Multi Tasking Brown Bagger

I did it! Not only did I make it through the first week back at school but I was able to pack a healthy lunch EVERY day! Go me!

The reason was simple…….multi-tasking during dinner preparation.

In the past, before bedtime I would procrastinate about making a lunch and figure I would just throw a lunch together in the morning. I do my best math in the morning while still sleeping. After the alarm rings, I lie there quietly calculating in my head how much longer I can sleep in if I don’t eat breakfast. How many more minutes of snooze time if I slip out to Tim Horton’s at lunch time instead of packing a lunch?

This year, thanks to the Brown Bag Challenge, my new plan is to make breakfast and lunch at the same time I am making supper! Duh! It is such a simple idea. While I make chicken breasts on the BBQ, I throw on a few extra to make a chicken/spinach salad. While the chicken is cooking I throw together the ingredients for my new favourite oatmeal breakfast so all I have to do in the morning is zap it in the microwave. While everything is cooking for supper it takes little more effort to throw together everything I need for breakfast and lunch as well. It also a great satisfaction after supper clean up to know I am finished in the kitchen until the next night.

Now this new process means I no longer read the paper, finish the cross-word puzzle, surf the net or write my blog while supper is cooking. While those things now have to wait until after supper to get done, my cooking has actually improved. Since my new cooking tactic, I no longer rely on the smoke detector to let me know when supper is ready. As a multi-tasking cook I am actually fully attentive to food preparation instead of distracted by other things, oblivious to the burning pork chops.

In the morning I still have those extra precious moments of sleep but I rest even better knowing my breakfast and lunch are already packed in the fridge, ready to go in my brown bag.

Any other ideas for great suppers that can be reinvented into great lunches???