The week in lunches

Good lunches this week. Only problem was I don't remember what the soup was on Monday :-/

My little panda bear sauce container has lost an eye.

Tuesday:

This soup, I remember! It was red lentil, carrot and coconut milk soup - absolutely delish! Also included are pierogies, my newest craving, thanks to Jen....

Wednesday:

I found some little mini flat bread rollup in the store. I filled one with hummus, lettuce and carrots. Yummy.

Thursday:

Tofurkey bratwurst over sauerkraut with some mustard. This was a great lunch!

Friday:

Pierogies make a return appearance. In the interest of full disclosure - I stuffed 3 more in the bento after taking the picture.

The week's lunches in review

My favorite lunches from this week:

Amazing rice maker rice, topped with seaweed gomasio, applesauce, chocolate mini cupcakes with baby carrots and cuke slices and a mixture of craisins, nuts, chocolate bunny grahams and lorna doones as a snack mixture.


Thursday's lunch. Brown rice with some of Bridget's delicious moussaka, applesauce, the cupcakes and veggies (I didn't eat them from the previous day!) and some lorna doones and chocolate graham bunnies.

Friday's lunch. My yet again attempt ,at portion control in a traditional bento. We shall see if I resist the temptation to throw together a snack container :-) Peanut butter and raspberry jam on whole wheat bread, mini carrots, some honey belle orange slices (oranges courtesy of my neighbor) and some cookies.


All packed in my Femmio Valentino bento. What/who is Femmio Valentino? Who knows but I like this bento :-)

With Best Intentions

A friend gave me an assortment of Lovely Liz's cookies for Christmas. They come two to a package. Today I took one package of two cookies into work. I figured I would break them up, stick them in my desk, and munch on them for the next four days as a treat. I don't know what happened but both cookies were gone by 11 am. Each cookie is two servings at 210 calories. I ate 840 calories of cookie before 11 am. I was sick. My lunch, which, of course, I wasn't able to eat, included rice, applesauce, brussel sprouts, nuts and chocolate bunnies. I forgot the camera so no pic which is somehow appropriate since it didn't get eaten.

Tomorrow, for the first time since I got sick a week ago, I am going to run.

Bento

Eating is one of the most intimate, personal things we do every day. We are actually taking a product, an item into our body - what can be more personal than that? Every day I sit in the break room at lunch and I eat with people. They are usually eating the ubiquitous Healthy Choice frozen food, or Hot Pockets, or frozen pizza. I sit there like a dork with my little Mr. Bento (or other bento box) eating a lunch that I prepared at home. I know that preparing food is a pain and time consuming. It is easier to just grab something out of the freezer and stick it in the microwave but we are only cheating ourselves when we do that. Food and the pleasure of eating is a gift we have been given and I never want to take that for granted or want to brush it aside because I am too busy. Eating is an affirmation of life and love. I know that every afternoon, my husband sits down, opens up his lunch and eats a meal planned, prepared and packed by me. Meals and food should be an event, something looked forward to and appreciated.

The best place to buy Mr. Bento - Amazon.com $41.85 with free shipping. Not cheap but if you pay $5/day or more for lunch....well, you can see how it will pay for itself within months. Hey, we all know that a trip a day to the vending machine really adds up in dollars and pounds. There are also much cheaper alternatives than Mr. Bento. One is the Fit & Fresh lunch pack which runs about $6-7 or the Fit & Fresh Soup and Salad.
We are what we eat :-)

Wednesday and Friday's lunches

Wednesday's lunch:

Upper left is a salad with sprouts, pine nuts, carrots, etc. with two little containers fulled with ginger sesame dressing. Upper right container has rice (made with the superb Zojirushi rice maker - love it, love it, love it!) topped with tofu, green beans and carrots sauteed in a bottled asian barbeque sauce. Bottom container is grapefruit sections. The fourth container was filled with walnuts, Lorna Doone cookies and chocolate graham bunnies. A dear friend brought me over a Christmas filled with all sorts of goodies including chocolate graham bunnies. They are my new addiction :-) Anyways, I ate them at my desk before lunch because I was hungry so no picture of them.

I bagged out of work early on for a family function so no lunch on Thursday. Friday's lunch:

Upper left is a salad, with the recurring ginger sesame dressing. Upper left is rice sprinkled with sesame gomasio. Bottom left is a baggie of rosemary bread chips alongside a container of jalapeno/lime hummus from here. Bottom left is vegan 'chicken' nuggets with asian barbecue sauce in the blue container for dipping.