The Quickest Salads for Lunch

Jan here, still crunching my November deadline. Even though I have a two week extension, whether I meet it or not is still pretty dicey.

It's a good thing I work well under pressure!

And again it means that I have done no cooking this week. We have leftover soups in the freezer that I heat up in my Insta-Pot on cold evenings...and yes, once this deadline is over, I'll talk about freezer meals that don't take an entire Saturday to prepare, but we'll have to wait for a couple weeks.

Meanwhile, my lunches are quick and nutritious. I either heat up leftovers from the night before, or I make myself a salad. I need to get more of these salads I discovered a few years ago. They've saved my lunches more times than I can count!

The Quickest Salads for Lunch

I think you might know by now that I love spending time in the kitchen, cooking for my family and friends...

...but occasionally I have a day when time is a premium.

Like when I'm in the middle of rewriting a proposal for the third time.

Or when inspiration hits and I just CAN'T step away from the computer, even though my stomach is telling me my time on this earth is going to expire if I don't send something down SOON!

On those days, I usually resort to a spinach/cheese omelette (about 15 minutes prep, but very satisfying), or PB&J (about 5 minutes prep, but not satisfying at all).

And then I found these at Sam's Club last week:

I usually pass by items like this, but that day they were giving out samples (don't you just love those samples!), and I thought, I think it's time for some convenience foods....

I started with the Asian mix (yes, I bought one of each!). When I opened the package, this is what I found:

The veggies are a blend of cabbage, carrots and cilantro (mmm, I love that cilantro...). The dressing is an Asian style sesame/ginger dressing (with no MSG - I checked), and then there were little rice snack thingies and slivered almonds to use for a garnish.

The package said there were 3.5 servings, with 120 calories per serving. I split the contents in half - which gave me a humongous salad for Thursday and another one for our Father's Day picnic yesterday.

The view during our picnic on Father's Day :)

And it was delicious.

How much time did it take? About 3 minutes, including stopping to take photos!

And then I revised another scene of my new story while I ate my lunch.

I'll be eating the Garden Salad version this week - probably Tuesday and Thursday.

:) I love it when I have lunches all planned out!


And, of course, Monday wouldn't be complete without a gratuitous puppy picture!

Thatcher, 11 weeks

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Back to 2017! Isn't that picture of Thatcher adorable? I can't believe he grew up so fast.

Working on a tight deadline can be stressful, but having meals planned and prepared removes a LOT of that stress.

So does a Saturday afternoon hike in the Hills....

Sunset in Custer State Park

...and a drive through a couple of our local parks.

What is your favorite stress reliever?

Jan Drexler loves her family, her home, cooking and just about anything made by hand. But she loves her Lord most of all.

Stop by Jan's website to learn more about her books: www.JanDrexler.com