The Three Bs.......

The three B's beetroot, broad bean, and blood orange are an absolute triumph in my latest tiffin lunch box collection. Actually there should be a fourth B, Bliss......

The colours just scream spring, summer good times and hurry up stop typing and just eat me!

 

 
This recipe is for 2-3 (or 1 it's that yum)
 
Three B's Salad
Ingredients

• 4 spring onions
• Juice of 1 blood orange*
• 1.5 cups broad beans
• 50ml olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 4 small roasted beetroot quartered
• 4 radishes quartered
• 2 blood oranges* segmented
• 50 g soft goats cheese

Method

• Slice the spring onions (not too fine) and add to a mixing bowl with the blood orange juice
• Leave to marinate about 15 minutes
• Blanch the broad beans for 30-40 seconds in lightly salted boiling water, then plunge into icy water.
• Peal the outer shell of the broad bean
• Mix olive oil through spring onions and juice, season to taste
• Gently coat the beetroot, broad beans and radishes through the dressing so that they still hold their shape
• Gently add the blood orange segments
• Serve doted with soft goats cheese
• If there are any left overs the colour is great the next day as the blood orange and beetroot blend with the radishes and goats cheese

Notes:

• You can use tinned beetroot but for this I found it too soft. To roast place beetroot in a baking tray with a splash of olive oil and salt and bake cover in tin foil at 160ºC for about 1 hour till tender.
• Pealing the broad beans is to remove the bitterness of the outer shell but I don't mind the flavour so I leave some unpeeled for contrast in flavour and colour. 

 

 Really who wouldn't want to have that in their lunch box??

 You can go all fancy and try plating it master chef style and serve with lamb steaks. To be honest I prefer the look of it all together in the tin, I'm a simple kinda chap.

A tuna steak variation with boiled egg for a hint of the nicoise

 

*Redbelly Citrus supplied the blood oranges for this recipe. 

More love of purple: pickled turnips

Another favourite work lunch is based around Israel's entry to Chow Down to Eurovision 2013 with the added special feature of pickled turnips.

It fits so perfectly into my tiffin with some flat bread in the second level like it is just meant to be.

I truly could eat this everyday but with out sharing too much information your body will let you know when you've had enough hummus.......trust me!

 
Pickled Turnips
Ingredients

• 8-10 turnips
• 2 small beetroots
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 3 cups white vinegar
• 3 cups water
• 3-4 tbsp. salt

Method

• I used 3 x 600ml glass preserving jars
• Peel the turnips and cut into thick strips
• Cut the beetroot into chunks (I didn't peel)
• Peel garlic and leave whole
• Combine vinegar, water and salt into a mixing bowl
• Place about 4 pieces of beetroot and a garlic clove into each jar (the more beetroot the deeper the end colour will be)
• Fill each jar with turnips
• Cover with liquid, add the lid and store in the fridge
• They will be ready in about 2 weeks
• They should last over a month but I have no evidence of that as they never last that long uneaten

 

So pretty, this veg deserve so much more love

One must always colour coordinate the chopping board and knife to the dish being prepared........

Operation Work Lunch: Purple Potato Salad

We all know my great love of anything purple so to find it in a potato is straight out winning.

 

My local greengrocer has just changed hands and while still maintaining ridiculously cheap prices they have expanded their range. I think they deal directly with the farmers and are happy to sell the non visually perfect stock the supermarkets wont.

 

I bought a few extras last time so I can add another potato tower tomorrow with the view of harvesting for the Christmas table, potato bling!

 

The other two towers are progressing well with a little help from their friends but the rest of the garden hasn't been high yielding this year.

There was a moment of contemplating a blog challenge of just eating from my backyard but at this rate I would stave in 3 weeks. (although having typed that I did take some snaps and things may not be as bleak as first suspected)

 Rainbow chard, it will be frittata all round

 Purple asparagus

 Lots of broccoli leaves

 Waiting for the peas to pod off

Broad beans getting taller but no beans so far

 
 
Purple Potato Salad
Ingredients serves 1

• 2-3 medium purple potatoes (or regular)
• 1 rasher of bacon
• 2 boiled eggs, quartered
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• Splash of olive oil
• Sprinkle of linseeds

Method

• Add potatoes to a saucepan of cold water and simmer on low for about 25 minutes, till tender
• Chop bacon rasher into strips and fry (to the crispness you prefer)
• Drain the potatoes and cut into wedges
• Add to a bowl the potatoes, bacon, spring onions
• Splash with olive oil to coat
• Add the eggs and linseed and combine gently
• Season to taste

With bacon, egg, onion, and potato your lunch time really can't go wrong!
 

Gotta love a filter!

 
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Operation Work Lunch: Polka dot chickpea salad

It's time to reignite the war on terrible food with Operation Work Lunch ready for deployment.

I revisited the café where the war began and I truly have no idea how it is possible but I think it is even worse than before.

Looking at the dry brown shrivelled objects that were labelled "warm healthy salad" I almost shed a tear for the wasted potential of these poor brutalized vegetables.

