I recently received a blog request from one of my loyal followers… OK, it was from my daughter, Marissa. But she counts as my most loyal follower. No one has commented more, in the nearly 3-year life of this site, than my sweet girl. And I thank her profusely for that and for her constant support and encouragement. To that end, naturally, I will be fulfilling her request.

She asked if I could post some brown-bag recipes. New ideas for yummy stuff she could take into the office for lunch. Marissa has a varied and sophisticated palate. She was a vegetarian back in middle school and still doesn’t eat much meat, although she, like most intelligent individuals, loves bacon.

All week I will be creating recipes and giving specific instructions for brown-bagging. Each of these recipes will not only make for a perfect lunch but a lovely light supper too.

In most cases, everything listed in each recipe can be easily found at Trader Joe’s. (Which is, of course, this mother and daughter’s favorite place to grocery shop.) Take the hearts of palm in this recipe for example. Sure you may find them in a regular grocery store… eventually. But you’ll probably need to search high and low until you finally give up and ask for help. But at TJ’s they will be on the one and only aisle of canned and jarred goods… right alongside the pepperoncini peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar you will also need to purchase, if you don’t already have them on hand. And there is no better place to buy cheese, it’s always fresh at TJ’s because of the high turnaround… and the price is hard to beat. As for the produce – unless the grocery store is running the specific items on an ad that week, the price is about the same. Well, except for the basil. No grocery store can touch the super low price of basil at TJ’s!

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