Thursday, October 2, 2008

What to Do When You Are Tired of Sandwiches

After The Same Old Message post, I received a few comments about taking your lunch to work. For one, Mom emailed to remind me that you are probably packing something that is more healthy than an inexpensive microwaveable meal. Kate posted a comment along those same lines and noted that knowing it's healthy is one motivation to eat yet another sandwich at work.

Michael could eat a turkey and cheese sandwich every work day between now and retirement (which is decades away!). Not me. I need some variety. I don't mind eating the same thing five days in a row for lunch, but I need to change it up the next week.

One of my duties in our marriage is the grocery shopping. That means, I have quite a bit over the control of the weekly menu (which I think for Michael is where that "for better or worse" part of our wedding vows sometimes comes in).

I choose the sandwich meat, cheese, and bread based on what is on sale and has a coupon available. That keeps a fair amount of variety in just the sandwiches. Sometimes I'll buy a little less meat and cheese than we need and then I'll eat peanut butter and jelly one or two days -- or maybe the whole week. That helps with the grocery budget too.

As regular Save 4 Fun readers know, I also am a fan of little pizzas in my lunch. I haven't made them in a while. I'm going to have to watch for English muffins to go on sale again. I already stocked up on pizza sauce the other weekend when Harris Teeter was doing triple coupons.

My sister told me that this week she is taking taco salad to work every day. She cooks the meat on Sunday night. Then, she packs a serving of it up along with all of the fixings. She assembles her salad at work, and ta-da -- something better than a sandwich!

Mom reminded me in her email the other day that taking leftovers from dinner to work makes a good lunch. In addition to the grocery shopper, I'm also the head chef in our household, and I only cook about 3 nights a week. So, we are usually eating leftovers the rest of the nights. However, tomorrow I'll be eating some leftover soup that I made the other night for dinner. It was supposed to last two nights, but it wasn't very good. It's edible but not great. Michael wasn't a fan at all. So, I'll have to come up for a new plan for what was supposed to be the second night of the soup. He won't eat it anymore. You know me...I'm not going to throw it away. But I don't like the idea of him getting something better for dinner one night while I'm eating that not-so-great soup. So, I'll finish it up for lunch.

What do you do when you are tired of eating sandwiches for lunch?

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1 comment:

Kristen said...

I almost always take leftovers to work for lunch. Whenever I cook, I usually make enough for 6-8 servings. That's enough for us to eat it again later in the week, plus a couple of servings go in the freezer in single-serve containers. That way, I can pull it out two or three weeks later, when I'm ready for another taste. This works great for pasta casseroles, roasts, and lots of different chicken dishes.