While being at such a stage of hunger it would justify eating your frozen rugby teammates I did however order a ham and cheese toasted sandwich.

Not to be overly dramatic......

I would never have thought it possible to get a toasted sandwich wrong but by the time the coffee was made the sandwich was not only flattened not to less than an inch of it's life but was so squished that it could have slid under a door.

So that's it! Never again!

The key to the success of this mission is preparation, make your lunch the night before so that in the morning you only need enough time to stumble to the kitchen to pour yourself a cup of ambition.
Who doesn't love a bit of Dolly Parton?

 

Polka dot chickpea salad
Ingredients

• 400g chick peas
• 1 red onion finely sliced
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 red sweet chilli or capsicum roughly chopped
• 1 large zucchini rough chopped
• 1 tbsp. ground cumin seeds 
• Black sesame seeds ( just a many as you like)
• Olive oil

Method

• In a mixing bowl add the chickpeas, onion, lime juice, sweet chilli
• In a fry pan on high add a good splash of olive oil (this will also be the dressing)
• Add the zucchini, ground cumin and cook till tender.
• Remove from the heat and let cool for about 15 mins
• Add zucchini to mixing bowl
• Add black sesame seeds in and mix through

Note on chickpeas, you can use canned or do the whole soaking over night and boiling method either works great.
Now that lunch is so much healthier, tasty and a hell of a lot cheaper!
We will win the war!!

Mother Hubbards work lunch

As much as I would love it, like most people I don't have a Nigella sized pantry or a Master Chef store room that is restocked by the ingredient fairies overnight.
So there are time I stand in front of the fridge/pantry and say I have nothing to make. This quick post was the result of throwing some of the nothing together and ending up with a pretty good work lunch or side salad.

Rocket chickpea salad
Ingredients (or whatever you have on hand)

• rocket (washed)
• 1 can chickpeas (or soak dried)
• chopped capsicum
• chopped red onion
• chopped sweet chili
• Juice of 2 oranges
• good splash olive oil
• salt and pepper

Method

• Combine all ingredients and toss
• I didn't make the dressing separately I just added it all together.
• Serve and enjoy the pleasure of creating something from what seemed nothing.

Munching 9 to 5 - Carrot and cheese salad

No it's not a job as a taste tester, as awesomely appealing as that sounds.

The next offering in the War on Terrible Food aka BYO work lunch series.

This salad has had a couple of incarnations and can be used as an indicator of how our eating has changed over the years. When I was at school the major ingredient to this was a jar of mayonnaise, these days it gets a light dressing of olive oil and lemon juice.
If I'm honest the tasty model below only got a drizzle of olive oil, no lemon or salt and pepper, and it was just as yum.

Carrot and Cheese Grateness
Serves 1

Ingredients

• 2 medium carrots grated
• 50 grams grated cheese
• 1 fun size box (40g) sultanas
• black and white sesame seeds
• Olive oil
• juice of 1/2 small lemon

Method

• Add carrot, cheese, and sultanas to a bowl.
• Mix through a drizzle of oil and the lemon juice.
• Top with a sprinkle of seeds and run out the door to work.

Making it the night before will let the sultanas soak up the dressing and the carrots soften. You can also experiment with any seeds that take your fancy, lineseed, chia, pumpkin seeds.

War on terrrible food....

Enough is enough, I will no longer spend money on substandard work lunches or any food for that matter.
Make the pledge with me people.

I came to this mission after a month of the dodgy cafe next to my work ( it's a captive audience type arrangement), over priced, under flavoured, and about as healthy as a packet of Winnie Blue.
So as I stood in line looking at the upside down friands, waiting way to long for the usual bad coffee, I thought what am I doing here, I can cook, why am I wasting my money with somewhere that clearly can't.
My criteria was it has to be something cold and quick that was desk edible. I also want something healthy that tasted evil, and not like grass and dirt.
This wasn't part of a new years resolution as it has been sitting in draft for about 2 months. I'm not fond of the crazy diet resolution as it ends up like a business I saw on twitter. "Resolutions Gym" January it is a gym, from February to December it's a tapas bar.
Although one change I will make this year is to not eat at any resturant that is happy to throw their food out a window, e.g. no drive-thru.

This was the first wave of troops. Enjoy, and stop paying for rubbish food!

Corn Salsa Salad
The quantity of each ingredient is really up to you, I base it around 1 can of corn.

Ingredients

• 1 410gram can of corn kernels
• 1 head cos lettuce
• 1 handful cherry tomatoes
• 2 red onions finely sliced
• 1 Lebanese cucumber
• 1 long chili
• 1 handful flat leaf parsley
• 1 handful coriander
• 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

Method

• Drain corn
• Roughly chop lettuce, cucumber, chili, tomatoes and herbs.
• Combine in a bowl
• Add juice of the lime and 2 table spoons of olive oil
• Toss and serve
• If you take as much care with the chopping as it do, you will be finished in under 3 minutes.
• So many variations, add avocado, capsicum, mint.