Brown Bag Challenge: Week 4

We’re teaming up with fellow food bloggers to host a Brown-Bag Challenge, a month-long initiative to eat consciously and save money by packing a lunch each weekday instead of eating out. Join us here and share what you're eating on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #brownbag.

Monday: Brown rice with spicy basil Japanese eggplant, kabocha (Japanese pumpkin), and edamame. Brought leftovers from the night before. I'm a big fan of kabocha, not only is it delicious, a 3/4 cup of it is only 30 calories (according to caloriecount.com). My favorite way to make it is to saute a little bit of ginger and then add chunks of the squash. Add some water and put a lid on and steam it until it's soft and season it with salt.

Tuesday: Corn and pork dumplings from the night before. I'm currently experimenting with different types of dumpling (I usually make pork and cabbage or pork and leek) so these were a little different.

Wednesday: Butternut squash soup with crackers. The weather is starting to get cold, and that signals the start of soup and chili season.

Thursday: Kabocha with Asian pear braised beef. I had some more kabocha left in the fridge so I paired the delicious squash with the braised beef I had made for tacos for dinner earlier in the week.

Friday: A turkey, Swiss cheese, red lettuce, and Dijon mustard sandwich. I don't love sandwiches, but when I have no time to pack anything but a sandwich, a little Dijoin and Swiss cheese makes things a little better.

Entering this last week of brown bag lunch packing and my first week of "dieting", I'm hoping that the trend of bringing my lunch will help me eat healthier!

Brown Bag Challenge: Week 3

We’re teaming up with fellow food bloggers to host a Brown-Bag Challenge, a month-long initiative to eat consciously and save money by packing a lunch each weekday instead of eating out. Join us here and share what you're eating on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #brownbag.

Monday: Steak and corn chili with nectarines, fage yogurt and carrots with hummus.

Tuesday: Yellow curry with carrots, green peppers, string beans, and chicken along with the usual snack suspects. Whenever I order Thai food, I almost always order a curry as I love the combination of sweet and spicy. A good way to get rid of some veggies is to take any leftover sauce (we always have a ton) and add whatever veggies you have on hand to it. Also, I like to add some extra coconut milk, salt, Thai chil, and basil to enhance the curry's flavor.

Wednesday: Pita filled with honey turkey, pesto, muenster cheese, red onion, and red leaf lettuce (from my CSA). With it I had some sour cream and onion cracker chips with some homemade peach corn salsa. Great idea by Toby Amidor to eat the chips with salsa!

Thursday: VYu style "jamabalaya". This was a easy lunch I put together while I ate my dinner. First, render some andouille sausage (cut into little chunks) with half a diced onion in 1 T of olive oil. Then add 1 cup of brown rice. After the rice is a little toasty and coated, add 2 cups of liquid (the liquid from one small can of clams and the difference in water) and 1 medium tomato chopped. Stir and bring to a boil. When at a boil, add the clams from the can and a medium roasted green or red pepper (cut into strips). Place a lid on top and drop the heat to a simmer and leave covered for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, check to see if the liquid has been absorbed. If so, turn off the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool almost completely before you pack it for lunch!

Friday: Another delicious pesto turkey sandwich with an apple and yogurt.

Another wonderful week of brown bag lunches!

Brown Bag Challenge: Week 3 Day 1

We’re teaming up with fellow food bloggers to host a Brown-Bag Challenge, a month-long initiative to eat consciously and save money by packing a lunch each weekday instead of eating out. Join us here and share what you're eating on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #brownbag.

So Joe and I are almost half way through our month long brown bag challenge and so far it has been pretty enjoyable, but we're starting to see our lunches start to repeat! (I guess they couldn't not repeat forever...)

For lunch today, I had the corn and steak chili again with some cut up nectarines, a fage yogurt and carrots with hummus! I've been throwing together a lot of soup/stews for lunch because they're fast and I can not think about them while they cook, but I need new ideas! Help! What's a girl who loves hot food but has no time to cook to do?

Brown Bag Challenge: Week 2

1/3 of the way through Healthy Eat's Brown Bag Challenge! So far it has been pretty easy between the shorter weeks, leftovers, and Mama Yu making me enough food for two lunches!

