All posts tagged lunch

How to Avoid the Cafeteria.

Now that I’m living off campus, and without a meal plan, it’s my personal mission to eat as little food from the dining hall as possible. Mainly because the food is gross and overpriced. Well it’s not gross, but it’s not exactly tasty and I’m a broke little college student so I’m trying to save money where I can.

Here are tips for avoiding the cafeteria (your wallet, and maybe even your waistline, will thank you!)

Invest in some tupperware. Tupperware is absolutely key for packing food. I have no less than 3 tupperware containers wedged in my book bag on any given day. If you’re sporting a book bag, flat compact tupperware is best. We won’t talk about plastic baggies because we love the Earth and we’re not going there, right? Right.

Tupperware with built-in utensils is an added bonus, but not if they awkwardly snap in half when you’re using them. Not that I know from experience or anything. RIP blue plastic fork.
Nutritionally dense foods are your friend. When book bag (or purse/lunch bag for all you working adults) space is at a premium, higher calorie (but healthy!) are important. They will keep you fuller longer and take up less space. Kale is delicious, but it’s not exactly small (but if you want to keep a bundle of kale in your book bag, by all means go for it). Excuse to eat more peanut butter? I think so.
Peanut butter!
Avoid runny foods. It’s not cute when your backpack starts to drip. Especially when it ruins that paper you spent all night working on.
Make sure you pack enough food. This is important. You don’t want the hunger beast causing you to make rash decisions. It’s not pretty, and it makes that junky vending machine look tempting. Don’t fall into it’s trap by packing lots of healthy snacks. I always find it’s better to pack more food and have some left over than to not pack enough and be crabby and hungry.
Me when I’m hungry. Watch out.
Don’t pack stinky food. I have an unnatural love for curry but I will never use curry sauce in a meal I plan to eat on campus. It’s like the tuna sandwich on an airplane, don’t be that person. And stay away from the garlic.
Exnay on the curry.
If you want to pack temperature-sensitive foods, make sure they’re the first thing you’re going to eat. I generally pack something that should be refrigerated for lunch because it will still be cold when I’m ready to eat it, but I pack room temperature foods for dinner. Let’s keep things food-poisioning free.

Do you eat at the dining hall on your campus or cafeteria at your work (if you have one)?

Favorite item from your childhood lunch box? I was a big fan of bagels, I think I ate one everyday for two years in middle school. Little Debby Nutter Butters and Swiss Rolls were the highlight of my elementary school lunch box.

Marvelous in My Monday

Happy Monday!

Oh Mondays, how I love to hate you. I can’t blame Mondays too much, it’s not Monday’s fault that it got stuck after the weekend in the weekday line up. Poor guy just can’t compare.

I love the Marvelous in My Monday posts that I’ve seen circling around (thanks Katie!) and wanted to jump on the bandwagon. I’m always looking for ways to make Monday a little less sucktacular and this seems like the perfect way to do so. Why not start the week on a good note?

Things that made my Monday Marvelous:

Morning spin class. I love squeezing a workout before class. Those exercise endorphins put me in such a good mood for the rest of the day. It also makes sitting in class for hours at a time so much more bearable!
Waking up early enough to catch reruns of Boy Meets World. Learning sappy life lessons all before 8 am. This show makes me nostalgic for 90s TV, TV shows today just don’t compare, I miss TGIF!
My apartment got a new dishwasher! So far every major kitchen appliance has broken since moving in (with exception of the fridge), three cheers for cheap student apartments. On the bright side, it’s gotten us a new microwave and dishwasher. As long as the broken appliances continue to be replaced with new ones I won’t complain. Now if only that oven would break…
Sparkly new dishwasher!
28 people came to my Pilates class!! So. Many. People. It was a little nerve-wracking but I love that so many people are coming out to class and I hope the numbers stay that high. We even ran out of mats, which is not a problem I’m upset about having.
Yummy foods packed for lunch. I’m on day number 8 of not eating out and still going strong. My Tupperware collection is getting a little out of control…

Massaged kale salad made with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, red kale, mushrooms, avocado(!) and baked tofu. I love red kale, purple things are better. It’s a fact.

And dinner:

Two eggs (I knocked my cartons of eggs out of the fridge and broke all four eggs in it, was able to save two of them. Never said I was graceful) and stir-fried onions, green beans, mushrooms, broccoli and collard greens with Trader Joe’s Red Thai Curry Sauce. My love for curry is starting to reach new heights, I can’t seem to get enough of it. Unfortunately the Indian food scene in Boone is sparse.

I had my Somatics class today. I’m taking the class as part of my dance minor and I can already tell I’m going to love it. The class is all about mind-body connection, and understanding your body (very hippie and very awesome). Our homework is 10-pages of coloring. Coloring in a college class? I’m in love.
Dance auditions are tomorrow! I love the process even if I don’t make the cut. I’ll take any chance to dance I can.

