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.

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.