I usually come home in between school and the evening conferences, but I might stay through at least one of the days. I'm also on a semi-health kick, so I stop at the store and get salad fixings and stuff to make sub sandwiches. Deli meat is easy. I can get as much or as little as I want of anything -- turkey, ham, roast beef. The produce is another story. Even the small containers of lettuce or baby spinach are not really small at all. Open the plastic top or rip the plastic bag open and ... BOOM! Explosion of greens.
My solution is to set up several containers of salads. I have an assortment of containers, so I dole everything out into five square containers, but still there is way too much lettuce. Not one to be wasteful, I grab two more containers and keep going. I cut up cukes and tomatoes and a pepper, then I shave carrot into each bin.
Before I take a salad for lunch (or just to eat right then and there), I add feta cheese, croutons, walnuts, and sometimes deli meat. I'm not sure this keeps my salad on the lower calorie end, but it tastes fabulous, even if I cannot finish it until later on in the day when my planning period comes along.
This is all fine and wonderful except for one very minor problem: fitting all the salad containers into the fridge. I pile them up into a non-leaning tower, do a little geometry to angle everything in, and suddenly I am all packed and ready for conference week. My stomach will be extraordinarily comfy.
Now, if I can just figure out how to avoid sitting for three straight days so my hip doesn't pop out, I'd be truly and deeply happy.
