081 – What’s for Lunch?

While getting meals on the table is a daily life task many in this world understandably struggle to execute, the schedule of an independent music teacher seems to make it even harder. Dinner, of course, is the meal that’s the trickiest to juggle simply because our prime teaching hours often overlap our ideal meal time. We talked a little about ways to help manage the conflict in episode 4 of this podcast, “Dinner Hour Meets Teaching Hour.” In that episode’s show notes, you’ll even get access to some of my favorite slow cooker recipes. That being said, it’s easy for meal-planning efforts to often focus on dinner – leaving the midday meal a little in the lurch.

This past week I had the privilege of preparing breakfast and lunch meals for 16 piano teachers at Joy Morin’s piano teacher retreat in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is the 8th time I’ve catered for a group of teachers as I’ve done 4 retreats for Joy since 2017 and 4 of my own over the past two years. I’ve come to notice what my fellow piano teachers seem to like and appreciate. Between those experiences and things I’ve noticed in my own life, today, I thought I would share a few ways to view and manage the question of “what’s for lunch.”

Welcome to the piano pantry podcast; I’m your host Amy Chaplin, a piano teacher from Indiana who likes to cook as much as she likes to teach. I wanted to let you know that due to requests from some of you, I’ve decided to start making transcripts available for these episodes. To view the transcripts, visit the show notes and click on the link that will take you to the episode page on the piano pantry website.

I realize that not everyone knows how to find show notes, so if you are listening in the Apple podcast app, at the bottom of this episode, it will say “Episode Notes.” Click on the word “show” to expand them out. In the Overcast podcast app, click on the “i” button for information, and in Spotify, click directly on the episode itself.

Transcripts are available for all past episodes except for teacher talks or guest hosts.

There are six ways I think we can help our lunchtime meal plans. Of course, a lot of what will work for you has to do if you working at home, traveling to students homes, or working at a music school. Hopefully, I will cover the gamut enough that at least one of these five ideas will be a new inspiration for your work situation.

1. Leftovers – While it might not be a new idea to make extra when cooking meals that will keep and reheat well, have you ever considered portioning out a leftover serving BEFORE serving dinner? I do this quite frequently. As long as I know there’s enough, I will dish out one serving into a storage container. Since my husband isn’t the cook, he doesn’t even think about things like that and may easily eat seconds or thirds. I’ve found starting with saving leftovers first helps get me one extra meal.
2. Breakfast for lunch – You may do breakfast for dinner, but what about breakfast for lunch? We’re actually not breakfast eaters, so I don’t mind having a morning-type meal once in a while, whether it’s oatmeal, waffles, scrambled eggs, or avocado toast. I made a cheesy baked eggs recipe for the retreat this past weekend that everyone raved over. It’s just a meatless egg casserole and would reheat great for a lunchtime meal. Of course, I know you want some recipes, so I will link to several things I talk about today in the show notes.
3. Smoothies – Since my husband also works from home, we have gotten into the routine of having smoothies for lunch on Mondays. Sometimes the weekend means a little heavier eating, whether it’s going out, having Sunday night pizza, or having a few drinks over the course of the weekend. Allowing our bodies a little lighter load really helps us ease into the week.
4. Salad fixings – I finally had to get on my husband because sometimes I would ask what he felt like for dinner, and he might say, “Oh, just something easy – like a salad” Well, I have news for you that salads aren’t exactly easy. They might seem lighter at times, but unless the fixings are all chopped up, they take a lot of time to assemble! So, Yes, a salad is a lovely lunch, but take some time to have a few ingredients chopped and ready to go. I heard an acquaintance recently say they like to go to the pizza hut salad bar and load up their to-go container with chopped veggies and no lettuce; then they use those veggies to fill their lunchtime salads during the week. I’ve never done that myself but it’s a pretty brilliant idea if you ask me!
5. Think easy protein – canned, chopped, and pressed – that might not sound appetizing putting those words together, and I don’t necessarily mean them all at once. I’m talking about things like egg salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, ham salad, tuna patties, and salmon cakes. Canned seafood is great for lunchtime meals, as are eggs in a huge variety of ways. My most recent favorites are the viral Chili Crip and Crispy Feta fried eggs. Oh, so good! Chinese noodles or avocado toast with fried or soft-boiled eggs are also always lunchtime winners. If you’ve never done the 7-minute soft-boiled egg, you are in for a real treat!
6. This last one is more of a mindset when it comes to meals, whether it’s lunch or dinner, and that’s semi-homemade. Don’t feel like you have to do it all. This is the mindset I try to take when catering the retreats. For example, I served homemade chicken salad sandwiches on the first lunch day, but the chicken was pre-cooked rotisserie chicken. Sides included raw veggies and dip, a bag of pretzels, and homemade cookies. Make try to focus on making one thing and then take some shortcuts on the rest to make life a little easier.

So, to recap, (1) set aside leftovers before eating your evening meal, (2) make breakfast for lunch, (3) consider just having a smoothie, (4) Prep up fixings for salads ahead of time, (5) Go for easy protein – eggs, canned seafood, chicken salads, and such, and (6) Plan for semi-homemade

Today’s tiny tip was inspired by an action I was doing myself this very day, and that was labeling student books. I’ve always jotted students’ names inside of books when I knew it would be a book they’ll keep, but in the last couple of years, I realized it was nice to use a label maker to print their names on it. Mostly, this came about when you have siblings coming to lessons at once, and their juggling 400 books between the two of them. Having the name on the outside makes it so much easier to distinguish whose is whose! This is just one tiny tip from you to me this week. Don’t forget; you can get a good handful of recipes in the show notes today.