If you work outside of the home, what do you do for lunch? Do you bring leftovers? Make a sandwich? Eat a frozen meal? And how do you bring your lunch to work?

For me, before a few weeks ago I’d have answered that I bring my lunch to work in a Safeway plastic bag. Because I’m ghetto like that. But then opportunity reared its head and my friend asked me if I’d like to review one of the 31 Bags lunch totes, I jumped at the chance. Yes please!

My only concern about the bag was whether it would be big enough to hold everything. In case you were out of the loop, I’m 8.5 months pregnant so I’m eating a LOT.  (Spoiler alert: It was totally big enough, with room to spare!)

When I first got the bag, besides the really cute print (it’s “Woodblock Floral”), the first thing I noticed and loved was that it’s insulated. We have a gazillion ice packs in our freezer because apparently an ice pack and a bandaid heals all 5-year-old troubles. You can’t use an ice pack in a Safeway bag so this was the first selling point to me.

See inside? The shiny metal looking part is the insulation and the ice pack’s under the orange-topped container. Look how much room is in there!

I was able to fit all of the below and could have put way more. Love that. Below you’ll see my morning snack (the Life cereal), breakfast (chocolate banana muffins and a banana), lunch, and afternoon snack (yogurt and apple).

Funny little side story about this bag. We went to see The Croods a few weeks ago and I hate spending $20 on the junk that tries to pass as food at the movie theater. So, since this bag sort of looks like a purse I filled it up with cheese sticks, cereal bars, Triscuits, and applesauce squeezers to eat during the movie. Can’t do that with a Safeway bag (without getting caught) either!  LOL

Here’s where the exciting part comes in. One of you will win this tote (in whatever pattern you choose)! Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below and a winner will be chosen on May 1st.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you want to buy a 31 Bag but don’t want a lunch tote, there are some specials running that you might be interested in.  The special for April is for every $35 spent, you can get a Pro Duffle for $25 (regularly $80) or a Jr. Rec Duffle for $10 (regularly $35). These bags are ONLY available in the month of April and from what I hear they’re roomy and awesome.

Disclosure: I was gifted the featured lunch tote in exchange for this review and giveaway. I have not been otherwise compensated and all opinions are my own. My 31 Bags consultant just happens to be my best friend, but that did not sway my opinions. Pinky swear!

This post is listed at http://www.online-sweepstakes.com.

Lunches for me are difficult.  I’m really lazy about packing a lunch so usually I’ll just pack leftovers when I’m cleaning up the night before, or head out to ChickFilA for a sandwich crack. It’s not too often that I actually buy a frozen meal to eat because most of them are just so…blah.  And really freaking high in sodium.  (Why IS that???)

However, recently when I was at Target during lunchtime running errands, I picked up one of the Chef’s Picks from Lean Cuisine. Typically if I get a frozen meal I’m likely to choose Lean Cuisine because historically they’ve had better choices than some of the other brands.

This time I picked the Glazed Chicken. I wasn’t sure about the lemon-tarragon sauce, but the picture just looked so good I figured I’d give it a shot. Pretty, isn’t it?

Of course, it never looks as pretty when you make it at home (as evidenced below), but I’m really glad I decided to try this one. This may actually be my very favorite frozen meal EVER. Seriously. I should have gotten two because now I’ll be craving it every day  for the next 2 weeks (pregnancy cravings are an odd thing, aren’t they?).

The cool thing about these Chef’s Picks entrees, is that they’re created by real chef.  Like, ones you may have actually heard of (Michelle Bernstein, anyone?). So the flavors are layered and interesting, and really freaking good.  Try it.  I promise you won’t be sorry (at least, if you get the Glazed Chicken, that is).

I have partnered with Lean Cuisine through DailyBuzz Food to help promote their new line of Chef’s Pick products. I have been compensated for my time commitment to work with this product. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments. Thank you Lean Cuisine!

Do you keep “convenience food” in your freezer?  Typically, we don’t.  Except for the Tyson dinosaur nuggets that have saved many lunchtime disasters.  I especially don’t usually keep pizza in the freezer because it takes up so much space.  Yes, it’s flat space, but it’s space nonetheless.

However, when BOLD Organics asked me to try their pizza for free and give my opinion, I couldn’t say no.  Hello?  Free food? Sign me up!

The best part was that a new MOM’s Organic Market had just opened up in the next town over, and that’s one of the few stores that carries this brand.  A perfect opportunity to check out the new store, and get a (hopefully) yummy lunch in the process.

(As an aside, the store was just…meh.  The prices were pretty high, and it smelled heavily of patchouli and earth. They did have a large variety of produce, though, so we had fun poking around there. And we picked up some bulk split peas for soup for a good price.)

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?  The BOLD Organics pizzas are gluten-free and dairy-free, which usually scares me off. But I forged ahead and it actually was pretty good. The crust was actually quite excellent; I never would have known it was gluten-free.  The seasonings and roasted veggies were great, also. One complaint (and it may have been user error) was that the cheese/sauce was a little…slimy.  The directions say to broil the pizza at the end of the cooking time and I didn’t do that, so perhaps that’s why the texture was that way.  I don’t know.

My other complaint was the size of this pizza.  I bought it with the intention of my husband and I splitting it for lunch, but it was not nearly large enough. The box is quite a bit bigger than the pizza, so that was a little disappointing.  Maybe if we’d had a huge salad or something with it we could have stretched it to feed both of us, but not on its own.

If you want to try the pizza, there’s a coupon on their Facebook page.

One of my goals in starting this blog was to cook more recipes from scratch.  To stop relying on boxes and cans of food, and make my own wholesome food.  But sometimes us working moms need a break from all that kitchen time and spend some good quality time with our kids.  I still want to feed my family healthy food, but I don’t always have time.

I try to keep whole wheat pizza dough in my freezer but I’m not always successful.  Last week was one of those times when I didn’t have any ideas for dinner, had just one thawed chicken breast in the fridge, and had no clue what I was going to make for dinner.  But then my husband reminded me that I had one of Pillsbury’s new Artisan Whole Wheat Pizza Crusts in the fridge, so we decided to make some Barbeque Chicken Pizza with it.

The pizza crust was fantastic.  The ingredients were, for the most part, pronounceable and I’m always happy when whole grains are the first ingredient.  It baked up crispy with a little bit of “chew” to it, which is just the way I like it.  I slathered some Sweet Baby Ray’s on the crust, topped it with some seasoned chicken, red onion, and cheddar cheese.  Delish!

Wanna try it yourself?  You can get a $1.25 coupon on their website, and who doesn’t like to save money?  You can also enter below for your chance to win a gift pack that includes a coupon for a free Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Crust with Whole Grain, a $10 gift card to use for ingredients, a baking sheet, oven mitt, and pizza cutter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: The product, gift pack, information, and additional sample have been provided by Pillsbury through MyBlogSpark.