Lunch wars

I love wandering through the frozen section at the grocery store, browsing all the bags and boxes. You probably remember that frozen prepared foods were limited to boxes of compressed chopped spinach, pierogies, fish sticks and pizza! TV dinners were a big deal but not much happened again until the microwave-meal BOOM! We were given microwave-in-the-bag cheesy broccoli, microwavable crispy pizzas, diet meals, fully prepared bag meals that we just simmer and so on! The extent to which we have prepared and frozen our foods is astonishing.

Unfortunately, most of these foods with high-tech prep are also chock-full of fake-o ingredients. I read ALOT of ingredients lists and even I'll find ingredients I've never heard of before. That really makes me cringe! I would never worry about this too much before, but with the ever-tightening wallet, the siren-song of the cheap frozen meals has become louder! What are we to do? Think and fight back! Don't let fake-o ingredients win out! Here's a delicious, easy and CHEAP lunch idea.

Easy Shrimp Scampi with Spinach
Ingredients:

6 frozen pre-cooked shrimp (thawed, tails removed. Just rinse 'em and leave 'em in your tupperware lunch container overnight, then you can get the tails off easily)4 cups of rinsed baby spinach
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
garlic powder
salt
olive oil
apple cider vinegar
1 small navel orange

Directions:

Night before: choose a medium, microwaveable lunch container. Take 6 frozen pre-cooked shrimp and rinse them under cool water. Put them in the container in the fridge overnight.
Morning of: The shrimp will probably still have an ice coating but the tails should be easily pulled off now. Chop each shrimp into thirds (optional), and place back in container. Cover with all 4 cups of rinsed baby spinach. If you can jam more baby spinach into your container, I think you should. Chop your grape tomatoes and toss on top. Give a good sprinkle of garlic powder (about 1/4 tsp), dash of salt, 1.5 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar. Done for now.
Optional: Add a Tablespoon of Parmesan if you like.
At Lunch: Pop the lid just a little and microwave for 1 minute and 10 seconds. You want to JUST wilt the spinach, warm the tomatoes and heat the little shrimps. DO not overcook or the shrimp will turn to rubber and the spinach will disappear.Toss it all up and there you go!
Easy, good-fat, scampi for lunch! Eat the orange just after for dessert and to balance it all out.

It can be easy to eat well and cheaply! This recipe takes all of 5 minutes to prepare and it's delicious! And you can get baby spinach and grap tomatoes from Costco nowadays...even organic ones!

ENJOY!