32 Lunches - Day 32, Dec. 31: Salmon salad + chicken pasta on Flight MU208

I remember us bringing some leftover stir-fried beef + rice to the airport to eat for lunch while waiting for our flight to the Philippines, but I don't have a photo of it. So, for this project, Day 32 lunch is the meal I had on the plane on the China Eastern Airlines flight from Toronto to Shanghai. I don't really remember what I had but this looks like chicken and pasta with red sauce + steamed vegetables on the side, salmon salad, and cut fresh fruit for dessert. I also had some warms rolls with butter (though the rolls aren't in the photo).

I'm finally done! 32 Lunches Project finally completed. I do hope I find (make?) time to blog more in the future. Have a good summer! :)

32 Lunches - Day 31, Dec. 30: Beef stir-fry + homemade siomai (dumplings) + fried pork chops

This was the last meal I cooked in Canada for 2017. We flew to the Philippines the next day (New Year's Eve) for a 3-week vacation.

L-R: Homemade pork & shrimp siomai from previous day's dinner, stir-fried beef (with bell peppers, onions, and spinach), and leftover fried porkchops

32 Lunches - Day 30, Dec. 29: Baked cod fillets + sauteed bokchoy

Some "clean" home-cooked food to "detox" from all the "unhealthy" & processed food we've been eating the days prior. :D

32 Lunches - Day 29, Dec. 28: Leftover roast chicken and pepperoni pizza

So we got back to Canada around dinnertime of Dec. 27. We just bought some chicken and pizza from Costco, had them for dinner on Dec. 27, and had enough leftovers for lunch on Dec. 28.

pepperoni pizza

roast chicken from Costco

I sauteed some peppers, as a side for the chicken.

32 Lunches - Day 28, Dec. 27: Leftover steak + hard-boiled eggs

We drove back to Canada from New Jersey on December 27th and had lunch on the road in the car. Tita O packed us a lunch of leftover prime rib (from noche buena), sauteed onions, hard-boiled egg, and rice. Sarap!

32 Lunches - Day 27, Dec. 26: The Halal Guys beef & chicken platter + Magnolia bakery banana pudding

We were in NYC the day after Christmas to watch the Christmas Spectacular at the Radio City Music Hall, and decided on The Halal Guys for lunch--it never disappoints! I had the beef & chicken platter, which I shared with the kids; while R had one of the wraps. Dessert was banana pudding from the Magnolia Bakery.

32 Lunches - Day 26, Dec. 25: Leftover kare-kare + lumpiang gulay (vegetable spring rolls)

Christmas Day 2017 lunch were leftovers from dinner & noche buena: homemade kare-kare and lumpaing gulay (which was ordered). I love kare-kare, especially if I didn't have to make it. Cooking kare-kare is so time-consuming, so I really appreciate every kare-kare dish that is offered to me, especially homemade ones. :9

the lumpia is really good with suka

32 Lunches - Day 25, Dec. 24: Lasagna

I am really backlogged with my posts here. Half a year late!! So sorry. Anyway, I have all the content to finish the 32 Lunches project; it's just the taking time out to blog that's difficult to schedule. I'm hoping to complete the posts today. *fingers crossed*

December 24 lunch at Tita O's place (we spent Christmas weekend in New Jersey) was Costco(?) lasagna. Easy, just-heat-in-oven lunch as preparations for dinner and noche buena are time-consuming.

32 Lunches - Day 24, Dec. 23: Tocino & scrambled egg fried rice

One month backlog!! Argh. Anyway, I have the food photos so let’s finish this 32 Lunches project. Nine more posts to go, lucky 9!

We went on a road trip the 23rd of December—long drive to New Jersey where we would be spending Christmas with R’s aunt. I made fried rice with leftover pork tocino and scrambled eggs, for lunch in the car, so we wouldn’t have to stop and get out to eat. My kids take long finishing their meals so this saves us time too and we get to NJ faster.

