Jars Stuffed With Goodness

Apologies for the massive space between the last post and this one. The past few months have been such a blur - I got my degree, graduated with a 2:1 (woohooo!), moved back home, got myself a cushy office job, and have been having a great time seeing the boy and the friends and doing lots of fun stuff.

Since bagging aforementioned job, I've had a bit of a struggle with planning my lunches. Over the next year my vague goals are to save a lot of money and lose a little weight. (More specifically, I want to eat a little less than I do currently (I snack like a demon), add more veg to my day-to-day life, and work out a proper lifting routine at the gym, with set goals so that I can track my improvement. But that's a story for another post) 

One of the areas I've identified as addressing both the money and the weight goals is my lunch at work. I've been working for three weeks, and though some days I'll bring myself a packed lunch from home, there have been other days where I've spent £3-£5 on bought food from town (I did have the best burrito of my life the other day, though, so I don't regret a damn thing about that). I've read all these blog posts about salads in jars, how they keep everything fresh and crisp, and thought this Sunday that I might try bulk-making a buttload of salad to last me through the week.

I started by chopping up a load of veggies - obviously anything works, but in this one I've got roughly chopped rocket leaves (arugula for you 'Muricans), sweetcorn, carrot, cucumber, mushroom and a finely chopped red chilli.

I don't know about you, but that alone wouldn't be enough to keep me filled up for the afternoon. So I've bulked out this salad with chickpeas, quinoa and lentil sprouts. To keep things mixed up, throughout the week I'll be adding little extras each morning like tuna, chicken, cheese or avocado.

All mixed up! Yum. In total this cost me around £9 as well as using a couple of veg that were languishing around the bottom of the fridge. That works out to be less than £2 per day! I'll be supplementing my snacking fetish with packs of low-calorie popcorn and my staple desk snack - a punnet of blueberries.

Have any of you guys done this before? Got any recommendations for some more weekday lunches I can make in bulk on a Sunday evening?

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