And now, a brief infomercial

[moonwise]

Hello all you working class folks out there,

Tonight, at NO CHARGE TO YOU, I will tell you a secret - known only to a few - that will change your life forever.

Have you ever said to yourself, "Self, you are spending a lot of money on lunch every day?" Do you admit freely that you are a lazy sack who can't be arsed to make lunch every night, or every morning? Do you promise yourself while you're shoveling down that pad thai that next time you'll bring your lunch to work, really? Isn't sandwich bread just the nastiest thing ever?

Fear not! I have the solution, right here.

First, go to the supermarket. Pick yourself out a nice loaf of fresh-baked bread - a baguette or a ciabatta works very well. Go to the deli and order yourself a medley of sandwich stuffins. Pick out your sandwich dressing, and you're most of the way there.

At home, slice open the bread, and apply your dressing. (We tend to stay away from mayonnaise after an unfortunate trip to the ER that involved a questionable roast beef sandwich.) Pile up the bottom half of your bread with your meat and/or cheese and whatever else you want. Put the top of the bread back on and - work with me here - slice the loaf into a bunch of little sandwiches. Put each little sandwich in a sandwich bag, toss 'em in the fridge, and voila! You're set for the whole week! All you have to do now is grab one bag every morning with a soda and a snack, and you're home free!

Here are some suggestions, from our kitchen to yours.

1. Prosciutto and fresh mozzarella with roasted red peppers
2. Rosemary ham and provolone with honey mustard (a good kind like Honeycup)
3. Lemon-pepper chicken or turkey breast and fresh mozzarella with pesto and tomatoes
4. Roast beef and pepper jack cheese
5. Maple ham and swiss with honey mustard or stone-ground mustard

Bon appetit!

Comments

[pantswarrior]

Hahaha. Everyone at work is always like "Why do you BRING snacks when you can just BUY them?"

...Because it costs three times as much, at least, if I buy them instead of making them myself?

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Let's see... $1.00 for one ounce of Doritos, or $3.00 for a pound bag? Hmmmm... you sure do pay a lot for that packaging! I'm with you. :)

[lalieth.livejournal.com]

So, the dressing doesn't make the bread soggy by the end of the week?

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Mustard and pesto don't seem to. As mentioned previously, I don't use mayo for this system because I don't trust it.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Ennit? XD

[roserevolution.livejournal.com]

Mmmm...now I'm hungry. I always try to bring my lunch, it saves so much money. I'm also a fan of packaging leftovers into lunch-sized portions and keeping yogurt and snacky fruit on hand.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

We do the repackaging of leftovers too, when we cook. XD Our cooking output tends to drop during the summer, because husband has a thing about cooking with the air conditioning on.

[cassandramorgan.livejournal.com]

I make my lunch every day. I actually have to make lunches for three people. It's just part of my morning routine. While it's kinda hard to start making lunches in the morning, once you get going, it's pretty easy to keep going.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

See, you're not a lazy sack like me, probably because you're a mom. :)

[sache.livejournal.com]

So... what happens when the lunchmeat in your sandwich goes bad before you've gotten around to eating it, then?

[jaina.livejournal.com]

You start shopping somewhere where the meat takes longer than five days to go bad?

[sache.livejournal.com]

My meat lasts a little less than two weeks, BUT, it's impossible to get a good amount. Ask for a quarter of a pound, it'll only last you four days. BUT ask for a half of a pound and it won't take you until you next shopping trip because it starts getting funky. (Admittedly, certain meats last longer than others.) And for some reason, no one at the grocery store understands the concepts of thirds. And if you pre-make your sandwiches, depending on the sandwich you make, you may or may not be able to freeze them in order to maintain freshness.

Is my point.

(There is also the soggy bread factor, but I shan't go into that. I'm all about bringing your own food, but I don't have a problem with throwing a sandwich together right before I head to work. So.)

[arafel.livejournal.com]

If you don't have a problem with throwing together a sandwich at the beginning of your work day, then you don't need my system, do you.

In the grand scheme of meat funkiness, I've found that roast beef has the shortest shelf life, and ham tends to last a bit longer. Half a pound of meat should hold you for the week, and if you buy it on Sunday night, your sandwiches ought to be good until Friday. I don't have an issue with bread getting soggy, but I also don't use dressings that wet the bread.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Ask for 5/16 of a pound and see what happens :)

[arafel.livejournal.com]

The bread doesn't get soggy if you don't use dressings that wet the bread (e.g. oil and vinegar.) I admit that I don't like tomatoes and lettuce on my sandwiches, but if you used a sturdy lettuce like romaine and put the tomato under it so that the tomato touches the meat but not the bread, you can avoid soggy issues. (Husband does like tomato.)

You know I love me a food post ...

[pointedview.livejournal.com]

I tried a new sammitch this weekend: proscuitto on crusty bread with avocado and field greens. Quite good. Doubt it'd keep in the fridge for long, but an eyedropperful of lemon juice and a light twist of the pepper mill over the sammitch innards, and, well, that's good eatin', that is. :)

Re: You know I love me a food post ...

[arafel.livejournal.com]

That does sound yum. I've been trying to like avocado better, and everything's better with prosciutto.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to Lean Cuisines myself, but I still get tempted when someone says, "We're going to get burritos..."

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Mmmm... burritos... *salivates*

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

I can't be convinced of burritos for a while - Mexican on Sunday and Chipotle on Monday, and I'm paying for it in my tummy today >.<

But yes, I applaud your idea, but my main lunch problem comes from peer pressure. When everyone else wants to go to that restaurant at the end of the cliff, I'm ready to walk off, too :)

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

I love One-ish life lessons like this. :)

I'm personally a big fan of saving up soup containers from Chinese take-out and making a big pot of stew on the weekends. Total cost of 10 servings of stew = $10.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, our new system was inspired by leftovers from a Super Bowl party. XD

Stew is a terrific lunch. We do the same type of thing, except during the summer when it's too hot to cook on a regular basis. The problem with cooking in our apt is that anything you cook sticks around for a while, smell-wise, and in the summer we can't air out the place b/c of the air conditioning. :P

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

That's what a crock pot on the porch is for, dearie. ;)

And...um...how long ago was that Super Bowl party?!

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Dude, to do anything on the porch, we have to run an extension cord down the stairs, under the door, and out of the house. Having a crock-pot out there all day would be so very ghetto and not the kind of image that Far Hills wants to see, especially the hardworking successful architect who shares our building and already asked the landlord to put blinds on the cellar door so his clients wouldn't catch sight of our drying laundry through the window.

lol. We had little sandwiches at our party, and afterwards we bagged them all up for lunch. We then remarked on how easy it was to bring lunch that week, and the rest is history! XD