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of our lunch baon. All I have is this 😬

32 Lunches - Day 23, Dec. 22: Pork tocino + fried egg

Yummy lunch last Friday! I had homemade pork tocino (this recipe, but halved the marinade ingredients and omitted the food coloring) and fried egg, with tomatoes on the side. Pork tocino is one of the usual cured meats served for breakfast in the Philippines. Who doesn’t love all-day breakfast? We sometimes have tocino for dinner too.

Dessert was a couple of oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies, which I baked with A the night before.

32 Lunches - Day 22, Dec. 21: Roasted turkey leg + steamed okra

Dinner leftovers again. I had the turkey with Mang Tomas All-Around Sarsa.

32 Lunches - Day 21, Dec. 20: Chicken ramen

I made chicken ramen for dinner the night before, following a recipe off the box of ramen broth. My ramen had chicken breast fillets, corn, spinach, egg, seaweed, and roasted sesame seeds. And I used instant ramen noodles (just threw out the soup powder packets). There was enough left over for lunch. I may have put too much sesame seeds on this bowl. 😬

32 Lunches - Day 20: Embutido meatloaf + cucumbers

Christmas seems to be the season for embutido, the Filipino meatloaf which you would usually see roll/cylinder-shaped. This one I make is loaf pan-shaped. I use a recipe from casaveneracion.com, which is the first food/recipe blog I followed (when it was still pinoycook.net). Ate my embutido with cucumbers. Dessert was a homemade brownie (Ghirardelli triple chocolate brownie mix).

32 Lunches - Day 19: Baked sole fillets + scrambled eggs + cucumbers

32 Lunches - Day 18, Dec. 17: Congee Queen takeout/delivery

I forgot to take a photo! We had the Christmas party/get-together of the kids’ playgroup last Sunday. It was a lunchtime-afternoon party and we parents agreed on ordering in (vs. potluck). We ordered from Congee Queen, which had a lot of branches in the Greater Toronto Area, including Markham, where we were having the party. (No CQ in Guelph.) Congee, yeung chow fried rice with shrimp & BBQ pork, chow mein, salt & pepper squid, stuffed eggplant, sweet & sour pork, another noodle dish, a tofu dish, and a mince mixture with lettuce for wrapping were the food I remember we got. We were all full and satisfied after. You really can never go wrong with Chinese takeout. :)

32 Lunches - Day 17: Baked chicken wings + cucumber-carrot salad + tuna + wonton soup

The chicken wings, wonton soup, and cucumber salad were leftovers from dinner the day before. The leftovers weren’t enough to feed all of us so I opened 2 cans of tuna (brought over from the Philippines!) and cut up some tomatoes to go with it. For the chicken wings, I used this recipe. The cucumber salad is a mix of cucumbers, carrots, and shrimp + fish sauce dressing (recipe from my Vietnamese friend L).

32 Lunches - Day 16, Dec. 15: Leftover pork alfredo pasta

My son was sick Friday and I had to bring him to the hospital. I knew I didn’t know how long we’d be there so I packed us lunch... leftovers from the previous day: pork, garlic, mushrooms, peas, and rotini in alfredo sauce.

32 Lunches - Day 15, Dec. 14: Pasta alfredo with pork + lettuce salad + leftover pork spring rolls

Pasta: rotini + bottled alfredo sauce + garlic, pork, mushroom & peas
Salad: iceberg lettuce + cucumber + crispy fried onions + feta + italian dressing
Leftover lumpiang shanghai

32 Lunches - Day 14: Baked tilapia fillet + fried egg + leftover sauteed veggies

Leftovers for lunch again. Baked tilapia fillets from the other night + sauteed sayote & carrot from the night before that. I added a fried egg (the yolk broke 🙁). Dessert was cantaloupe.

32 Lunches, Day 13, Dec. 12: Pork spring rolls + sauteed chayote & carrotss

I spent a good part of Tuesday morning rolling up spring rolls for dinner that I decided to enjoy my hard work and eat spring rolls for lunch, instead of the fish leftovers I had originally planned to eat. I fried a few and had a good freshly-cooked lunch of lumpiang shanghai with rice and leftover ginisang sayote & carrot, cooked the way Manang L prepares it at my mom’s house in the Philippines. It’s meals like this that help me not miss the Philippines too much.