My #LunchboxMonday Experience

Today marks the 5th week that I joined this campaign "Lunchbox Monday". I came across this campaign as I was surfing the Net to get more info on healthy lifestyle. You see, I've always wanted to lead a healthier lifestyle, but bringing home-cooked meal to work was not really in my plan. But as soon as I read this short entry in Jewelpie, I got all excited and decided to join the pledge the next Monday. Here's my first #luncboxmonday: Grilled chicken burrito.

Believe it or not, it took me less than 5-mins to assemble this meal! No, I'm not a Master Chef what-so-ever who can cook amazing food over the short period of time under lots of pressure. In fact, I'm sort-of-a-marathoner-rather-than-sprinter when it comes to cooking. I prefer to take my own sweet time in the kitchen. That was why I never thought of bringing my own meal to work. Talk about the pressure to get everything's ready on time plus having to deal with my two clingy+cranky angels in the morning!

However, I also learned from the above-mentioned websites that the trick is in the preparation. Tips #1, decide what you'll bring to the office the night before. What are the ingredients needed? What type of cooking process is required? Is there anything that you can prepare beforehand? That is why it is easier to pack the lunch for Mondays as we have the weekend to do some prep. For this first meal, I grilled the chicken and cleaned the veggies the night before, so I would not rush for time in the morning.

Tips #2, prepare easy-peasy meal. Avoid preparing elaborate meal, meaning food that requires lots of time to cook and need to have sides like gravy, garnishing etc. My mantra is fast and healthy food. For instance, this morning I was rushing for work and hadn't done any preparation the night before, so the solution was this simple crispy salad that requires no cooking at all! 

Another dilemma I must say, is to prepare food that is suitable and will last (the freshness) until lunch time. So when in doubt, Tips #3, go for sandwich! I think you can never go wrong with a good sandwich. It's wholesome, easy to prepare and usually requires minimum or no cooking at all. I brought egg sandwich to work a few weeks back. 2 slices of whole-meal bread + lettuce + crushed hard-boiled eggs + a dash of black pepper  = wholesome meal that kept me full until evening!

The availability of all the ingredients in hands are also an important part of this exercise (wow, sounds like a movement already hehehe). So it will save you from the headache to go to the store to get it, etc. For me, Tips #4, the must-have or basic items are as follows: 

• Onions - I love onions!
• Black pepper - to me, this is the greatest seasoning in the world-it'll make everything taste 'edible'
• Veggies - preferably those that can be eaten on its own like lettuce. Any kind of lettuce: romaine, icebergs are great
• Eggs - an egg-ceptional super food that is also versatile!
• Carbohydrate - bread / wrap to keep everything together. 
  

I use Mission wraps to make burritos. My personal favourite is onion & chive flavour. It tastes good and the texture is light enough to my liking. I made this tuna-burrito for one of my lunchbox-es, and the only thing that required cooking here was the wrap! I pan-grilled it for a few minutes, laid all the fresh ingredients on it, put the canned tuna and voila!

 

So far, I'm very happy with my new 'obsession'. I started this habit with the aimed to eat healthily, but there are also some other positive results (good side effects?) that I experienced through out my (short) journey so far. I shall share them with you in my next entry. Anyway, confession time. There was this one particular week that I was too lazy to do any prep, but I still want to bring my lunchbox to work. See, this is this campaign is all about - it encourages you to make a commitment (to bring lunch to work), so your inner self will push you to stick to it =).

So what I did was - I skipped my Sunday dinner and packed the meal instead for my #lunchboxmonday. Talk about commitment =) Call it cheating (well, I wished not to repeat this again!), but I'm glad that I still have the courage to stick to my pledge, because I know that once I skipped the habit, the chances that I'll stop doing it all together is pretty high!