Speaker 1: Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the New Corner Office,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we share strategies for thriving in the
Speaker 1: new world of work, where location and hours are more
Speaker 1: flexible than in the past. Today's tip is to learn
Speaker 1: to love leftovers. When you are working in an office,
Speaker 1: you may have gone out for lunch every day. You
Speaker 1: may have thought that packing leftovers for lunch was unexciting
Speaker 1: or even unappetizing. If you're working from home. Now, let
Speaker 1: me encourage you to rethink this assumption. As a veteran
Speaker 1: remote worker, I'm here to tell you that leftovers are great,
Speaker 1: and if you've been eating turkey sandwiches every day for
Speaker 1: the last eight weeks, you may be ready to believe me.
Speaker 1: Here are some reasons to love leftovers. First, dinner fare
Speaker 1: tends to be heartier than standard lunch fair, so if
Speaker 1: you're effectively eating dinner a second time for lunch, you're
Speaker 1: going to wind up more satisfied. You may be less
Speaker 1: likely to graze on cookies or chips. Second, something that
Speaker 1: requires a fork and knife is more likely to force
Speaker 1: you to take a real break, which is a good thing.
Speaker 1: A real break makes your mind sharper for afternoon work,
Speaker 1: so you won't waste time reading the same document over
Speaker 1: and over. I mean, unless you're having the equivalent of
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner, as you're leftovers, most normal dinners won't put
Speaker 1: you in a food coma. Third, since dinner is the
Speaker 1: meal most likely to feature vegetables, eating leftovers for lunch
Speaker 1: means that now two meals feature vegetables each day. Have
Speaker 1: freed at breakfast and fruit for a snack, and you
Speaker 1: are winning at the nutritional game. Fourth, preparing leftovers tends
Speaker 1: to take less time than making a sandwich. Just throw
Speaker 1: the leftovers on a plate, hate them up in the microwave,
Speaker 1: and you're ready to go. And finally, eating leftovers means
Speaker 1: you probably waste less food, a good thing when no
Speaker 1: one wants to go to the grocery store more often
Speaker 1: than necessary. So if you're ready to quit the turkey sandwiches,
Speaker 1: here's how to build a leftover's habit. If you don't
Speaker 1: already own some order a handful of plastic storage containers,
Speaker 1: then suss out how often you normally cook. You probably
Speaker 1: aren't going to increase this number significantly. So for many
Speaker 1: people cooking four dinners a week, which includes Saturdays and
Speaker 1: Sundays might be fine for at least some of these.
Speaker 1: Choose from options that tend to naturally make leftovers. A
Speaker 1: beef or pork roast, roast chicken casseroles, lasagna, enchiladas, or
Speaker 1: a pot of hardy soup. A big batch of roasted
Speaker 1: veggies can live for days and combine with many things,
Speaker 1: as can a big batch of rice or beans, make
Speaker 1: a little more than your family needs for any given meal.
Speaker 1: Don't plate everything. People can serve themselves from central bowls
Speaker 1: or from pots on the stove, since you probably won't
Speaker 1: rescue food from individual plates. Ideally, you can combine leftovers
Speaker 1: from multiple meals in tasty ways. For instance, I've stretched
Speaker 1: leftover soup by mixing it with leftover rice. The other day,
Speaker 1: my lunch consisted of steak leftover from Saturday night and
Speaker 1: Brussels sprouts leftover from Friday. And if you get take
Speaker 1: out or delivery multiple nights per week, well, no judgment.
Speaker 1: You can also order a little bit extra there too.
Speaker 1: Many restaurant portions are so large that I tend to
Speaker 1: assume they're building the next day's lunch into the deal. Now,
Speaker 1: it's possible that some family members are more excited about
Speaker 1: leftovers than others. But that's fine as long as some
Speaker 1: people eat the leftovers. The others can make themselves peanut
Speaker 1: butter sandwiches and fruit, and the person enjoying the hot,
Speaker 1: tasty lunch can just shake their heads at everyone else's silliness.
Speaker 1: Leftovers present the opportunity to have a satisfying meal with
Speaker 1: approximately zero extra work. What are your favorite work from
Speaker 1: home lunches. You can let me know at Laura at
Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to succeeding in the New
Speaker 1: Corner Office. The New Corner Office is a production of iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 1: wherever you get your favorite shows.