A quick and easy lunch

We have been posting some complex recipes recently.   While they are totally delicious and worth the effort, especially when entertaining around the holidays, they can't really be thrown together without doing some up-front planning, specialty shopping, and taking the time to prepare the dishes.  To switch things up a bit, I want to share with you what I had for lunch today.

A sunshine burger sandwich, with a side salad, baby carrots, and black beans

While there isn't a specific recipe, I will explain what it all is, and how I brought it all together into a quick, nutritious and very satisfying lunch.

Everything I pulled out of the fridge, freezer, and pantry

Serves: 1

Prep time: 11 minutes (I timed myself, without rushing or leaving a mess)

Ingredients:

2 slices of Ezekiel 4:9 Sesame Sprouted Whole Grain Bread
1 Sunshine burger
1 cup of black beans
2 tablespoons of salsa
10 baby carrots
1 tomato
1/2 an avocado
1/2 romain lettuce heart
mustard to taste

Instructions:

Put one cup of black beans and two tablespoons of salsa into a small pot and heat on medium high.  I used black beans that I had previously prepared in the pressure cooker, and keep in that big jar in the fridge, but half a can of black beans would work just as well.  While black beans typically taste fine on their own, I wanted to spice them up a bit today and adding low or no-salt salsa while reheating them is a simple way to do that.  It also sneaks a few more veggies into your lunch.

Heat the sunshine burger, either on the stove, in the microwave, or in a toaster oven.  Today I heated mine on the stove, other times I'll start it in the microwave for 40 seconds and then finish it in the toaster with the Ezekiel bread to keep it from getting soggy.

Lightly toast two slices of Ezekiel bread, being careful not to make it too crunchy or dark.

Peel off two leaves of lettuce to use on your sandwich, and chop some more and put it on your plate to start the salad.  Cut three slices of tomato, and dice the rest and put it on top of the lettuce.  Cut and slice half the avocado putting half of the slices on top of your salad and leaving the rest for your sandwich.

By this time the beans should be boiling, the bread should be toasted, and the sunshine burger should be flipped and almost done.  Assemble your sandwich, and put it on your plate next to the salad and add some baby carrots.  Put the beans in a bowl, pour yourself a glass of water, and sit down and enjoy your quick, easy, nutritious, and delicious lunch!  That's all there is to it.

A Sunshine burger with lettuce, tomato, avocado, and mustard on Ezekiel toast 

Black beans with salsa