A High Protein Friday

After working a 12-hour day, I didn't have much physical or creative energy for to pack lunch last night. I'm actually quite happy with the end result, though. It's good to know that a relatively healthy & appealing lunch can be thrown together quickly.

There's more highly processed food in this lunch than normal, but at least there's a good amount of calcium, protein, fiber, and some "colored stuff."

With the possible exception of the soup (can't find an ingredient list online and I've already thrown away the container), this lunch is also free of hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors & sweeteners, nitrates, etc. Hmmm...it just occurred to me that maybe the seaweed has some kind of preservatives. I'll have to check!

BunnieB forgot to wash her bento lunchbox last night, so I used the divided glass Corningware containers that I use for myself. As you can see they actually work great; they're just heavy. Wet stuff like yogurt will get over the divider in the middle, so you have to take care what you pack together in the container.

Here is the "menu" for today (clockwise from bottom left):

• Ham & cheese rollettes
• Tofu "bear" faces
• Applesauce
• Chicken & stars soup
• Edamame
• Soy sauce for edamame (in tiny "bear" bottle)
• Mayo for ham & cheese (in orange "kitty" condiment case)

VERDICT:

So-so. Bunnie B said there was not enough food. She liked everything but the tofu bears; unfortunately they disintegrated into a white mush with a few random dots of black (the sesame seeds & seaweed). I don't know if this happened because they weren't packed tightly enough, or if that's just what happens to tofu when it's allowed to come to room temp & gets bumped around. Normally she likes tofu, as long as it's not mixed with anything else.

PREPARATION DETAILS:

Ham & cheese rollettes. Two slices of deli-thin ham w/a slice of cheese inside. Pat the ham dry w/paper towel, lay down one slice of ham, then slice of cheese, then 2nd slice of ham. Roll up, slice into mini-rolls, & thread them onto toothpicks or skewer.

Harris Teeter now carries a nitrate-free, real ham product in the deli case. It's labeled as "natural" and is in a brown box. Usually it's down low where the deli meats are, somewhat out of sight.

Tofu "bear" faces. Slice a block of tofu into about 1/2 to 1-inch thick slices. Then use a rice form, cookie cutter, or sharp paring knife to cut the slices into fun shapes.

The eyes are black sesame seeds (found them at Bare Essentials) and the mouth is a flake of seaweed, though I could have used sesame seeds, a bit of red pepper or pimento, etc. If you want to try seaweed, you can get it in the Asian section of most of the local grocery & health food stores. The kind I'm using is called "nori". It seems to keep forever.

Applesauce. A pre-packaged cup of Harris Teeter's house brand of organic applesauce. We have always used the kind that is just apples, no sugar or artificial sweeteners added. I read labels: it drives me nuts that most of the products labeled "no sugar added " or sugar free" actually contain artificial sweeteners and/or sugar alcohols like xylitol!

By the way, it's obviously less expensive and better for the environment to fill a re-usable container with applesauce. But I must admit that when I'm tired or rushed as I was last night, it's great to have the ready-to-serve cups handy. I'm using them a lot less often though. :)

Chicken & stars soup. It's processed-food-to-the-max and wantonly waste-making with this container of Campbell's Soup-At-Hand chicken & stars soup. But it's about the only soup BunnieB will eat, period. I think it's because the texture is so uniform (Soup At Hand soups are meant to be sipped rather than spooned; they are packed in a heatable container with a small sipping hole in the cap).

Yes, I know it's totally "un-green" to serve this but besides just succumbing to the lure of convenience, I have a long-term ulterior motive; if Miss Picky gets used to having soup, I may soon be able to take soup leftovers and blend them slightly to remove the texture, and sneak it into her lunch!

Edamame. This is just a handful from a bag of frozen edamame (green soybeans). Pretty much every local grocery store carries them, usually in the frozen and/or organic sections. I nuked for 2 minutes, salted, and let cool to room temp before putting in the fridge (that seems to cut down on condensation, which makes things soggy). BunnieB loves it and calls it "sea anemone."