On the lunch front (and how to improve it!)

What's up, Buttercup? (Why am I not a poet??) ;)

If I had to choose my least favourite meal of the day it would be lunch. Not the food part (as in, not the eating part) but the coming up with lunch creations. I think the pre-conceived idea that lunch = sandwiches for so many of us leads me to go blank when I try to think about other lunch options.

Then I almost always end up with the other typical lunch idea- A salad of some sort.

Recently I've noticed my lunches falling back into old favourites and I feel like I need to spice this up a bit. I want to look forward to lunch- look forward to eating whatever I've packed away for myself. I reckon my mum had it easy when she used to make my lunch in primary school, because all I every asked for was a Vegemite sandwich. Bread, butter, Vegemite- squished to an inch of its life- I was weird ok?- done!)

Yep, she definitely had it easy. Now I'm stuck with the foodie teenager who wants to have her taste buds tantalised and her stomach growling with anticipation when she opens the lid of her pink Tupperware container.

Even on the weekends when I have considerably more time to plan out something awesome for lunch- I resort back to over done meals that feature regularly.

Exhibit A:Veggie sandwich with a chickpea burger patty: (tomato, capsicum, avocado, grilled mushrooms, hommus and spinach)

This was last Sunday (Mother's Day) where I had to rush off to work for 11:45am, so I had to quickly whip something up for lunch. I went with something I've had more times than I can count- it was good, but there's just something about variety that makes a new meal taste great!

Another stand by sandwich for me (I literally have 2- the above fresh veggie sandwich and the one below)
Exhibit B: The grilled veggie sammy:

There's almost always one day of the week where I make my famous grilled veg sandwich to wrap up in some foil and enjoy at school. The first time I did this, the smell, the taste, the sight everything was just incredible. Now- it's still one of my yummiest lunches of the week, but it's lost it's amazing-ness that only variety can achieve.

I do love this sandwich so much though- and even though I have it weekly, my friends still comment about how good it looks/ smells every time!

Exhibit C: The roasted veg...

The other lunch that features weekly is the one with the cold roasted veg.
It's generally a salad, it looks great and fills me up! However having it so often gives me no buzz of excitement when I open the lid to this awesome lunch!

Roasted potato, sweet potato and baby carrots with drained and rinsed red kidney beans and baby spinach.

Cold roasted potato is where it's at, though. That will never change.

Those 3 examples are probably the most common occurrences in my lunch box each week and the other days are generally just a raw chopped salad with either some brans/ tofu added for protein.
I know a lot of people would look at that and be like 'That's a huge variety of lunches, I only ever have ---- (sandwich/ salad/ wrap) each day.' but I'm a creature who likes different foods every single day (and weeks it seems) so it's time to spice things up a bit!

My plan?
Make some awesome dinners- make a lot of that awesome dinner- and use the leftovers in a creative way (chili turned into an awesome wrap creation? Yes!).
On the days when I don't have leftovers- whip up something I've never tried before- even if I'm not sure how it will turn out ;)

Like this lunch: Pesto cous cous salad:

Let me just say- this was awesome! Pesto + wholegrain cous cous + corn + grilled eggplant, zucchini, capsicum and mushrooms + mixed four beans:

Now that's what I call a tasty lunch!

Let the exciting new lunches continue!

Your turn:
What was your typical lunch as a kid? Vegemite sandwich + veggie sticks + muffin/ cookies
Do you ever get stuck in a lunch rut?
What would be on your ultimate sandwich? 

I hope next week seems some awesome lunch creations- for both me and you! If you do have an awesome lunch, feel free to let me know- I love seeing other people's creative creations!! Until next time- bye for now friends! :D