Mediterranean Lunch Prep

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I don’t think I can fully express how nice it is to not have to worry about preparing lunch everyday.

Well, my lunch at least. My little guy is all grown up and off to daycare and I spend my days working, missing him, and thinking of my life in terms of how may ounces of milk I can pump in one sitting. I never thought that pumping would become a totally normal activity for me, but life is full of surprises. I do sometimes find myself staring at the contents of a bottle and thinking how weird it is that I not only made that stuff, but it’s what keeps my baby alive. A lesson I didn’t fully grasp in high school health class: Women are quite amazing creatures.

So while I spend far too much brain power on bottle calculus (math has never been my strong suit), it’s so nice to reach in the fridge everyday and pull out a fully prepared lunch, no calculus needed.

You may already know I’m a big fan of meal prep, but I let it slide during this whole pandemic thing. Why would I spend precious weekend hours prepping food when I didn’t even have to leave the house for work? Now of course that mindset caused a rapid domino effect on my productivity. I’d spend more time than I’d ever freely admit standing in front of the open fridge wearing the same leggings I had been three days in a row, then after finally making the decision proceeding to shuffle around the kitchen for another extreme length of time as I concocted whatever creation I had settled on. I’m not normally one to waste time, but 2020 has been the exception for a lot of things.

I no longer live in a world where I can roll out of bed whenever, knowing I’ll still easily be able to fit in my 8-hour workday plus a leisurely walk plus an eternity deciding on lunch (I highly recommend that lifestyle for any pregnant person, though). I’ve returned to the world of over-scheduling, frantic multi-tasking, and falling asleep while typing an email. And honestly? I’ve missed this. I love having done so much in a day that I fall asleep instantaneously, too tired even to dream. I love making extensive to-do lists and crossing things off passionately. I love that rush of accomplishment and purpose I feel when looking back on a full day. Being busy gets a bad rep sometimes. I’m all for relaxing when I need it and you won’t meet a person who hates stress more (being stressed and being busy are two totally different things), but staying busy reminds me I’m here to do good work, and I set my intention every busy day to do so.

Anyway, that’s why I meal-prep my lunches. So I can up my chances of getting good work done by reducing my tendency to spend absurd amounts of time staring into a fridge. I wholeheartedly recommend it (the meal prep, not the fridge-staring).

This particular lunch has become one of my favorites. I have an irrational fear of community microwaves so back when I went to the office, my microwave dread would force me to think of creative and tasty cold lunches. This particular mixture is packed full of crispy veggies, whole grains, a protein. It’s fairly simple, but I guarantee it will fill you up more and leave you happier than your standard sad iceberg and pale veggie salad.

I made 10 lunches at one time with this recipe (I cut it in half below). It took me about 45 minutes and by far my biggest struggle was finding a bowl large enough to mix everything together. I was actually planning on adding chicken to this lunch mix, but I ran out of bowl space and there was so much other good stuff in there that I didn’t even miss it! But I mean if you do have a bigger bowl and you like chicken, go for it.

So yeah, get your meal prep done early this week so you can focus on getting some good work done. I believe in you (especially when you have a belly full of tasty food).