If only he had a Star Trek lunch box, it would all be perfect.

Mr. Meat and Potatoes carries a “sack lunch” to work every day. I encourage this behavior for several reasons, not least amongst them the financial aspect — It saves money. A lot of money. Like, almost one of our (admittedly small) car payments kind of money. But also, because his work requires that he move quickly through his day, there’s no time for him to linger in restaurants, and therefore his alternatives are an abundance of fast food or, worse, convenience store food. Usually, he packs himself a ham sandwich and a bag of chips and off he goes. I get myself and the baby dressed and out the door every morning before 7, so I don’t have time to whip up fancy concoctions for him to put in his mini cooler. He’s on his own.

Once in awhile, though, I take pity on his poor travelling soul, and try to make something for dinner that will travel well with him. It’s harder than it sounds. He’s on the road, so he doesn’t really have access to microwaves or even utensils. He needs hand food that he can gulp down in a ten minute break in his day.

I’ve made wraps for him with chicken tenders, or chicken salad from time to time. Most recently, I made homemade hot and/or cold pockets. This is simple, and can be as healthy or as decadent as you want.

You can make your own dough, or your can buy the pizza dough in the “wompum” cans. You know, you “wompum” on the counter to bust em open. If you make your own, you need to roll it out quite thin, into a rectangle about the size of your cookie sheet. If you cheat with the premade dough, just press it out a little bit from its original size.

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Cut the dough into four strips, about three inches wide, give or take, depending on the size of your dough rectangle.

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Coat each strip with olive oil, sprinkle with herbs, salt, and pepper, and then layer on some toppings. I had some pepperoni on hand, and some shredded ham, and I didn’t feel like browning sausage or beef, so this was a perfect way to do this on the quick.

I did manage to cut up some tomatoes for roasting. If you have never had a roasted sliced tomato, you are in for a treat. Slice them about a quarter-inch thick, or thinner, if you can, and lay them flat in a baking dish. Toss in olive oil, garlic, kosher salt, pepper, and basil (or whatever herbs you have closest to you).

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Pop them in a 415-degree oven for at least 20 minutes, or until they look kind of shriveled. The thinner ones might even get a little black. I like the black ones, personally.

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Mine never scrape out of the pan very nicely, but it’s not really about appearance, is it?

So, back to the hot pockets. Layer whatever toppings you like — you could do pizza toppings like I did, or you could do ham and cheddar, or roast beef and swiss, a variety of roasted peppers and onions, or whatever little combination curls your toes. But be sure that you only put the toppings on one end of the dough, and keep it in the center. You need the edges for sealing.

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Note: this photo was before the sprinkling on of the final mozzarella, and also shows that I overloaded my first batch. I had to remove about 1/3 of those toppings in order to seal the pockets.

Then, just fold the non-topping end over the topped end, and pinch them closed. It works best for me to sort of roll the bottom up over the top and create sort of a breadstick situation all the way around.

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With one batch, I experimented with putting a little pizza sauce inside, and while it tasted good, it made the whole production a little slick, and difficult to seal up.

Bake them at 410 for about 15 minutes, maybe a minute or two more to ensure a nice golden brown top.

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For dinner, I took them out of the oven and cut them into slices, the short way, and served the pizza sauce on the side, for dunking. Pizza sauce can be bought in a jar at the store, although I never think it’s very good. For this application, I wanted a “runny” sauce, instead of my usual no-cook “chunky” sauce. I threw together a little concoction and let it simmer while I prepared my hot pockets.

Easy Pizza Sauce

1 can crushed or pureed tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
pinch salt
cracked pepper
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp basil
1 tsp olive oil
1 T balsamic vinegar

Stir together and simmer over medium low head for 10 to 15 minutes.

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I took the leftovers, cut them in half, and put two halves into one sandwich bag, so Mr. Meat and Potatoes could just throw a bag or two into his lunch box every day until they were gone. Now, I’m not gonna say these wouldn’t have been better if he could have heated them up, but they were a vast improvement over bologna and cheese, and they are easy to handle and eat, being the nice little package unto themselves that they are.

I cannot leave any discussion of hot pockets, without sharing this with you.

I like to believe that my little pockets of sack lunch love have a little something over the commercial variety.

singing HOT POCKET!