I realized that if I wanted to eat well, have variety and not waste money on my food going bad I'd have to plan pretty carefully. For me, the bean sprouts tied it all together.
Here's a purchasing list for items that will faithfully make 3 separate lunches. A tuna sandwich, a deli meat sandwich and a decent salad. Goddamn it if bean sprouts aren't in all three.
Biggest problem solver: You can have lettuce (or baby spinach) on your sandwich without worrying about buying a whole bunch of lettuce and then throwing it away. You're gonna use the lettuce in the salad. Problem solved (ass).
Throw the bean sprouts and the spinach/lettuce on everything. It's only gonna be better because you did.
The prices below reflect within a dollar the price of these items as purchased at Trader Joe's.
Constants (one time/infrequent purchases):
- Salad Dressing (~2.50)
- Horseradish (2.09)
- Mustard (2.50)
- Mayo (3.50)
- raisins (4.00)
- Walnuts (5.00)
- Deli Meat (~5.00)
- Cheese Slices (3.50)
- Red Onion (~1.75)
- Bread (2.50)
- hummus (3.00)
- Large can Tuna (3.50)
- Celery (2.50)
- Baby Carrots (1.25)
- Box of Prewashed Baby Spinach (2.99)
Lunch always consists of the main course, (sandwich/salad) and then a small side of carrots and hummus or celery sticks.
Several brilliant points to save on prep time:
- Cut up your onion once (thin thin rings, that shit's intense) and then throw it in some tuperware. It'll keep for at least three weeks without any harm done. You can use a big onion every day for that long and still throw some out at the end. Onions are awesome.
- Make your tuna salad in a big batch and save it. Seems like it lasts at least a work-week, might last through the weekend too. So far I haven't been bold enough to try.
