5 Easy Lunchbox Salads you can take to work for lunch

I've been eating a lot of salads lately, and taking one in to work every day for my lunch. It's cheaper than going out and buying one every day and this way I can put exactly what I want into it. Sometimes I get into a bit of a rut eating the same salads every day and end up looking around the internet for inspiration so I thought I'd share my current top five.

Please excuse the simple presentation - this is literally how I take the salads into work for lunch!
First up is really easy - any types of lettuce that you like, topped with feta cheese and chunks of fresh watermelon. A light vinaigrette dressing goes well with this. I usually eat this salad with a packet of ready cooked chicken pieces for protein and to make it more filling.

This salad is my latest addiction: pear, blue cheese and walnut. Again you can use any type of lettuce as a base, and if you like things like cucumber add it in (I don't). I used gorgonzola - I was going to use Roquefort but couldn't get any, but this worked really well. Top with peeled and sliced pear and a handful of walnuts. This goes well with a blue cheese dressing.

 

A different type of cheese for this salad: goat's cheese with bacon lardons (you need to cook the lardons first then let them go cold before adding to the salad). Use on a bed of your favourite lettuce. This goes well with a wine vinegar and Dijon mustard dressing.

 

 

 

This one takes a little longer to make but is good if you want something more substantial for lunch or to take on a picnic. Cook some pasta and drain; while it's still warm, toss through some green pesto from a jar, add some crayfish or prawns (I used crayfish here) and some pine nuts. You can serve this hot or cold.

Finally a bulgur wheat-based salad. This one does take a bit of preparation but you can make a larger quantity in one go. Put the bulgur wheat in a bowl and cover with water; leave for 15 minutes and then drain. Bring a pan of water to the boil - you need roughly three cups water to one cup bulgur wheat. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for 5 minutes and drain off any excess water.

I used cubes of roasted butternut squash in this salad; sweet potato works really well. If you don't have time to cook, you can buy tubs of roasted sweet potato, butternut squash and carrot to add to salads from Tesco. I've also added feta cheese and some fresh parsley.

 

 

I've certainly got no excuse to have the same thing every day for lunch now!

Quinoa Cheese Tartlets

I’ve been following a low sugar diet for the last few weeks and bought the book I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, which is full of healthy recipes. Weekend lunches are probably the meals where I struggle most to come up with dishes – my fiancé would have a bacon sandwich every Saturday and every Sunday if he could, but I prefer to cook different things and at the moment I’m not really eating bread so that doesn’t work for me at all.

 

I found a recipe in I Quit Sugar for quinoa and pumpkin tarts which I knew my fiancé would never eat, so I decided to do him a cheese and bacon tart on a pastry base to use up some shortcrust pastry I had in the freezer. For myself, I followed the recipe but scaled it down as I didn’t need it to serve 4. I also used butternut squash instead of pumpkin, and agave nectar instead of rice malt syrup. I also realised I didn’t have any parmesan so used a little gruyere instead, along with the blue cheese and ricotta.

 

It was a bit fiddly to make as you have to rinse the quinoa first then cook it, then let it cool and form a ‘pie crust’ and then bake it blind, while cooking the butternut squash at the same time. The quinoa created a surprisingly good base for the tart and it was really tasty – butternut squash and blue cheese is a nice flavour combination and the creaminess of the ricotta was a lovely addition. I don’t know whether I’d go to the lengths of making these again but I think if I was soaking and cooking quinoa for a couple of recipes at the same time, eg a salad for lunch at work and then these tarts the next day, then it would be well worth the effort.

Mixing the quinoa with the cheese and egg:

I used a mixture of loose-bottomed tart tins and, because I couldn't find where my cleaner had put the bottoms to the other ones, some mini foil pie dishes. Here they are about to go in the oven.

The base is baked, so adding the topping

Just out of the oven

Serve with lots of green salad

 

I'm sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes

 

 

 

Slow Cooker Baked Potato

I haven't used my slow cooker for a few months since I moved in August, so was inspired by the Slow Cooker Challenge on Farmersgirl Kitchen to dig it out. Janice, aka Farmersgirl, has an open theme this month so I had a look around on other blogs to find something that would be fairly easy. I came across a couple of recipes for jacket potatoes done in the slow cooker - it never occured to me to bake them like that. Jacket potatoes take a good 1-2 hours in the oven depending on size (I like to choose the biggest potato I can find) and in a slow cooker they take pretty much all day: about 4 hours on the high setting, or up to 8 hours on the slow setting, which the other bloggers recommended. However, I wanted a baked potato for lunch and wasn't getting up that early in the morning, so I did mine on the high setting.

