OCD-PBJ
Step 1:
Prepare early by freezing the (whole-wheat) bread. (Not that difficult, considering the temperature in the kitchen/pantry).
Step 2:
Remove (all-natural) peanut butter from fridge to soften to room temperature. (Challenging, given the temperature in the room, not to mention the very nature of all-natural peanut butter.) Remove the all-natural strawberry fruit spread from the fridge.
Step 3:
Place flexible cutting board on kitchen counter. (The surface material is irrelevant. The goal is to keep the bread from coming into direct contact with the just-previously cockroach-sterilized countertop.)
Step 4:
Arrange (neatly, please!) eight slices of whole-wheat bread on top of prep surface. Be absolutely certain that the tops remain in perfect and predictable proximity to their bottoms. This is absolute crucial for a perfectly shaped sandwich and you really don’t want exposed fruit spread coming into contact with your final wrapping medium, thusly creating an extra mess when it comes time to wash your baggie.
Step 5:
Spread (!) peanut butter onto bread. This could be challenging depending on the temperature of all of your ingredients. The key is to be patient. Bigger globs work better than smaller globs, and will give you an extra boost of protein and creamy goodness. You might find that a spoon works better than a knife, but of course you don’t want to dirty any more dishes than necessary (but omg, the warm dish water feels good on your hands!). Don’t go too close to the edge of the bread.
Step 6:
Smooth the fruit spread onto the naked slice of bread which belongs to each related slice of peanut butter bread. A spoon works best, but -- to avoid cross-contamination -- certainly do not use the same spoon as you used with the peanut butter.
Step 7:
Stack each perfectly matched fruit-spread-top to its perfectly matched peanut-butter-bottom. Press gently (so as not to create an ooze-effect which will make washing the baggie more challenging).
Step 8:
Place the completed sandwiches into a one-gallon zipper-lock baggie. New baggies work best because, after multiple washings (for some ridiculous reason), the zippers stop cooperating, especially with cold-challenged hands. For today’s lesson, four sandwiches stack perfectly. If it was a 5-day work-week, I would recommend putting a fifth sandwich in its own personal quart bag, ready to grab-and-go for day one. Five-day OCD-PBJ projects are a bit more challenging since they don’t fit quite so well geometrically onto a work-surface.In that case, I would recommend doing first three sandwiches, and then two. A little more work, but so worth it given the mathematical dilemma. The other advantage to a five-day challenge is that you will automatically have that first-day one-quart baggie into which you can place each subsequent sandwich. And the end of the week, you only have two baggies to wash! (Which you would in either case, anyway, duh.)
Step 9:
Place your hearty-semi-all-natural-home-prepared gourmet lunch meal(s) into the fridge, lick the spoons, and then turn your attention to the Chicken Alfredo that is burning on the stove.