Tuesday and Wednesday's lunch of this week was courtesy of Mama Yu. Since I was home for the weekend, mom packed me enough food for two lunches. I love when my mom packs me lunch ( I know I'm extremely bias), but she really does make some of the best Chinese food I've ever had. It's never greasy, it's super flavorful, and it's always delicious.

So for lunch, I had pork chops (marinated in black vinegar, sugar, garlic, and soy sauce), string beans (cooked slowly and slightly caramelized), and an egg "omelet" with pickled radish (all of it served over rice). Nothing brightens up your day like a home cooked meal covering all your nutritious food group needs!

Thursday, I brought some homemade beef and corn chili. I'm not a huge fan of beans so I've been replacing most of the beans in my chili with corn. Also, instead of using ground beef, I've been using chopped steak as it has a better texture. The key when using steak vs. ground beef is that you need to tenderize the steak by pounding it out thin and then "marinating" it in cornstarch, which for some unknown reason (to me) helps tenderize it.

Finally Friday, which is always the hardest day to bring lunch since everyone goes out, I brought a sausage and vegetable soup. I've been getting a ton of delicious vegetables in my CSA, but sometimes it's hard to go through it all. So in order to finish the vegetables, Thursday night I made a soup with it! I love vegetable soup because it's so versatile. You can really put almost anything in it. I like to throw in some meat just to give it a little extra flavor. After crumbling some hot Italian sausage into a pot, I added chopped onions, chopped green pepper, diced cucumber, shredded kale, and diced carrots and sauteed them until the onion was slightly translucent. I added some salt, pepper, and parsley to season. Then, I topped it off with 2 diced tomatoes and filled the pot to the top with water and just let it simmer for an hour. I find I really like using onions, pepper, and tomatoes for a base, but really you can add whatever vegetables you have on hand. Delicious and healthy!

Next week is the real challenge. No help from Mama Yu and the first full week of the challenge!

Day 2: Refrigerator Salad

Packing lunch before a long weekend out of town is always pretty easy, I just pack whatever I think will go bad in my fridge before I get back! So, for lunch today, I threw together what I'm calling the "Empty Fridge Salad" (unfortunately for those who know me well know that my fridge is almost never empty).

I started with some of the veggies (ie. red lettuce, green peppers, red onion, and pickled cucmbers) from my CSA (from Marshall's Farmstand), which are always fresh and delicious. I added a Chinese tea egg, which is a hard-boiled egg which has been steeped in a mixture of tea, 5 spice, star anise, and soy sauce. Finally, I finished my salad by taking my leftover turkey meat (from making Joe's sandwiches), chopping it up, and mixing it with pesto (bought also at Marshalls!). I can eat my salads sans dressing as I find that the flavor from the pesto, tea egg, and fresh veggies are flavorful enough.

Since I know the nectarines won't be this amazing for that much longer, I went ahead and packed myself a little container of cut up nectarines along with a granola bar and trail mix. I really need to start 1. making my own trail mix and 2. packing more snacks because I get so hungry in the afternoon!

Day 1: Brown Bag Lunch Challenge

In an attempt to eat healthier and save some money, I've decided to participate in Food Network's Healthy Eat's Brown Bag Challenge. For the month of September, I'll be "brown-bagging" it to work everyday!

I kept it simple today: leftovers from the night before and snacks. In general, I like to eat something hot, so I'd much rather eat reheated leftovers than a cold sandwich. The leftovers I brought were spicy basil eggplant, tomatoes and eggs, and some white rice. I packed it with some trail mix, four cut up nectarines (I really like fruit), and a Fage yogurt (the current household favorite).
To make the spicy basil eggplant, you chop up the eggplant (3 Japanese eggplants) into chunks (diagram for rolling chunks is in process!) and set aside. In a pan, heat up a little bit of vegetable oil and add garlic and Thai chili peppers until fragrant. You can adjust the spiciness for your own preference. Then, add the eggplant and saute until the eggplant is soft (you can add a little bit of water to the pan to help it out). When it is almost done, add basil (large handful), soy sauce (2-3T), sugar (2T), and sesame oil (1t) and cook until most of the moisture has been absorbed by the eggplant. The dish should be spicy, sweet, fragrant, and delicious! To make the tomato and eggs click here: Tomato & Eggs.

Tomorrow: Refrigerator Salad day (aka, where all my leftover veggies make a wonderful salad!)