Lunch is a hard meal for me, I am honestly not very good at it. I have spent the last few years feeding Ezra a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday (his favorite thing in the whole world) and then just snacking myself to 4:00pm where I would finally be starved into fixing myself something or I would snack myself silly while preparing dinner. It isn't a pretty picture it is?
Now that my husband is home during the day and the baby has decided she is much too grown up for jars of baby food, I have four people that want to be fed at lunch time.
I have been frustrated and overwhelmed by this afternoon meal and what it symbolizes for me. If I am going to make changes, I am going to have to change some of things that I do that I know are bad for me, but are actually going to be hard to change. Beginning going to the gym has actually turned out to be a little easier than lunch time.
So after some serious though and pondering on how I was going to conquer this obstacle to health. I decided I was making much Much too big of a deal about this. Ezra was pretty happy with his little sandwich everyday. I didn't need to make it any more complicated than that. So I got out my Create a Sandwich / Wrap handout, stuck it to the side of my fridge and said to myself, "there is lunch".
I have a friend that makes the most amazing salads for lunch. I love to go over to her house and spend the day with her because she always creates us something amazing. It turns out, she is just following the same formula available in Create a Salad.
Perhaps if Joseph gets too sick of sandwiches we will mix it up and alternate sandwich day and salad day.
Here is how easy it is though;
- Start with your outside - choose a wrap, tortilla or slices of bread. You could even choose a pita or a piece of naan bread.
- Choose a protein - Think outside the box here, you don't need to just have "lunch meat". Peanut butter, humus, scrambled eggs, cooked dried bean, refried beans or cheese.
- Choose a filling - lettuce, tomato are typical, but what about peppers, avocado, sliced fruits. Pretty much an fruit or vegetable can be used her depending on what you chose as a protein. Here are some wild sandwich ideas.
- Dressing (this one is Very optional) - mustard, mayonnaise, ranch, any type of salad dressing, what about hummus for a double protein punch.
The steps make it super easy, you only have to make 4 total choices and you are set with a healthy and quick lunch. One of the best parts is that is doesn't require anything you don't already have, because you are "cooking" with what you do have on hand. Don't have an apple to slice on your sandwich, try a pear... better yet be wildly adventurous and try an orange - or Grapefruit!