What made your Monday marvelous?

What’s your favorite 90’s TV show? I’m pretty much love everything that came on ABC’s TGIF!

3 Comments

by greensandcoffeebeans on August 27, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in College LIfe, Fitness, Lists

Tagged apartment, boy meets world, dance, eggs, kale, lunch, monday, pilates, spin

Posted by greensandcoffeebeans on August 27, 2012

https://greensandcoffeebeans.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/marvelous-in-my-monday/

What I Ate Wednesday!

My first What I Ate Wednesday! Or really what I’ve cooked since moving home for the summer.

I’m still excited to be back in the kitchen. Nothing makes you appreciate having a kitchen at your disposal like eating out of a microwave for two semesters straight.

I’m definitely not a cook, but I like to throw on food network and pretend I am!

Breakfasts:

Good old oatmeal, you fill me up like no other breakfast food out there. This bowl had half a melted banana, a small spoonful of peanut butter, soy milk and cinnamon. I like cinnamon a little bit, if you couldn’t tell.

It looks like cat puke but I promise it’s not. Quinoa for breakfast is pretty tasty, it’s a nice change from oatmeal, but still filling and delicious. I don’t get much of a chance to eat it during the school year because you can’t cook it in the microwave so I have to plan ahead and cook on the weekends.

Lunches/Dinner:

Black beans, kale (farmer’s market!), onions, sweet potatoes, and sriracha, actually the sriracha ends up on everything, even if it doesn’t show itself in the picture. I’m obsessed and maybe have a little bit of a sriracha problem.

Tofu, kale (I bought a hugggeee bag), onions, summer squash and tahini sauce.

Kale (I told you it was a big bag!), tomatoes, tahini sauce and sesame seeds.

Today’s Lunch! Quinoa, tofu, kale, onions, summer squash, tahini sauce and lemon juice. And I’m only about halfway through that bag of kale, it’s magical. It was probably meant to feed an entire family. Oh and it was only $2. I love the farmers market.

Everything I eat kind of looks the same, but I’m okay with that. Veggies + plant based protein + pan = delicious. And easy. I’m a fan.

Snacks:

Okay this looks disgusting but tasted like magic. I grilled up some sliced banana (and maybe burned it a little, oopsies) and topped it with a drizzle of honey, a scoop of peanut butter and cinnamon. Soooo good. It takes the usual peanut butter and banana snack to a whole other level. Typing this makes me really want to make it again. But we’re out of bananas, boo.

Air-popped popcorn sprinkled with cumin and cayenne pepper. It was good, except I didn’t put anything on the popcorn for the spices to stick, so the pieces at the bottom were supperrr spicy. Good thing I like things hot!

So there’s my typical eats. Well, plus more snacks, I love snacks. Simple, healthy and tasty (or at least I’d like to think so!)

2 Comments

by greensandcoffeebeans on May 16, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Food

Tagged bananas, breakfast, dinner, eats, food, lunch, snacks, tofu, veggies, what i ate wednesday, wiaw

Posted by greensandcoffeebeans on May 16, 2012

https://greensandcoffeebeans.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/what-i-ate-wednesday/

Kicking Off the Week

With a 4.5 mile run! I like doing my long-ish runs on Mondays, as crazy as that sounds it feels nice to start off the week with some kind of accomplishment. Even if the rest of the week is a flop, I at least started it on the right foot!

Oh and FYI I’m loosely following Hal Higdon’s 8k plan. I’ve mostly been sticking to the mileage, and just doing cross-training as I see fit in between. It’s been really helpful, especially motivating me to go out for those 4+ mile runs. I think I’m much more motivated when I have some kind of plan to follow then when I just go out on my own.

For lunch I had this bowl of deliciousness:

(Look a picture taken with a real camera and not a cell phone!)
I seriously doctored up black bean soup. I’m not even sure it counts as soup anymore, more like I scrounged my teeny dorm fridge for food, dumped it all in a bowl together and gave it a whirl in the microwave. I took some Trader Joe’s black bean soup (the blended kind that comes in the carton), added some canned black beans, quinoa, salsa and kale. Dorm cuisine at it’s finest. It was seriously life changing when I found out you could “steam” kale in microwave. The wonders of the microwave never cease to amaze me.

Interesting fact: as I am sitting writing this there is a girl walking up and down the hall with the loudest case hiccups I have ever heard. I half tempted to walk outside and give her a glass of water.

And then I spent the rest of the day working working working. One day I’ll catch up on all the work I have to get done. I hope. Well I’m off to bed because I’ve got an 8 am yoga class in the morning, should be a great way to start the day!