So, what are you having for lunch today?
And I drink three bottles of water a day! I am just teeming with healthiness, when pizza isn't around.
So I lied just a teensy bit when I said that I haven't been cooking. But to me, when I say that I've cooked, it means that I've come up with some nice big dinner that involves appetizers, a main course, and sometimes a dessert (although sometimes I cheat and have other people help out with bringing stuff). When I've cooked, I've definitely utilized all my three cutting boards, at least two pots, and all four burners ran concurrently at some point. What I'm doing now isn't cooking, at least not in my book.
Anyway, since I now have to be at school for many more hours than I care to be there, I've had to start bringing my lunch with me. While there certainly is the option of eating at scrumptious fast food places, it's really not that healthy an option, even though I love pretzel dogs and pizza like you wouldn't believe. Not to mention, some days I don't even have time to run over to the food court.
So I've been bringing my lunch with me to school, something I haven't done since high school, because once I got off meal plan in college, I always made sure that I was back at my dorm/apartment for lunch. This is because I am a bad lunch packer, I hate eating by myself in public, and I hate carrying entire meals around with me. But circumstances prevail, and bring my own lunch I must.
Thusly, I've resorted to a variety of bean salads. Why bean salads, you ask? Because they are easy to throw together, they don't need to be refrigerated (while we do have a refrigerator at school, I am entirely too lazy to walk out of my way several times a day to access it), and it can keep for awhile, the flavours melding and making the salad taste that much better. I also do not like sandwiches, because it's hard to keep the bread from getting soggy, plus they're really messy to eat in class. Additionally, there's the added benefit that this is a relatively healthy meal, as I only supplement it with pita chips I've made at home (commercial ones are just too salty for me - pop some cut up pita bread that's been mixed with olive oil, fresh rosemary, garlic powder, and salt in the oven - unfortunately, these pita chips are like CRACK and I eat them all the time now), and it is high in protein and vitamins.
To round out my lunch, I've been also bringing satsuma tangerines (who knows what I'm going to do once they're no longer in season, as they're one of the few fruits I can eat repeatedly), and several small snacks, usually consisting of raw almonds, cinnamon puffins, and some homemade cookies. Sometimes I throw in a small square of dark chocolate in there too, just in case I need another sweet pick-me-up. Note that none of it is greasy or messy. That is important when trying to eat in class.
Here are the recipes I've tried so far, from left to right: a black bean salad, a garbanzo bean and tuna salad (my personal favourite), and a Spanish couscous bean salad. I like that there a bunch of different elements in each salad, which perfectly suits my eating ADD. If I can't have tapas in class, at least I can have a salad that I can separate into its different parts.
I mean, for me, this is as healthy as it gets.
Now, the only thing left is to find a cute lunchbag. I've been using an Anthropologie shopping bag so far, and it is attractive, but I want something non-disposable and more along the lines of this. But I don't like any of thee prints featured, so I guess I'll keep perusing. Not that I don't have like a bag collection that perhaps rivals my shoe collection, along with multiple versions of this particular bag (because haha! I know where an outlet store in Paris that sells these bags is located! So I have a ton of Hervés, none of which I use! And I hope it's still there, because I want to supplement my collection) which would be perfectly suited for carrying my lunch, but no, I want a new bag please.
However, the one drawback from this is that after eating healthy like this for any longer than a week, I start to get CRAZY with my junk food cravings. (Dinner is stuff my mother has cooked me, because I whine and tell her that I'm too busy with school so she feels bad and sends me home weekly with dinners she's prepared for me, which are, unfortunately, on the healthier end of the spectrum). Like, seriously. Not having french fries at least once a week is akin to death. I NEED FAT, preferably in the forms of pizza, hot dogs, french fries, or hamburgers.
So tonight, I'm making steak.
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