A healthy and quick lunch

My dad worked at home when I was in middle and high school and on occasion if I was home, I'd make some lunch for us. I went to make tuna salad one day and we were out of mayo so I substituted Dijon Mustard. It was... AMAZING and I haven't gone back since! No mayo for me, just mustard :)

Pita tuna melt
(makes one serving)

1. Rip 1 whole wheat pita in half and place on plate with ripped sides out (somehow ripping the pita tastes better to me than cutting it. That one I cannot explain!)
2. Empty tuna can 5oz/packet 3oz (dump out any water) into a bowl
3. Add about 3 Tbsp mustard of choice (deli mustard has 0 calories!) and stir. Put into pitas, keeping open sides out.
4. Slice cheddar cheese (1 oz = 1 serving) and place in each sandwich half.
5. Microwave on high for 1 minute, remove and flip sandwiches over (bottom side will be a little bit soggy, but nothing too bad)
6. Stick sliced cucumber and grape tomatoes into one sandwich half right before eating (it will keep your veggies cool and crisp if they aren't sitting in the freshly nuked sandwich.)
7. Enjoy!

This is my go to lunch at home generally. It's quick and tasty and I love open face tuna melts! Oh yeah, yay mustard! My condiment of choice :) I would have put up a picture but I ate it before I realized I should be blogging it!

A snack approach to lunch

This is the snack plate approach. Or the bulk food approach, however you care to approach it. Today I have been munching on organic animal crackers purchase din bulk at the food co-op and now for "lunch" I am having a green bell pepper (cut up with my small Swiss army knife in the bathroom while precariously balanced on the edge of the sink), a handful of snow peas (washed by filling the bag with water, sloshing it around and then dumping it out a couple times, and a small carton of organic blueberries. Staying at KE's two nights in a row which his tiny and packed fridge makes bringing lunch difficult (have I mentioned the lack of a kitchenette at work? It forces creativity within boundaries, for example: room temperature or Thermos capable foods. The best dinner we had in recent memory was one where simple ingredients were cooked just enough and seasoned just a little and brought out the delicious flavors of the essence of good ingredients. It was like the snack approach, just cooked!

I picked up these things while grabbing groceries for last nights dinner (a stir fry of onion, red pepper, yellow pepper, snow peas fried tofu and white jasmine rice). I'm not that into stir fry so I just kept my mouth shut and let KE make it how he pleased. It was delicious and quick! His trick was to (tell me to) get firm tofu (extra firm if you can) then put it on a plate and cover it with another plate and set a squash on top of it to squeeze out excess water. Then fried in a bit of oil and added to the stir fry. It was delicious, I never though I'd like tofu that much, I expected squishy cubes like in miso soup. It's always nice to be pleasantly surprised that you do like something you didn't think you liked!

snack time (or post dr. visit lunch before heading to work.

Apple with chunky natural peanut butter! Yum!

I heard yesterday that I was accepted to my first choice school, which means i will in fact be living in Vermont this summer at Yestermorrow . My tuition and housing are covered but food and gas money are not. So these practices (and the blog!) shall help and extend to my summer eating activities. Hopefully I will be able to purchase a lot of fresh foods. I imagine I won't be eating a lot of meats so that I'm eating cheaper. I still need to get the scoop on the kitchen availability... and if I will be able to bake cookies there. Hm, perhaps I can go to a shop that sells things in bulk and buy just enough flour and sugar for cookies and not have extras to deal with while I'm living in a screened in cabin (my mom vetoed me staying in tent... I thought it would be fun for a summer!).

Totally unrelated: KE is awesome, he got me a whistling kettle! My previous kettle didn't whistle and I was distracted by a movie the other day and burnt it pretty badly when the water cooked off and I remembered it about halfway into my movie!

Now that I'm done with my apple snack and doctor's appointment it's time to get to work!

Happy Thursday!