One useful tip I came across was to wad up little balls of tin foil and place them on the bottom of the slow cooker, and the potato (wrapped in foil) on top. This stops the bottom of the potato from being in contact with the base of the slow cooker and developing a brown spot.

I rubbed the potato with a little oil before I wrapped it in foil but that was all I needed to do. Four hours later I had a beautifully soft potato. The skin didn't crisp up which I do quite like, but then sometimes in the oven I find the skin crisps too much and is inedible (I really enjoy the skin of a baked potato though I know a lot of people don't).

I was in the mood for a sour cream and chive filling but didn't have any sour cream or any chives. Instead, I had a little pot of blue cheese salad dressing so I mixed some of that with a spoonful of mayonnaise and two spoonfuls of fat free natural yogurt, and added some chopped parsley (the only fresh herb I had) on top. It tasted lovely!

I wouldn't normally bake a jacket potato in the slow cooker over doing it in the oven if I was at home, but the beauty of the slow cooker is that you can put it on then go out all day. So if you want a baked potato with your dinner but don't want to wait an hour or more after you get home from work (if like me you aren't home until 7pm) rather than having to do it in the microwave I would definitely recommend doing it in the slow cooker. And the blue cheese and parsley filling was very tasty!

As already mentioned, I'm sending this to the Slow Cooker Challenge, hosted by Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen.

Using a slow cooker is also more economical than using the oven and potatoes are cheap as chips (literally) so I am sending this to Credit Crunch Munch, the thrifty cooking challenge hosted by Hannah at A New Addition on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All.

Broccoli, Courgette and Stilton Soup

I'm trying to eat more veg this month, and I also wanted to use up some cheese from Christmas, so I decided broccoli and stilton soup would be a great idea. I am a pretty fussy eater and don't like a lot of veg, so had an idea of sneaking some hidden veg... into my own food! My theory was that if I couldn't see it, and hopefully couldn't taste it, I wouldn't mind eating it. Courgette (zucchini) seemed a good option!

I can only give rough quantities for this recipe as it depends how thick you like your soup. To serve 3/4 you need:

1 head broccoli

about 100g stilton or 6 Laughing Cow Light blue cheese triangles

about 1 pint vegetable stock

half a courgette (zucchini)

salt, pepper

crispy bacon pieces to serve (optional)

Chop the broccoli into florets

And slice the courgette

You can either use leftover Stilton...

... or if you want to make this soup low fat and Slimming World friendly, use Laughing Cow Light Blue Cheese.

Bring the vegetable stock to the boil in a pan and simmer the broccoli and courgette until tender. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

Blend to a smooth soup either using a hand blender in the saucepan or by transferring the soup to a standalone blender.

I had some leftover bits of crispy bacon I decided to serve on top of the soup, the different texture and taste complemented the flavour of the soup really well.

Most importantly, I couldn't taste the courgette - so I successfully squeezed an extra portion of veg into this meal. The soup lasted me three days and I took it into work for lunch so it was both healthy and thrifty, which is a great combination for January!

First I am sending this to Family Foodies, the blog challenge hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash and Louisa at Eat Your Veg, as the theme this month is hidden goodies (that is, hidden fruit and veg).

The theme for this month's No Croutons Required, hosted by Lisa's Kitchen and Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, is a vegetarian soup or salad. Obviously if you were making this for vegetarians, leave off the bacon! You should also check that the cheese is made with rennet that does not come from animals and is suitable for vegetarians.

Louisa at Eat Your Veg is also hosting the Four Seasons Food challenge along with Anneli at Delicieux, and they are looking for virtuous recipes this month, so I think my vegetable soup - with extra hidden veg - is a good example.

On a similar note, Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy are hosting a new challenge, Extra Veg. They want to encourage us to eat an extra portion of vegetables whenever we can - so while this broccoli soup alone would count, I've also added the extra portion of veg with the hidden courgette.

