This year for my husband’s birthday present, I made him a bunch of lunches. Because the guy hates packing his lunches in the morning, I thought it’d be real sweet to make him an assortment of food and stick it in the freezer so that on weekdays he could just run down to the basement in the morning, load up his cooler, and go.

Actually, my gift wasn’t all that creative—I did the same thing another year. But I never know what to get him (he refuses to articulate any wishes), so it’s not like I have a ton of options. Besides, he has to eat anyway, and his morning grousing grates on my nerves, so look at me go, killing two birds with one stone, bam-bam.

Coming up with the foods to make ahead and freeze turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. The foods had to be freezer tolerant and tasty at room temperature. Also, he’s lactose intolerant, so no milk, cheese, yogurt, cream, or butter, bummer. Plus, he’s not a huge fan of legumes (crazy man).

The snacks and cookies were easy enough. I mixed up a huge bowl of fruit salad and froze it in pint jars. I made a bulk batch of gorp and two kinds of cookies (one was dairy-free), portioning it all out into little baggies. But the main course stumped me.

I emailed one of my culinary guru friends. She’s a whiz at cooking for people with special needs, so I thought that for sure she’d produce a bunch of viable options. She, however, was equally confounded.

She wrote, “I can’t think of something that would be good after freezing and thawing, eaten at room temperature, and not including legumes or unusual grains or dairy, except for bread, muffins and cookies.  I have hardly ever done freezer meals, except for soup, so I don’t have much experience either.”

It wasn’t just me. This was a tricky situation.

My husband can tolerate a small amount of dairy when eaten with a lactaid pill, so in the end I resorted to cheese. I made pepperoni rolls and hot ham and cheese sandwiches.

The hot sandwiches were kind of a bust. Not only do they use cheese and get cold in the freezer (though they still tasted good when thawed to room temperature), but they use an insane amount of foil. And then my husband went and announced that he’s not exactly partial to the spread I used—a delicious, I thought, mixture of horseradish, dijon mustard, fake butter (that has lactose in it—who knew!), and poppyseeds. Oh well.

I liked my friend’s soup idea, so I got my husband a nice thermos for a birthday present. It’s great, I think (though my husband isn’t jumping up and down with glee), but using it requires a couple extra “cooking” steps in the morning—heating up the soup, warming the thermos, putting the hot soup in the warm thermos…. Simple stuff, yes, but my original goal was to make foods that had zero morning involvement. Just grab and go.

So. This is where I need your help. I’d like to have more ideas for foods I could make ahead and freeze for my husband’s lunches. The birthday is over, but it’ll come again next year.

Am I forgetting something? Do you have any favorite make-ahead lunch foods?

To recap, the requirements:

*lactose free
*freezer tolerant
*tasty at room temp

Please help!

Love,
A Stumped Cook

PS. I also gave him a gift card to Dick’s Sporting Goods store, so not all his gifts were food-related. In case you were worried. (I think he was.)

This same time, years previous: chaos and creativity, another one of those homeschooling rants, puzzling it out, a milestone, three vignettes: my husband, and the fort goes up

Have you noticed that I haven’t been writing about food much anymore?

Yeah, me too.

I know that some people classify this as a food blog. I think I must be a terrible disappointment to them. Especially after the boxed cake and KFC dinner. I’m such a fraud.

(An aside: the other day I was on the phone with my mom and I told her—I don’t remember what we were talking about—that I felt like a fraud. “What?!” she said. “A fraud,” I said. “Excuse me?” she said. “A fraud!” I bellowed, “I feel like a FRAUD!” And then she busted up laughing. She thought I was saying “frog.”)

I still cook, of course, but it’s often out of necessity, not frivolous pleasure. Not that cooking out of necessity can’t be pleasurable, because it can. But I’m not cooking just for pleasure—I used to do that all the time. Back in the day.

(Though couple afternoons ago I got the urge to cook, to make something just for the sake of making something. It felt really weird, that little urge did, which just goes to show you how my cooking urges have shifted. Or faded. Or been drowned out. Something.)

I’m still cooking and writing for the newspaper, of course. I forgot to alert you to the article from a couple weeks ago, and the most recent column just came out on Wednesday. So let’s play catch up, shall we?

The former column was about bulk cooking (I told you I’ve been cooking with a purpose!) and the recipe was golden chicken curry. I’ve written about it here before. We like it a lot.

The latter column included a new recipe: roasted red pepper soup. My aunt served it at the soiree, and I made it when I came home. I’ve been drinking a mugful every day for my lunch.

Yesterday I finished off the last of the batch. So sad.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup
I’ve adapted my aunt’s recipe. She had adapted hers from one she found on My Recipes.

4 large red bell peppers
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
28-ounce can plum tomatoes (or 1 quart home-canned)
1-2 teaspoons minced chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons smoked (or plain) paprika
3 cups chicken broth
3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons salt
black pepper
sour cream, for garnish
chopped cilantro, for garnish

Cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds and white membrane, and place
on a baking sheet, cut-side down. Broil for 15-18 minutes until the
skins are blistered black. Put the roasted peppers in a bowl and cover
tightly with plastic. Allow them to steam-soften for about 10 minutes
before peeling off and discarding the skins.

Saute the onions and garlic in the oil over medium high heat until
translucent and soft. Add the roasted peppers, tomatoes, chipotle
pepper, and paprika. Simmer for several minutes. Blend until creamy
smooth.

Return the soup to the kettle, add the broth, lemon juice, salt, and
pepper to taste. Heat through and taste to correct seasonings. Ladle
soup into bowls and garnish with dollops of sour cream and cilantro.

Yield: one-half gallon

This same time, years previous: old-fashioned brown sugar cookies, Mr. Handsome’s birthday of 2010, anticipating the mothballs, the dogwood wild runner