Photo by Don Brockmeier
I truly enjoy office time in the historic F Johnson Building, and I am learning that most of my creative and productive work gets done between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Ioften work through the lunch hour, and by 3 in the afternoon, my hunger subsides, and I decide to skip lunch entirely and go to the finish without food. I substitute real food by imagining a substantial dinner menu including a Hot Fudge Sunday for dessert since I skipped lunch.
That is until I experimented with a new salad dressing, Buzz Savories Honey Mustard Dressing and made my first Lunch in a Box..
Health and fitness professionals seem to agree that small amounts of food through the day improve health versus eating 1 large meal at day’s end. I agree and find that my metabolism and my stomach prefer me to eat lunch, and lately I devised a new plan – Lunch in a Box – that I easily transport to my office or pack in my car when I’m traveling to the Mustard Merchants or to The Creamery where I manufacture the mustards.
The Box is filled with crunchy vegetables and tender avocado and hard boiled eggs and Buzz Savories Honey Mustard Dressing that makes it all taste really good. I add pecans or almonds, red onions, left over baked sweet potato chunks, sugar snap peas, dried cranberries, leftover chicken or steak, ham?
I will start at the beginning – the dressing, a Buzz Savories Honey Mustard, a simple, hearty dressing to highlight the flavors of the vegetables and proteins in my salad.
Buzz Savories Honey Mustard Dressing
Most often I now bring my Lunch in a Box, eat at my desk and feel pleasantly full and totally satisfied. Additional benefits:
(1) make ahead and refrigerate – Lunch in a Box stays fresh for several days so make more than one and save for a lunch later in the week.
(2) Use vegetables in your refrigerator that likely are waiting for you to slice and dice them
(3) add a protein of your choice – hard boiled egg, leftover chicken, leftover steak, cubes of cheese.
(4) Lunch in a Box recipe that follows combines 7 common ingredients into a hearty, colorful and delicious salad that satisfies my hunger for 4 hours.
I bought 2 polypropylene (PP) hard plastic containers with tight-fitting lids. Size: 6″ x 6″ x 4″
I make a simple Honey Mustard Dressing: Combine 1/4 cup. Buzz Savories Honey Mustard with 1/4 cup Rice vinegar and 1/4 cup vegetable oil of your choice and add 1/2 tsp. salt Mix the mustard and the vinegar and the salt, then slowly drip in the oil while whipping with a wire ship. The mixture will form an emulsion. Taste and season with more salt if desired. Pour into a jar, cover and refrigerate.
Salad greens vary according to your taste and products in hand. I suggest baby spinach or kale sliced into ribbons or Swiss Chard also sliced into thin ribbons. Miniature cucumbers, Miniature peppers, Kalamata olives, tender greens – chives, parsley, mint,and topped with hard boiled eggs and 1/2 or 1 whole avocado. Avocados make any salad taste rich and luxurious in my opinion.
Lunch in a Box
Equipment
- PP Plastic or glass box 6" x 6" x 4" with a tight fitting lid
What You'll Need:
Buzz Savories Honey Mustard Dressing
- ¼ cup Buzz Savories Honey Mustard
- ¼ cup rice vinegar
- ¼ cup canola oil or olive oil
- ½ tsp salt
Lunch in a Box
- 2 whole Persian/miniature cucumbers sliced thin
- 2 handfuls baby spinach leaves or ribbons of kale
- 4 whole miniature sweet peppers
- 1 handful tender herbs (chives, parsley, mint, dill) use what you have available, one or all, and chop fine
- 1 or 2 whole hard boiled eggs quartered
- ½ whole avocado cut in chunks
- 4 whole Kalamata olives cut slices from the seed
How To Prepare:
- In a 2 cup mixing bowl, mix the mustard, rice vinegar and salt
- with a wire whip in hand, drip the oil into the mustard mixture and whip as it forms an emulsion
- keep refrigerated in a container with a tight fitting lid
- measure and pour 2 Tb. Buzz Savories Honey Mustard Dressing into the box
- layer the cucumbers on top of the dressing and add 2 generous handfuls of baby spinach or ribbons of kale and the finely chopped tender herbs
- top with the colorful peppers, avocado, Kalamata olive slices and hard boiled eggs
- close the box with a tight fitting lid and refrigerate
- Shake well before serving
A New Series
Please meet the Buzz Savories Mustard Merchants in the Buzz Savories newsletters: I appreciate their enthusiasm for the Spicy Beer Mustard and the Honey Mustard. The Mustard Merchants initiate sales, and they pass on the recipes that customers like to me, and then I share them with you..
Photos of the Mustard Merchants and their businesses will give you a glimpse of small towns in south-central Nebraska, our business store fronts, and also some city-scapes since Mustard Merchants sell Buzz Savories Mustards in Lincoln, the State Capitol.
Please meet Dianna Krumme, manager of H & J Grocery and Beverage business. H & J has been operating continuously since 1886 when Eustis was incorporated as a Village as a railroad was built through the Nebraska Territory. Since its beginning the grocery and beverage store featured sausages made in the tradition of the German population who immigrated to the territory to farm and start banks and all services needed by an industrious and soon-to-be prosperous population.
:Photos by Photographer, Don Brockmeier,
Since the 1800’s the H & J has specialized in meats and especially home made sausage recipes that the immigrants brought with them from Germany to Eustis, Nebraska. Entrepreneurs in the region built and now manage a factory, Rowdy’s Meats in the village. Rowdy;s smokes various sausages, and cuts of beef, brats, Polish sausages, and many more distinctive recipes. https://www.rowdysnacks.com I recommend every one of their products and especially Rowdy’s Hard Tac, a cured sausage snack. This eat-on-the-go and high protein snack is a dry-cured smoky flavored sausage treat from Eustis, Nebraska.
H & J serves a popular hot breakfast on Saturdays to patrons and hunters who populate the area during deer, pheasant, turkey, and quail seasons. Their deli makes sandwiches for sale in the meat counter that also features juicy and full-of-flavor Brats. Also I buy handmade noodles at H & J. The Eustis Senior Center members hand-make traditional noodles that I must have for soups and pasta recipes.
Stop in for a cup of coffee and a sandwich and a story.
I thank 
I prepare this non-cook recipe many times in the summer months, and I most often open a can of great northern beans grown near Scotts Bluff in Western Nebraska as the first of the four ingredients.
And returning to Why do we Cook query and especially in summer, I guess I’m cooking when I prepare the Simple, Sensational Bean Salad although I’m mainly opening cans and chopping cold vegetables. Anyway the tasks feel easy, and I stay cool.