January's Feel Good Food challenge, hosted by A Kick at the Pantry Door, is tasty and inexpensive. You can use vegetables that are a little past their best in this soup, and it's a good way to use up leftover cheese (eg from Christmas) so this is a pretty frugal recipe.

I'm not done yet... January's Cheese Please challenge, hosted by Fromage Homage, is comfort food and winter warmers. Soup is a lovely winter warmer and since I've used stilton I am sending this over.

Simply Food is hosting the event Let's Cook with Green Vegetables, and since it has to be a vegetarian recipe, you'll need to leave out the bacon and check your cheese is vegetarian.

And finally I am sending this to Turquoise Lemons' No Waste Food Challenge as you can use leftover veg and the cheese was hanging around from Christmas.

Blue Cheese, Parmesan and Green Olive Bread Sticks

My mum asked me to make a starter for Christmas dinner and I was faced with a problem. Between the six people who would be there, dislikes included: salmon, prawns, pate, salad.... I decided I would be safe with cheese. I also knew it had to be something I could prepare the day before and transport down to my parents, and that my mum wouldn't have a lot of space in her kitchen for preparation or oven for cooking. So the easiest thing, and something I thought we would all enjoy, was baked camembert. You simply buy a whole round camembert (or two, in this case), and put them in the oven for about ten minutes for them to melt. Then you dip bread or veggies into the cheese and enjoy. You could do these if you are having people over on new year's eve, though they are good at any time!

I did want to make something though so I decided to do homemade bread sticks. I'd never made them before, and hardly ever make bread, so I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy these were, and how well they turned out.

I used this recipe from BBC Food but adapted it slightly.

To serve about 8, you need:

one 7g packet dried yeast

1 tsp sugar

500g strong white bread flour,. plus extra for the worktop

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

5 tbsp grated parmesan

2 tbsp blue cheese

3 tsp herbes de Provence

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tbsp green olives from a jar, chopped

For the rub:

1 egg

2 tsp piri piri seasoning

2 tsp herbes de provence

50g grated parmesan

Add the yeast and sugar to 280ml warm water in a large bowl. Add 75g of the flour, whisk and leave for ten minutes for the yeast to activate.

Add the oil, remaining flour, parmesan and blue cheese, herbes de Provence and garlic and mix well to form a dough.

Chop the olives then add to the mixture and combine

Knead for about 5 minutes then cover the bowl with cling film and leave for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Mix the parmesan, herbes de Provence and piri piri seasoning for the rub in a small bowl.

Roll out the dough to a long rectangle and brush with beaten egg yolk, then sprinkle over the rub. You only need to do this on one side.

Use a pizza cutter or a sharp knife to cut strips of the dough. Gently twist each one, and stretch a little as you do so, and place on a lined baking sheet.

Bake for about 12 minutes until golden brown.

I did these in three batches and by the end had a pile of 16 bread sticks. They were quite large - both longer and thicker than the ones you buy in the shops - so I think you would only need 2 per person.

Here are the breadsticks ready to dip into the baked camembert:

I'm sending this to Four Seasons Food, the blogging challenge hosted by Anneli at Delicieux and Louisa at Eat Your Veg as their theme this month is festive party food.

I am also sending this to Cheese Please, hosted by Fromage Homage, as the challenge this month is to make festive nibbles using cheese. These bread sticks contain two types of cheese and are designed to be dunked into cheese, so you can't get more cheesy than that!

Slimming World cauliflower cheese soup

I was snowed in and working from home last week, and wanted something warming - but low fat - for lunch. It seemed just the right sort of weather for soup, so I turned to a cookery book I had recently bought at my Slimming World group - The Little Book of Soups. As this was a spur of the moment decision it had to be a recipe using ingredients I already had in the house - there was no way I was going out in the snow! Luckily, I found a recipe for cauliflower cheese soup, which I adapted slightly based on ingredients I had.

I started by frying some onion in Fry-Light and adding a sprinkling of paprika, stirring occasionally.

Cut up a cauliflower into small florets and add to the pan

Add some vegetable stock and simmer until the cauliflower is soft

I love Laughing Cow and the Light version is a healthy extra on Slimming World. This new blue cheese version is delicious and I decided it would work even better than the normal cheese in this soup.

Add five cheese triangles to the pan and stir until melted

Puree the soup in a blender until smooth

Sprinkle a little paprika over the top to serve. Perfect with a chunk of homemade bread on a cold day.