Lunch

At the beginning of last week my husband returned to work as an employee having previously been self employed.  This has meant many changes in our house not least the fact that he is out the house for the same hours five days a week.  It has also meant that I have had to do more food planning and cooking.

I have been following with interest a story that has been in the news this week about school lunches, from next September all children in the first three years of school are to be given a free school lunch. This proposal follows a report commissioned by the government looking into getting children to eat well in school and to get them excited by food so that they want to eat it.  The reports authors spent a year on their research visiting schools, eating in them and talking to a wide sample of people.  I have read most of this report out of interest despite not having a child in the education system.  I agree with parts of the report particularly on pages 35 & 6 when they consider the decline in cooking in households in this country something I have written about in the past.  It was page 47 & 8 on the subject of packed lunches that made me both laugh and cry, they offer a suggested list of contents all to be made from scratch which would apparently be a Herculean task for a parent in full time work. As I am not in paid full time work I expect I am not qualified to comment, but as I am in unpaid full time mothering I had a wry smile at the list.

My husband is not a fan of sandwiches, he loathes them.  His return to work means that as he walks out the door at 8am five days a week he needs to have in his hand a lunch, a packed lunch no less, no sandwiches.  I have been planning our lunches for a while now but most of what I make would not work that well in a lunch box even with reheating facilities at work.  So now I find myself on most of those five days providing a second lunch for him and, as I am not willing to get up at 7am to make it, I have been preparing it the night before.  The first week this was a nightmare as I kept forgetting about it and felt like I was cooking for hours as I ended up making it after we had eaten.  This week I am better prepared and make it up as I cook our evening meal.  So to keep it simple at the moment the menu is:

1. Rice Salad
2. Sandwiches
3. Couscous Salad
4. Pasties
5. Pasta Salad

I know, I know I have sneaked sandwiches into the list!  I couldn't come up with anything else and I wanted at least one relatively easy night.  I made a batch of pasties last week and stuck them in the freezer along with several loaves of bread to make things slightly quicker.  The salads have had a variety of ingredients in them including, not all at once, peppers, cucumbers, chickpeas, fresh herbs, peas, courgette and tomatoes.  It will be interesting to see what he does if the children and I go away!

Salad

I love this time of year for the huge variety of foods that can be eaten raw, thrown together or deliberately chosen to make a salad.  I am not talking about the ubiquitous and frankly rather dull salad of some lettuce, cucumber and tomato which wouldn't work for me anyway as I am not able to eat tomato.  There are so many interesting ingredients that you can use to make a salad which can be a meal in itself or a good healthy accompaniment.

A typical weekly menu will include at least one a day at this time of year and includes grain based salads such as Tabbouleh made with bulgar wheat, a Couscous based salad or with quinoa which I usually cooked in vegetable stock and garlic and mix in cooked beans, like pinto, chopped spring onion, cucumber and a mix of chopped fresh herbs.  I make a couple of rice salads after cooking the rice I add a vinegrette made either with white wine vinegar, oil and a crushed clove of garlic mix into the rice whilst hot, once cool I add cooked peas and chopped dill, or the same vinegar and oil with mustard, turmeric and garlic again mixing into the rice whilst hot I add sultanas and leave to cool.

If you have any potatoes left after a meal you can chop them into small pieces and mix mayonnaise to make a quick potato salad, I sometimes add mustard and or a chopped spring onion for a bit of variety.  I make a mushroom salad by slicing the mushrooms, you can use any, and a spring onion and mixing in a vinegrette of oil, vinegar, crushed garlic glove, honey and mixed herbs.  A really simple carrot salad of grated carrot, toasted sunflower seeds tossed in soy sauce whilst hot and a drizzle of oil or another with grated carrot, grated ginger root, chopped shallots, mint, toasted mustard seeds and a dressing of vinegar or lime juice and oil.

You can make salads with beans, cook up a couple of dried beans, haricot and pinto for example, some green beans and toss in a dressing whilst hot and allow to cool.  Cook up broad beans and mix with chopped olives, feta, mint, oil and vinegar.

You can use pasta in many different ways our favourite is to add in sliced green and black olives and capers with a dressing.

One of my favourite salads, is the cheapest for us at the moment, is to walk into my garden and pick a handful of leaves, currently we have lettuces, perilla, mizuna green and red, red and green mustard, greens in snow, marjorum, mint, chives and wild rocket to out in ours with a dressing of oil and balsamic vinegar I could eat it every day!

What salads do you enjoy eating?