Long Term Planning

Today is my last day before I begin my second year of teaching. It's a very bittersweet feeling; I know what is ahead of me and I am ready for the challenges, yet I am still clueless most of the time. To put this in "Olympic Perspective" - I finished the 50m breaststroke in mostly a doggy paddle, and I'm taking on the 100m butterfly. But I digress, this is suppose to be about food, not my obsession with Ryan Lochte.

I went grocery shopping yesterday and realized that I need to start packing school lunches. There is a certain quality of lunch:quality of day ratio I'd like to share with you. This theory started last year, when in the depths of despair sometime in mid October (I was eating carrots, yogurt, and a bagel for lunch), Alex shared with me the necessity of a good lunch. A good lunch makes a great day. A mediocre to bad lunch makes a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.

The key to a good lunch is planning. Well, also ignoring all of the "Ms. Woike WHAT IS THAT?!?" comments you hear at the table. Last year I did a pretty swell job of making sure I had left overs for lunch. However, I don't think this is enough planning. Sometimes I eat with friends and there are no leftovers, some nights I go to the Penguin for a soy dog, and some nights I just simply don't care for what I ate.

Now here's a side story: I am slightly obsessed with Molly Wizenberg's blog Orangette. All of her recipes are just so dang simple and look so dang terrific and 95% of the ones I have made have been just so dang amazing. The other 5% were my own dang fault. She has a flair for french cuisine. I'm not talking duck confit - I'm talking warm lentil salads, beet tarts, open faced scrambled egg sandwiches with leeks - rustic, yet delicious.

One of my favorite postings has her formula for lunch: Bread, Cheese, Soup/Vegetable, Fruit. Wonderfully simple, easy to plan, and 75% portable (as in, I can walk around the lunch room and reprimand the demons as they taunt one another with sporks, ketchup packets, and milk cartons). I love bread. I love cheese. I love soup/vegetables. I love fruit. I only worry about when my farmer's market closes, I will be out of luck. But I have an Earth Fare I am willing to investigate.

I don't know what made me think of all this this morning. Maybe it is the steady rain, the falling temperature, the eager dog, wanting to tear through the nice weather, but his reluctance to get wet (what a wimp). Or maybe it's the fact that I am faced with developing my first unit plan today, in addition to finishing my long term plans for the year. I'll start by planning my first lunch, and sharing my favorite Molly Wizenberg soup recipe. That is a start.

My First Lunch
Multi-grain Country loaf bread
Hummus (No cheese, but it is Morgan's hummus recipe)
Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Tomato


Chick Pea Tomato Soup with Fresh Rosemary
from Molly Wizenberg's blog Orangette

2 cans of chick peas (no need to be a purist and soak your own)
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, roughly 3 inches long
2 cans diced tomatoes (tricky here, use a 28 oz can and a 14.5 oz can)
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of salt
a pinch of black pepper
4 cups vegetable stock (if you make your own, props. if you use bouillon, I understand.)

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the garlic (peel, crushed, chopped) and the rosemary (needles removed from stems, rough chop). Heat for a minute, then add the tomatoes, sugar, salt, black pepper, half of the chickpeas (drained, of course), and the stock. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce and simmer for 20-25 minutes.

Remove the soup from the heat and cool for 4-5 minutes. Place in a blender (this is key in soups, as I mentioned before - food processors do not get the required texture for blended soups - use a blender!) and puree in batches, returning it to the pot. Add the additional chick peas, and bring soup to a warm temperature. Serves 6, or 4 hungry people.