Channeling MacGyver

I went redneck with my lunch yesterday. Or maybe it’d be cooler to say I went MacGyver.

Yeah, that’s it. I totally went MacGyver.

We had fixed Taco Salad for the church youth group Sunday and still had leftovers come Wednesday evening. The nice thing about salad is that, as long as you don’t overdo the dressing or, in the case of taco salad, load up on chips, it’s a fairly low calorie and healthy meal choice. For that reason, I had one for dinner both Monday and Wednesday evenings.

I had nothing planned for lunch the next day and thought, Hey! Taco salad sure would be nice. Problem is that my one little bowl at work isn’t big enough for the mound of lettuce involved. Last time I tried this, I mixed everything in the salad mix bag. That worked ok but those bags are fragile and tend to tear down the side while you are attacking the contents with a fork.

As I was contemplating my bowl-at-work options, it occurred to me that we had purchased one of those big rectangular plastic boxes of 50/50 spinach/spring mix things since we had been buying for a group. There was still some lettuce in it.

Score! I opened the new bag of lettuce and added some to the box. Then I added onions and shredded cheese. The ziploc bag of remaining taco meat was just right for one serving, so I scooted the lettuce/onion/cheese over a bit and placed the bag of meat inside, to be heated up at work. Then I poured some green salsa in a small plastic container, added the Italian dressing to it, placed the lid, and nestled the container into the lettuce. That’s when I noticed that the bag of tortilla chips also held a very meager supply of already-crushed chips. So I rolled the bag up, ignored any concerns about whether the outside of the chip bag was actually clean, and laid it carefully on top of the salad before closing the lid.

Voila! All the ingredients contained inside the box, which I could then eat out of the next day before throwing away. And it’s a testament to how my week has gone that this event caused me as much joy as it did. Sometimes it’s the little things in life.

Maybe all my daughter needs to come out of her One Direction mourning is to eat salad out of a bumpy, flimsy plastic box. Or maybe not. Not everyone can be MacGyver.