 lb. baby yukon gold potatoes

1/4 cup olive oil

3 cloves garlic (finely chopped)

2 tbsp. fresh thyme (finely chopped)

3 tbsp. butter

salt and pepper

Cut potatoes in half. Place potatoes in a single layer on a baking dish with all the olive oil. Roast in 350*F oven for 45 min. Toss once in a while to cook evenly.

In sauce pan, brown garlic with butter over medium heat. When garlic is golden brown, add thyme, stir quickly and remove from heat.

When potatoes are done, toss in garlic/butter/thyme sauce. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Reasons why it's a good idea to make your own lunch:

1. You save money :)
2. You know exactly what's going into your food, so you can control having a healthy, balanced diet (I see you teachers with your Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's, tsk tsk).
3. You save time (I make my lunch for the entire week on Sundays and store them in tupperware).
4. You save on throwing out garbage because you're using reusable storage and utensils.
5. You can use the time it would take to walk to a restaurant or wait in long lines for food to catch up with teacher friends, plan, grade, go shopping, take a walk, call your mom, etc. Or you just won't have to interact with people at all, if that's incentive enough for you.

So in conclusion, make and bring your own lunch to school :)