Two Simple Recipes for Workday Lunch to Stay Nourished

I’m sure you anticipated a lot of changes in your life after having kids. Like your schedule, furniture, and budget but shifting how you eat and plan meals, may not have been on your radar.

Many of us roll with the adjustments in real time but planning meals for our kids, and ourselves, is different. It can feel like a complex and thankless part-time job, especially as our calendars become busier.

Override Messy Schedules

We manage a lot of nuanced situations in our lives and careers. And whatever field you’re paid to work in, it’s likely pivoted several times in the past 5 years. Even if you’re not in a new role, you probably work alongside or train someone who is and many of us have started post-pandemic businesses.

The economy is also in freefall so, details like a nourishing lunch, often get pushed aside. But part of the answer to making this pace, uncertainty and stress less painful, is by choosing fuel over famine.

Think about the ‘How’ Behind Your Meals

How you execute on that vision of caring for yourself, for any of the ‘top of the hierarchy’ categories, whether it’s movement, sleep. time with adults, stress management, learning, fun or nutrition; is perhaps more important than your actual goals.You can have the best intentions and still get tripped up on the how. For example, if there’s nothing in your fridge, pantry, office or workspace and you have back-to-back meetings, you’re probably not going to have lunch.

It Turns Out, Food is Pretty Important

There are some practical realities, what you eat and how you hydrate, impact your energy and over time, your health. If you’re already sleep deprived, being nutritionally depleted will only make you feel worse.

If you’ve read some of my early articles, you already know I take food seriously. Pre-kids, I enjoyed cooking so much that I quit my corporate job and went to culinary school, followed by a brief stint in restaurants. Although a lot of time goes into meal preparation and planning, you can reduce the complexity and tax on your mental energy by creating a system. Start with lunch.

Lunch as a System

Two people have asked me about ‘how to stay nourished during the workday’ within the past month and it’s been a while since I’ve written about food, which is still my favorite hobby. The good news? You don’t have to love to cook to have good meals. You can ‘assemble’ your meals without much cooking. Lunch can also be a system, and just like my philosophy on family dinners, meals shouldn’t be ad hoc. As in, the ‘ad hocness’ of everything else you manage while raising kids, means ad hoc meals heap on extra mental load.

Choose a Couple of Daily Standbys

I’m sharing a couple of my favorites that work for breakfast or lunch. I’ve carefully selected options where you get a high-quality outcome, whether you choose to make the components from scratch or purchase prepared foods. The goal here is fast, simple, relatively nutritious, tasty lunches you can even eat with one hand, if you’re in the baby or toddler phase of parenting.

Idea One: Luxury Granola, with Yogurt, and Fruit

Ingredients:

¼ – 1/3 cup of plain Greek yogurt

¼ cup of granola

1 tsp chia seeds 1 tsp wheat germ 1 tsp flaxseed meal ½ a teaspoon of a high-powered spice like cardamom

2 tablespoons of fruit: i.e., frozen or fresh blueberries, chopped apples, mango or whatever you have available.

Yes, a parfait… but a dreamy one, not the sad pre-packed variation we see in the refrigerated case at the airport. It’s fresh and infused with added nutrients. So, you may know I lean a bit homespun when it comes to meals and make most food from scratch. Including big batches of granola every few weeks but there are many high-quality granolas you can buy. If you’re granola-making-curious, it takes less than 10 minutes to mix everything before putting it into the oven. However, as with anything you need to bake, there are extra dishes to deal with at the end of the process and you may not want to spend your time this way.

Select a Full Fat, Full Flavor Yogurt

I like plain Greek yogurt. It’s thicker, higher in protein and in my opinion, lemony in flavor and because the granola is sweet, I don’t see any benefit in sweetened yogurt. There are many brands of yogurt that are high in protein (aim for 15 or more grams per serving) and don’t contain extra sugar. I buy from a local farm, that sources yogurt from a local provider but again, if you’re at the grocery store you will find several good options. Give yourself a generous portion like a quarter cup or 1/3 cup as the ‘base’ of your meal.

Boost it With Extra Nutrients

Add a teaspoon of each of the following: chia seeds, wheat germ, and flaxseed meal. You can mix them in with the granola (I made my granola this way) or sprinkle into the yogurt or on top. Plus a ½ a teaspoon of a high-powered spice like cardamom. Note, it takes a few extra minutes because you have to pull it out of the pods and grind it with a mortar and pestle. Cinnamon or nutmeg are also wonderful and easier to work with. Again, you get to choose your own adventure. You can purchase the spices already ground and just ‘shake’ them onto your granola or grate the cinnamon and/or nutmeg.

Idea Two: Hard Boiled Egg Wraps (or Bowls)

Another go to ‘base’ for meals is hard boiled eggs. As you might guess, it’s because just like batches of granola, I can make them in advance. You can refrigerate them after cooking (ideally in the shell) for up to a week.

If you want to make this your standby daily meal, for a week you can make 10 eggs at once. You can even buy hard-boiled eggs if you do not like making them. However, it’s more cost and time efficient to make them at home. It takes less than 10 minutes in a saucepan with salted, boiling water and a little extra time to peel them. I absolutely love hard-boiled egg slices with hummus and avocado, in a bowl or as a wrap.

Ingredients:

2 hard boiled eggs, sliced lengthwise into quarters or horizontally into ½ inch rounds

1 or 2 tablespoons of hummus

½ an avocado (cut into cubes or slices)

Optional: slices or cubes of your favorite cheese (i.e. cheddar, gouda, Swiss)

Optional: wheat tortilla

Salt, pepper and paprika to taste

Keep it Simple, With or Without the Wrap

Slice your hard-boiled eggs (2) into quarters or ¼ inch rounds and then put a little bit of hummus on top of them. Sprinkle them with paprika, a little bit of salt and a generous amount of black (or cayenne if you like it spicier) pepper. Add ½ an avocado, cut into cubes or slices.

If you want something more substantial, you can put all of this into a whole wheat tortilla and spread the hummus onto the wrap first. Then add the eggs and avocado, and/or cheese (if using) then wrap it in the tortilla like a burrito.

Stay Nourished… Really

Once you have the components, each ‘recipe’ takes a few minutes and if you happen to have a baby or a toddler, yes…. you can eat it with one hand using a spoon or in the wrap, for the eggs. Keeping yourself hydrated and nourished is critical. It doesn’t have to be elaborate for it to meet your needs. And no, it doesn’t matter if you decide to take ‘breakfast’ items and turn them into your lunch or vice versa. If you plan leftovers with your dinners, you can also make a leftover reheat strategy work. Then you don’t have to assemble anything on the days you have that for lunch.

I have many different variations now on lunches, dinners, and breakfast ‘systems’ but what’s important is consistent, nutrition that you find easy to implement. You can set lunch as a routine, whether you’re remote or hybrid and take the components into an office or physical workspace if you are onsite.

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