This Week's Lunchbox: No-Mayo Egg Salad Sandwich with Kale Chips

I try to pack lunch so that I am not tempted by fast food or don't end up at the after-school program getting "lunch" out of the vending machine. It's tough, though, because I don't like deli meats, hate mayo, and can't really get into pb&j that much as an adult. Plus, bringing something that needs to be heated up doesn't always work either.

As I result, found myself just taking boiled eggs with me because the protein is definitely filling or taking a can of tuna and just eating it (again, I hate mayo so tuna salad is no good). Recently, though , I found an egg salad recipe that didn't use mayo (yeah!!), but did use avocados (yeah again). I've created my own variation on it and I love it. I pack the bread and salad separate and eat it open-faced. If you have a nice, crispy romaine, put it underneath the egg salad. Even better.

Egg Salad

Ingredients

• 3 boiled eggs (I like mine soft-medium boiled, not runny but not hard)
  
• 1/2-1 avocado
  
• 1/8 cup shelled and cooked edamame
  
• 1 squirt of spicy mustard (or whichever mustard you choose)
• 1 dollop sour cream
  
• 1 small, chopped shallot (I typically don't use shallots, since I had some, I added it).
  
• Red onion (just a little bit for some bite - eyeball it)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Boil eggs (to the hardness you desire). When eggs are cool, dice them. I use an egg slicer and do it 2 ways and then break the egg apart a bit more in the mixing bowl with a butter knife.
2. Cook edamame
3. Chop edamame, onions, shallot and avocado
4. Mix together the egg and other chopped ingredients.
5. Add sour cream (I typically use 2-3 spoonfuls) and add 1 squirt mustard (I like to use spicy brown - go easy on it. I find if you add too much mustard it can overpower the other flavors)

Serve as mentioned above.

Kale Chips

• Kale (as much as you want - just tear it off the stem)
• Olive Oil
  
• Sea Salt and Pepper

It's best to just refer you to Kath Eats Real Food and The Kitchn, the two blogs I referenced and pulled from to make my Kale Chips.

Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!

You can't go wrong with cookies. Tonight I made chocolate chip & mini peanut butter cup cookies. Yum, yum, yum.

They were made using whole wheat flour and steel cut oats, so they are healthy, right?? Okay, so, I guess not, but they are delicious!!

Ingredients:

• 2 cup whole wheat flour (my cups were not quite filled to the top)
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 salt
• 1 cup butter (I actually used just under 1 cup because that's all I had and I melted the butter)
• 3/4 sugar
• 3/4 brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 t vanilla
• 1/4 steel cut oats
• 3/4 bag chocolate chips
• 5 oz. mini peanut butter cups

Preparation

1. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Mix well.
2. In a larger bowl, combine butter (melted) and sugars. Mix well. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well.
3. Gradually add flour to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Stir in oats and add chocolate chips and mini peanut butter cups.
4. Preheat oven to 350 or 375 degrees (depends on your oven - I have a small oven and did my cookies at 350 for 12 minutes and only did 6 cookies at a time).

My cookies stuck to the pan a bit because I didn't have an butter to grease the pan or parchment paper or silicone mats or anything, but part of the fun of cookies can be the melted chocolate on the pan.

This was the first time I've used whole wheat flour and I was happy with the results.