I love making breakfast foods, and I especially love eating them. I also love the heck out of dinner! I get so excited to make dinner because it is so much fun; It’s versatile, it can even be breakfast for dinner too if you want, and you can essentially make anything your little heart desires. But lunch.. lunch is like a red-headed step child. When lunch time rolls around, I’m usually deciding what kind of snack-type meal I’m going to make in between my “actual” meals of breakfast and dinner, because breakfast and dinner are really where it’s at. Quite honestly too, I don’t have a raging appetite for lunch now that it’s summertime. My schedule is a bit different now that it’s summer, and goes a little something like this:

• Wake up around 7:30 (I usually don’t set an alarm, my body is dead set on its circadian rhythm)
• Drink some coffee & a down a quick snack (like my almond butter dates)
• Digest for about 30min-1hour or until I feel like I won’t puke if I workout
• Go to the gym/go running/do a running workout
• Get home after my run/workout around 10-11am, eat a HUGE awesome breakfast
• 2-3pm… whoops. I didn’t eat lunch because I had breakfast at 11 and now its getting close to dinner, but I’m hungry?!
• Make something small but mighty to hold me over!

I think most people would assume that I thoroughly enjoy cooking each and every day. That is essentially true, except for some random times…. and for lunch. Lunch is frustrating to me and I always just want something quick to fuel the tank and get me some nutrients to fill me up before dinner time. Im notorious for snacking through lunch instead of making an actual meal, but I’ve been working on it! (We all have our own challenges, eh?)

Since I don’t like putting much energy into lunch most days, I usually throw together random vegetables I have and sauté them up with some grassfed butter, salt and pepper.

The recipe below is exactly what I made yesterday and is a pure reflection of the ingredients I currently had in my fridge. So for the love of all that is good, please throw in absolutely whatever vegetables you like and whatever you may have stocked up in your fridge! This is meant to be a template for you, so please add what you like and take away what you don’t. Also, This recipe is a great one to make when you’re living on a budget (like me!!) and you need to use up those last random things that are about to go bad in a few days if you don’t use them soon.

A pretty neat thing about this recipe being an template for you is that it will teach you how to cook without actually following a recipe in the future. As for myself, I never really follow recipes or buy groceries with a recipe in mind that I plan on following step by step. I typically just buy things and cook them. I think many people want to learn how to just cook without following recipes, but they have it in their minds that it’s this big complicated thing to know how to do. You just gotta have the courage to throw some stuff in a pan, smell some spices in your cabinet you think might taste good with the food your making, and see what happens. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, give it to your guy friends/boyfriend/husband to eat and they’ll love you! Genius.

Anyway, Sautéed veggies are the bomb, and cooking them simply allows you to taste their true flavors. One time I had a friend over for dinner and made this sort of sautéed veggie compilation as a side dish, and she was blown away at how good my veggies were. She was like, “OH. MY. GOD! How did you cook these?! They’re seriously amazing!!!!” And when I told her it was just butter, salt and pepper, she didn’t believe me.

Believe it people! Fresh food doesn’t have to be made with some complicated day-long recipe to taste freakin’ good.