The salad fiasco

It is known by most people that I am a vegetarian not so much by choice but by upbringing but at this point in my life I'm not sure that I could be anything else. I also have the problem of being a life long fussy eater. While I'm doing better now with food than I ever have before, I do still have one reoccurring problem. I eat them the same things again and again until eventually I get bored but the problem is that once that happens I have no idea what I should be eating instead. Lately I've been finding myself eating half my lunch and throwing the rest in the bin which leaves me annoyed and still hungry.

I am bored beyond belief of my current lunch (not the one pictured) but everytime I go food shopping I draw a blank. So I either lob the same fruit and veg into my trolley while feeling annoyed at my own predictability or I add something new to weeks shopping but then I am clueless as to how I actually incorporate said food into my diet. It seems that the years of eating a limited range of foods has not just harmed my body ( and oh boy has it harmed my body) but also stunted my imagination so that now I am more open to eating differently but I am lost in the world of possibilities. 

Last night I took to the internet in search of salad alternatives. To be fair what I was eating for lunch didn't exactly constitute a salad. It was two hard boiled eggs, carrot sticks, cucumber slices and slices of red pepper. I would also have two pieces of fruit, some ryvita with almond butter and and a handful of almonds. It's not really surprising that I quickly tired of it. Anyway I tried my hardest to find something online and was not having any luck. Everything was complicated and needed 50 ingredients =, a lot of it was unhealthy and nothing jumped out at me as something I might voluntarily eat. I don't know if I was overwrought or tired or maybe just frustrated with my diet but I got a little emotional when my search proved fruitless or saladless as the case may be. 

I texted my sister who's trained as chef as a last dash hope ( and mostly because it hadn't occurred to me earlier) for something quick and easy to make that tastes nice but I left it a bit late so I have the ingredients got but I'm waiting to hear back for instructions on what to do with them. Having seen her at work, I have a sneaking suspicion this salad might turn out to be neither quick nor easy.  Mini meltdown dealt with, I took myself to bed with my book feeling tired and cranky but with an early start this morning I needed to get some sleep.

This morning I woke feeling crusty from lack of sleep and also cranky but I dragged myself out of bed to start doing the millions of things that needed doing. 
once I'd woken up a bit more, I headed to Tesco's where I bought all the fruit and veg even throwing in some newbies like kale, avocados and mangos. I'm still not sure what to do with the kale though I've been lead to believe it's a super food. I still hadn't heard back from my sister re the salad that was going to change my life ( she might not have called it this) so I decided to improvise. The picture above is what I came up with. I'm unsure about the salad ( which is spinach, cucumber, grated carrot, avocado, a squeeze of lime and sunflower seeds) it looks nice but it's anyone's guess as to how it will taste. I also have rice cakes with almond butter, a slightly hollowed out apple filled with almond butter, almonds plus the fruit salad ( pear, mango, peach, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) 
Hopefully that will keep me going on my long long day. I'm not starting work till 1 and after last night's sleep I know that's going to feel like optimum nap time.