Pre-pandemic, I’d hazard to guess that the majority of my network was eating at least two thirds of their meals outside the home. Whether meals supplied by work, quick salad runs at lunchtime or happy hour dinners off the clock, so much of modern professional life revolves around eating with coworkers and friends, and not around your own dinner table.

That’s why it’s so interesting to reflect on the shift from eating primarily outside the home to cooking inside the home. There are a few valid gripes about home cooking, especially at the rate many of us have been doing it: it’s time-consuming, it can start to add up (especially if work covered some of your meals in the past), and the dishes seem to pile into endless mountains.

But what I and many of my mindful friends have come to discover is a sweetness in the incredibly mundane act of preparing your own food again. It’s a back-to-basics feeling, with therapeutic qualities akin to gardening or pottery.

It’s also something to find some gratitude in. You are so fortunate if you have the luxury of 1) meaningful employment and 2) the ability to work safely from your home in 2020. The Blue Sky Mind Friendship Series aims to examine one community’s responses to the global pandemic, and that community happens to have the privilege of both. I’ll try to balance the relative challenges described here with an equal or greater amount of gratitude.

What’s to be gained from making meals at home?

Some sentiments on the benefits from myself and friends below:

Liberating. When you work from home, you can make exactly what you want in the moment and have it fresh. My friend Mackenzie, one of the youngest people to become an account manager in her department at a major media company, said it best: “I've really appreciated not having to spend hours prepping meals ahead of time and having cold salads out of the work fridge.”

Critical skill building. This one’s just from me. Some people feel that cooking is a waste of time, but I beg to differ - it’s a critical skill that all human beings can benefit from being better at, especially if that skill building can move you in the direction of healthy, delicious meals. Time spent in the kitchen now is an investment in the future you.

Meditative. Another one from me. While I’m so grateful for the opportunity to continue my day-job safely and remotely at home, I, like many of us, suffer from pretty intense tech fatigue. Cooking is one of the few things that allows me to leave my phone and laptop in the bedroom and create something with my hands that is ultimately beautiful, delicious, and nourishing.

Fun. Food is one of the great pleasures we get to indulge in every day. You can make this experience more fun by seeking out and learning to make foods that you’re excited to eat. My friend Jenny - best known as the artist of this series, but also a fashionable designer of dog clothing - loves the “Fish Taco Salad” from her local salad shop. But when it was setting her back $20/day during quarantine, she had fun learning to make the dressing from scratch and saving big on lunchtime meals. Cecilia, our London-based writer friend, shared that sometimes, her WFH meal consists of Ritz crackers with peanut butter and jelly. “It’s one of my favorite childhood snacks,” she said. “I think I gravitate towards [it] for both its tastiness and its ability to invoke a strong nostalgic reaction.”

On the topic of making food fun, Margaret - my friend who spent a month trying veganism and has largely stuck with it - has spent much of “the Q” engaging in cooking experiments. She outlines, in her words, the hits and misses below:

Focaccia: “Huge success.”
Vegan lasagne: “Huge disappointment—blending tofu to use as fake cheese really just isn't as good as it sounds, and it doesn't even sound that good.”
Veggie enchiladas: “Found a new homemade enchilada sauce recipe I love.”
Veggie "meatballs:" “Made from quinoa and cauliflower; so-so, would maybe make again.”
Avocado arugula pesto pasta: “So easy, so good.”

Which easy, healthy work-from-home meal in this post speaks to you the most? Share in the comments below and I’ll invite that friend back to the blog to share their recipe!

Easy, healthy meals to make at home

So what are the friends making on the daily to relish in the liberating, meditative, and even fun process of work-from-home cooking?

Breakfast meals

Friends say the way to win breakfast (and make sure you’re not snacking the entire workday) is to aim for filling foods. Oatmeal and greek yogurt emerged as the perfect base to start with.

“For breakfast, I make overnight oats with almond milk, pear, almond, blueberries, and cinnamon.” - Becca
“I really got into making oatmeal in the mornings.” - Jackie
“Fage with berries and a fiber cereal and peanut butter. It’s the perfect thing that keeps me full from noon to three. I [also] have 1-2 coffees in the morning.” - Anonymous

Salads (& other leafy things)

If you consider salads an aspirational WFH meal, I’m right there with you. But from the friends, it sounds possible; let’s consider their position.

