Lunch time all the time

So I'm trying something new, which is to make all my lunches for the work week at once, something that would save me tons of time prepping (and save me from forgetting the night before and rushing madly the morning of) but I've largely refrained from doing so because Im really scared of the monotony that would create. Eating the same thing over and over 5 days in a row doesn't sound very appealing, but what the heck, I cant judge something without trying it.

So this is what I made, a sort of chili I guess you would call it.

 For the meat base, I used a meatloaf I never got around to cooking, mixture of ground turkey and ground beef with minced broccoli and cauliflower and spices, I'm not sure which I put in there. Sliced an onion, a red pepper, a zucchini (thanks Amy!!), added green and yellow string beans, some carrots, cubed sweet potato and added some chopped fresh tomatoes as well as the last of last year's canned tomato sauce I made, and finally a mix of beans (red, white kidney beans, some chickpeas and I think some split peas as well). Added oregano, paprika, dried chili, chili powder, and jalapeno hot sauce. Shoved all that in the crockpot for a few hours on high. The result is exactly like chili, or maybe a tomato stew. So now I have lunch for the whole week (and a couple bowls that we ate for supper as well). Although I'm loving the result, I know that by Wednesday I'm going to start dreading lunch time haha so I think what I will do is make two recipes every week, freeze the individual portions and mix and match.

Do you have large scale crockpot recipes that are easily freezable and microwavable you would suggest?

So many food adventures!

Since I accepted Amy's invitation to join the Leek Geeks, I have had so many food adventures!

We got to go to afternoon tea at the Ritz in London with Simon's grandparents, as part of his grandmother's 80th birthday gift.

There was a dress code: jacket and ties compulsory for gentlemen. Simon wore one too. (Ha!)

Look at all the teas! We had the traditional one, because you don't go to the Ritz to drink herbal tea.

They bring out the scones (on the middle level) just before you eat them, so they are at the perfect temperature when you are ready to eat them with clotted cream and jam. There were also sliced cakes from a trolley. Afternoon tea was actually quite a feast! They offered more of everything, too.

I also bought a new slow cooking cookbook in an attempt to do more interesting things with my slowcooker, and of course the first recipe I used was not a slowcooker recipe!

This is beef rendang, apparently a famous dish. You make a curry paste and simmer it with stewing beef and coconut milk so that it goes from this:

To this. With lots of time for evaporation, then more liquid and more time, and then toasted coconut, tamarind paste, and coriander. The whole process took about five hours.

We didn't have our dinner until 9 o'clock, but Simon was happy! I served it with basmati rice and steamed spinach. The next day I had tinned "Thai chicken soup" for lunch and it tasted like salty, slimy water. I think my palate is getting used to all this nice food!

Are we allowed to share recipes that come from books? I documented the process of making a gorgeous, flourless chocolate cake from the Ottolenghi cookbook, but I didn't know if publishing it here would be frowned upon.

And finally, we are obsessed with homemade pizza now! We keep the toppings constant (mozzarella, caramelised onion, mushrooms, feta, and olives) and I make the crust thinner and thinner every week! The same amount of dough that made a dinner plate-sized pizza in the beginning now makes a monster that barely fits on my baking sheet!