What to pack for lunch?!?

Working five days a week, I quickly realized some things about lunching at work: 1. It's expensive to buy lunch everyday; 2. Hospital cafeteria? Not always appealing.; 3. You can't always count on leftovers; 4. Peanut butter and jelly gets old really fast.  On top of all of that, once you take into account that I'm supposed to be limiting my intake of lunch meat and tuna fish... there's a huge lunchtime dilemma.

Some of my biggest brown-bag breakthroughs have started with thinking about what I like to eat when I eat out.  Recreating things that I would typically order off of a menu and making them my way at home has proven to be delicious in the past, and I decided to apply the same way of thinking to sandwich making. 

My inspiration: the Mediterranean Veggie Sandwich at Panera. 

Although delicious, their version would cost me about $7 per day, and really isn't logistically possible.  In addition to saving money, I can customize my version to use whatever ingredients I feel like/have on hand, using the basic equation: Bread+ Hummus+ Veggies= Yummy Sandwich. 

Today's sandwich was made with multi grain bread, jalapeño hummus, reduced-fat feta cheese, roasted red peppers, and cucumber slices.  To start, I spread the hummus on both sides of the bread (to make sure that the veggies didn't make my bread soggy by lunch time); then I just topped it with my feta, fresh cucumbers and roasted red pepper slices. The result was both filling and healthy, and added some much needed spice and variety to my day.  I'm looking forward to future variations on this simple idea... and to the something-chocolate that it left me craving...