So I failed to bring lunch... or eat breakfast at home

Everything bagel toasted with cream cheese and a small hot chocolate
$2.85

3 potato samosas from the Cafe Spice in Grand Central Terminal
$3.63

Celebratory bag of M&Ms (I got into my first choice grad school!)
$3.78 (Easter colors, they were cheaper than regular by 50 cents!)

$10.26 Total

All paid for with my spare change, cause I'm not taking out anymore cash until I have it to take out!

Need to bring lunch again...

Pret, albeit it yummy, is expensive, especially when compared to my last week of bringing homemade lunch everyday.
Today cost $9.38 for my hot chocolate, Moroccan lentil Soup and tasty fatty sweet lemon orange poppy seed muffin (that I love, Mmmmm).

Yikes, no wonder I hardly have any savings with lunch prices in midtown being so high. I'm thinking I need to bring a hot beverage container as well (That makes 3 total metal canisters on days I bring soup!). It's so cold in our office even when the heat is on. It also shuts of at 6:04pm (why, I do not know) and gets cold really quickly. The weather when I checked a bit ago was 18 F, and I'm pretty sure that's taken at ground level. I'm on the 37th floor, I need a hot beverage to keep me toasty at the end of the day!

Definitely bringing lunch tomorrow. Psht. ten dollars!

Get yourself a vacuum food jar

It takes some extra time in the morning (I wish I'd prepared for that cause I was late and had a little "talkin' to") but it is so worth it; my soup is still hot!

1. Boil water, get it crazy hot, boil a little extra long
2. Pour into vacuum food jar set lid on let sit for 5 or 10 minutes and dump water out
3. Put HOT food into jar and seal asap! (This is where I finally appreciate having a microwave after 2+ years without.)
4. Put it in your reusable bag or purse next to your water bottle
   
5. Open at lunch and enjoy!

I'm having left over soup from last Wednesday, it is sooo tasty after marinating with itself in the fridge for, oh , a week and a half.

Mine's a Stanley, there are other brands as well.

Home Cooking Challenege: Lunch

Today is snack plate style, but with bags.

• container of humus made by my step mom ( a little spicy!)
• 1/2 small baguette from Trader Joe's thawed in the over last night 350F for 10 minutes
• snow peas
• cucumber slices
• cherry tomatoes

Followed by a box of raisins. I'm stuffed. I should have waited on the raisins!

Home Cooking challenge: Day 1

I had Store brad Honey-nut-Os with skim milk for breakfast, at home. Saved $1.85 by not buying a bagel and eating groceries I already had. Breakfast is going to be roughest to eat it requires a little more time in the morning. This is hard because I"m the kind of person who gets ready at night and rolls out of bed in time to stop in the washroom and get dressed before it's time to go.

On Saturday I went to the co-op for salad fixin's as I knew that was the hardest part of the home cooking challenge: bringing lunch in an office with no means of heating anything up.

Groceries:
Lunch fixin's:
$2.99 organic grape tomatoes
$5.16 1# organic mixed baby spring greens
$0.80 snow peas
$2.27 cucumbers
$1.00 organic avocado

$12.22 Sub total

Other stuff:
$3.97 Grapenuts cereal
$2.18 skim milk (quart)
$2.86 small glass jar with stopper (to take dressing with salads)

$21.67 TOTAL incl tax


My salad today consists of:

• mixed greens
• 5 cherry tomatoes, the little container needs to last all week!
• 1/3 cucumber sliced thin for more crispy bites
• hunk of smoked salmon purchased in Oregon
• handful snow peas

No dressing as I didn't have time this morning and was too tired to make it last night when I made my salad. These greens are bitter, I need to stay away from sweet stuff before eating it (I have couple Hershey's miniatures I bought last week 50% Valentines candy. There is no reason to pay full price for candy when there is usually a holiday that just ended!


I took some cash out of the bank this weekend and today left my credit card, debit card and even my Starbucks gift card I got for Xmas at home. So far the hardest part has been drinking the water from my Klean Kanteen which tastes metallic and I fear may be tickling my throat with nickle as I continue to cough even though I thought my cough was over. I think I will look into options to reflavor my water