Easy Work Lunches - Creative Sandwiches

Sandwiches can get super boring when you pack a lunch every day, but these sandwiches are easy work lunches that won’t bore you to death!

Let me be frank with you. I love being a teacher, not least of all for the extended break that I get in the summer. Now, I work very hard during the school year and by the end of it I am tired. And I spend a pretty decent amount of time working without getting paid…writing lesson plans, making materials, decorating my classroom, etc., etc. It’s just part of the job, really…if I didn’t do that, I would be über-unprepared when the new school year started, and that’s never a good thing.

At the beginning of summer break this year I went over to a friend’s house to pick up some surplus CSA produce that she had and she told me, “I hope you enjoy your summer break but I better not see you posting on Facebook at the end of it complaining about having to go back to work after two months off.” Touché….but I get it. And I really do try not to complain; after all, if I didn’t go back to work I wouldn’t get a paycheck.

The honest truth is that as much as I like being lazy and getting to be a complete hermit-sleeping till 9 a.m. and not leaving the house unless I want to-I really do function best with a schedule and I was kind of looking forward to a new school year. My school this year is much closer to home than last year. I love teaching preschool and have fun planning and implementing the activities, and I am not the least bit put off by behavior issues that might come down the pike for me-I’m a “behavior person” and I love a challenge. I’m hyper-organized at my job so I get my paperwork and planning done efficiently. Those types of things don’t rattle me at all.

Nope. You want to know what the one thing I dreaded about going back to work was? Lunch. That’s right, lunch. During the summer, lunch goes like this: “What’s in the freezer? Maybe I’ll make that. Or maybe I’ll fry and egg and eat it with some toast. Or maybe I’ll bake a potato and eat it with some salad. Perhaps I’ll make an impromptu pizza. Nah, I’m not feeling like cooking today…I’ll have some popcorn and some cheese.” During the school year, though, lunches must be packed, the night before if you are me and can’t bear the thought of getting up fifteen minutes earlier to pack a lunch. And many, many nights I am wracking my brain, trying to come up with something that I’ll actually want to eat the next day. I even have a Pinterest board titled “Packed Lunches are the Bain of My Existence”. Because really, they are. I need easy work lunches SO much.

I’m not really a sandwich person but the truth of the matter is that they are easy to pack and easy to eat, especially when you spend your lunchtime hovering over files or emails or lesson plans and you would do well to have a free hand. I do leftovers a lot when there isn’t enough for Philip and me to both eat them for dinner the next day, but the last couple of weeks have held quite a few sandwiches for me. I’m not even going to bother with recipes here….you all know how to make a sandwich. But here’s what I’ve had:

This is hummus, provolone, baby spinach, sliced avocado, cucumbers, and sprouts on my favorite pain de mid sandwich bread.

And this one is Applegate Farms sliced ham with Swiss cheese, mayonnaise, dijon mustard, and sliced green apples on sourdough bread (store-bought-I have not been extremely successful with keeping a sourdough starter….if anyone has tips for me please let me know! Bi-lo sells a brand in their bakery that has relatively few ingredients.), plus pretzels and hummus and the rest of the green apple slices with homemade hazelnut-chocolate spread (like Nutella) for dipping (because in my opinion green apples are just too tart to eat on their own!). Oh, and my Klean Kanteen. Always my Klean Kanteen….though my new school has free tea in the cafeteria for teachers which I always thought was so cool when I was a student at this school….teachers get to drink TEA all the time???? So maybe I’ll have a cup of tea from time to time. Ha.

As the school year wears on I hope to get a lunch series started that begins with a list of ingredients that can then be morphed into five days worth of easy work lunches….but that’s going to take a little time, thought, and organization so it may be a month or two.