Showing posts with label Lunch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lunch. Show all posts

Monday, May 20, 2013

Easy Meal Mondays! Sandwich Hacks

Hello again everyone!  So this week has been a difficult one for my pain, and so I have not had the time for this next week to meal plan and because of that we are probably going to have a lot of sandwiches for lunches.  I know you have all had those weeks where you end up eating something comforting and very easy to make.  Because I have been having high pain levels, I thought I would go over some different things we do to make our basic sandwiches a little better or at least different.

Lets start with hacks for the common peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  First of all, just changing up what you use for peanut butter to a creamy or crunchy version instead of what you would normally use, or changing to almond butter or another nut butter will make your sandwich a bit different.  Also, using a different jelly, jam, or preserve than you would normally use will make things less common.  I really like preserves.  Jason and I typically buy apricot or berry preserves that are all natural and made by a local farm here (Huber Family Foods) but are sold at Cub or Rainbow.  Here are a few other things we sometimes add to our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches:
  • Add Berries: This works well with raspberries or blackberries and less well with blueberries and strawberries as they are more apt to slop out of the sandwich (but don’t discount them because they would be tasty).  
  • Add Banana
  • Add Granola: This adds a wonderful crunch to your pb&j.  You could have even more crunch using crunchy peanut butter with the granola.  
  • Add Honey or Maple Syrup for a very sweet sandwich

Next lets talk about the common meat and cheese sandwich.  Again, changing what you normally use for meat or cheese is going to help give your meal more variety.  Here are the different things I have added to a plain meat and cheese sandwich:  (the first few things are pretty normal, but still are adding variety)
  • Add Tomatoes
  • Add Lettuce
  • Add Mayo and/or Mustard: I like to add Olive Oil Mayo and Spicy Mustard
  • Add Avocado slices or Guacamole
  • Add Sprouts
  • Add Hummus: One of my favorite sandwich combinations is whole wheat bread with red pepper hummus, provolone, sprouts, lettuce, and slices of avocado.  This combination is good even without meat.  

Anyway, I hope this is helpful.  What unconventional things do you like to add to your sandwiches?  Let me know if you make any of these and what you like about them. 

Monday, April 29, 2013

Easy Meal Mondays! Summer Macaroni Salad

Hello Everyone!  This is the seventh installment in my series on easy and healthy meal options that Jason and I have made and love.  This recipe is again from SkinnyTaste.com.  Jason and I both love this blog and we follow and make almost everything this blogger does!  This recipe for a summer macaroni salad is so refreshing and is perfect to bring to summer barbecues and potlucks (I don't know what people outside of the midwest call these, but here they are potlucks).  Jason does not think that this is a good recipe just to make for dinner, but I think it is perfect for that since I love macaroni salad.  This is really good fresh, but I liked it better the second day.  By then all of the flavors have melded together and it is very cold.  Let me know what you think about this and if you enjoy it as much as we do!

Summer Macaroni Salad

YIELD: 16 cups (only 115 calories per cup)
PREP TIME: 5 minutes
COOK TIME: 40 minutes
TOTAL TIME: 45 minutes


Ingredients:
  • 16 oz uncooked elbows
  • 4 cups grape tomatoes, cut in half (I got the mini heirloom tomatoes and they were lovely in this)
  • 2 cups (1 small) zucchini, sliced and quartered
  • 1/2 cup red onion, finely chopped
  • 7 tbsp light mayonnaise (I used the Olive oil mayo, but I think it would taste better with miracle whip, though we don't use this much since it has high fructose corn syrup)
  • 2 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp fat free Greek yogurt (plain - using vanilla would be a mistake :) )
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 tsp oregano
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste


Directions:

Cook the pasta in generously salted water according to package directions.  Drain and rinse with cold water.  (I rinsed for quite a while with cold water because I like pasta salad to be very cold) 

In a medium bowl, combine onions, mayonaise,  vinegar, yogurt, mustard, oregano, garlic powder; mix well.  Add tomatoes (and any juice from the tomato), zucchini, pasta, salt and pepper to taste.  Toss well and place in a large serving bowl.  Enjoy!

Let me know what you think!  I would love to see how you make this and what tweeks you make to it!

FTC: This is not a sponsored blog post.  All of the products I have mentioned and have listed were purchased with my own money and all reviews are my honest opinions.  I am an amazon associate and the links in this post may go to amazon for possible purchases.