“Tofu lettuce wraps. It is quick, easy, and hoisin sauce is delicious.” - Casey
“Big salads. What helps me is to help all the things on hand, like cooked grains, mixed greens, toppings like cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, onions, nuts.” - Anonymous
“A big salad with a wide & rotating array of farmers market veg + fermented items (bought + fermented myself) and a ginger-miso dressing from Dole's (a Korean stand at the farmers market) or good ol oil and vinegar.” - Caroline
“I have this favorite Sweetgreens salad - The Fish Taco Salad - I started ordering it in quarantine to lift my mid-day work from home spirits, but that was knocking me back like $20 a salad - not sustainable. I eventually figured out how to make it at home - even how to make the dressing from scratch - which, in my opinion, dressing is really what makes a salad great. It took some work at first - but I now I regularly have all the ingredients on hand and can whip it up in 10 min between zoom calls!” - Jenny

Sandwiches & wraps

Simplicity at its finest. I think sandwiches are one of the most fool-proof ways to nail the easy, healthy lunch at home. Just find a high quality bread and load it with veggies, a protein, and a healthy fat. The most elegant solution is often the simplest! A few friends agree:

“If I don't have leftovers from dinner for lunch, my go to lunch is a Trader Joe's rainbow wrap or an egg salad sandwich.” - Margaret
“Grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes, cucumber, arugula, and mandarins on the side.” - Becca

Warm bowls

Warm bowls seem like the perfect solution as we head into the colder winter months, and embodying of one of the biggest benefits of the WFH meal in that they can truly be warm and fresh. Here are some popular combos from the friends:

“[I’ll pair] fish, salad/vegetables, and coconut quinoa.” - Will
“A bowl with cauliflower rice, cous cous, mushroom, capers, sun-dried tomatoes and hot sauce.” - Cecilia
“[I’ve been] eating a lot of Banza pasta with a mix of veggies and a protein thrown in.” - Jackie
“SOUP. I'll make a big batch of soup and eat it throughout the week.” - Anonymous
“Cast iron skillet salmon so the top gets nice and crispy, brussel sprouts and the cauliflower gnocchi from Trader Joes! We eat it at least 1-2 times a week.” - Mackenzie
“I also am a big fan of cooking meat(s) in the instant pot with all kinds of spices. Coconut curry chicken is my favorite.” - Will

Tips for making easy, healthy meals at home

In talking to my friends, I was inspired by all of their tactics for making at-home meals a less cumbersome process. I’ve added a few of the learnings below, along with what’s been helping me this year:

Make extras. Make 2-4 servings of a recipe for dinner, so you can have the leftovers for lunch.
Stop overspending on salads. Find out the ingredients in your favorite overpriced salads (looking at you, Sweetgreens, Blue Barn, Mixt, etc.) and look up how to make the dressing yourself.
Prep your ingredients. Meal prep staples at the beginning of the week that can easily go into salads and bowls, like cooked grains and roasted veggies.
Master the bowl lunch. All good bowls, whether warm or cold, have a few things in common: a base of greens, grains, and protein, plus accents of creamy, crunchy, and acidic.
Make grocery shopping easier. Pick a few recipes for the week and write out the ingredients on a physical paper list. Bonus points if you group ingredients by location in the store.
Get a cookbook. It’s so easy to fall into a cooking rut. I’ve found that returning to my existing cookbooks and buying a few new ones this year has helped me get unstuck.

Other ideas for easy, healthy meals at home

In researching this post, I found some awesome posts already dedicated to this topic. Here are the ones I felt best reflected the easy and healthy mandate I know many of my readers hold themselves to:

New York Times Cooking: Easy Recipes for the Pandemic
Eat This, Not That: Quarantine Recipes
Greatist: 10-Minute Recipes

Nourishing food and the process of eating can be almost as powerful as breathing when it comes to mindfulness. It’s something we must do every day, multiple times a day, and therefore offers a beautiful opportunity to pause and reflect, whether that’s on gratitude or what your body or mind needs in that moment. I hope you can come to appreciate how fun and meditative this endeavor can be, and that you walk away from this with a few new recipes to make at home as we wait out the rest of the pandemic.

Which easy, healthy work-from-home meal above speaks to you the most? Share in the comments below and I’ll invite that friend back to the blog to share their recipe!

A note on the art in this post:

Jenny Haught is an artist drawn to the unexpected beauty found in everyday moments. The Friendship Series inspired her to start work on a new series of paintings that explores the experiences and emotions faced during Quarantine 2020. She will be releasing a new painting to coincide with each of the Blue Sky Mind Friendship Series blog posts.

“Flour became a scarce resource in the beginning of quarantine. I rejoiced the day I discovered a forgotten shelf of it at our corner liquor store. My anxiety was calmed by the focus my sourdough starter and levain required.”

Read more: The Friendship Series, by Blue Sky Mind