guest post: a primal kitchen lunchbox

Hey everyone, today we have a treat - a post from one of my favorite ever blogs, Primal Kitchen. We are doing a lunchbox swap, so you can find my latest eats over on her blog. Since I found the blog I've adored the recipes, and especially the lunchboxes...Enjoy and be inspired!

Greetings, fans of Not Just Apples! It is my great pleasure to do a guest blog post lunchbox swap with Alissa - her blog and its pictures simply radiate dedication to a nourishing whole foods lifestyle. I am Primal Kitchen's Family Grokumentarian - I blog over at Primal Kitchen: A Family Grokumentary, where you'll see over a hundred (and counting) pictures and descriptions of lunches that I've packed for my preschooler and my husband.

I am a huge advocate of packing leftovers in lunches if it can be managed. Doing so prevents waste, saves money (instead of creating or buying an entirely new lunch), and leaves one more in control of the ingredients that go into one's food (as opposed to eating out).

Alongside the previous night's leftovers, I usually try to add a couple of fresh options to keep some variety going.

Here are a couple of examples:

Here, I had slow-cooked dark meat chicken with cabbage and carrots for dinner.
The dish was accessorized with a few pickles and a bag of raw almonds for my husband's lunch.

Here's another slow-cooked leftovers lunch.
Roast beef with cubed potatoes in the main dish - on the right is a mix of
watermelon and sliced cherries, as well as a dish of fresh raw sugar snap peas.

I love using kitchen shears to slice meat - saves so much time!

Sometimes, rather than slow-cook, I favor a lunch that comes together quickly under a broiler or on a grill. In this case, I skewered some lamb, and seasoned it with paprika, white ground pepper, and freshly ground sea salt. I sliced several peppers (aka capsicum) into 1 cm strips, and tossed them with coconut oil, garlic powder, paprika, and freshly ground sea salt. The skewers of lamb were in one dish, the peppers in another. I had both under a high heat broiler for about ten minutes, with a break to turn everything over once halfway through.

This process left the lamb nicely rare but with a charred and well-seasoned outside - as I prefer it. This dish could be tossed together (as shown) and then refrigerated overnight in a lunch-appropriate lidded dish, allowing the flavors to meld.




I hope that this mix of lunches has left you with a few new ideas for what you might pack in your lunches in the coming weeks! Enjoy your weekend.