An early October lunch round-up

So, I think it's helpful to do an audit on my routines, to see if making a couple of changes could streamline my work, or simplify aspects of other work. So I took a minute to think about how I prepare lunch items for the brown-baggers each week.

It had been feeling like my Mondays were out-of-control busy every week. And I had to scramble to find enough to put into Monday's lunches, on Sunday afternoon, anyway. So, why not get a jump start on preparing a couple of the lunch items for the week, by making them on Sunday.

I'll try this for a few weeks, and see how it goes. This past Sunday afternoon, I made a large batch of pumpkin muffins, a pot of curried pumpkin-peanut soup (thanks, live and learn, for the recipe), and extra mustard-glazed carrots for dinner, to pack into small containers to add to lunches. The rest of the lunch items I prepared on Monday.

Here's the full menu:

• pumpkin muffins
• curried pumpkin-peanut soup
• mustard glazed carrot slices
• carrot sticks (while peeling those carrots for the glazed ones I figured I mght as well peel a bunch more for carrot sticks)
• fresh apples
• apple-cranberry sauce
• peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (made a bunch of sandwiches to try out some new Dollar Tree sandwich containers, they're super slim, and just fit a sandwich)
• toasted pizza sandwiches (these make great breakfasts as well as lunches, at least so says my daughter!) (instructions here, if you don't know what I'm talking about)
• mixed nuts

My daughters get a free lunch, if they want, on Tuesdays. There's a chapel service, followed by a lunch for commuter students. It's a great way to connect with other commuter students on campus, and they don't need to pack lunch for that day!