Raw Beetroot & Orange Salad

After a little break yesterday (departmental lunch at work so no need for a packed lunch) where I substantially re-vamped my site (very pleased with it now!), I'm back here for the last day of the week with an outrageously colourful, vitamin-filled raw beetroot & orange salad.  This is a salad my mother made for me a few months ago and when she said beetroot with orange I thought she'd really gone mad - it sounded revolting!  But, I tried it and I loved it so I lovingly re-created it for hubbie for lunch. 

I think I'm slowly getting him into beetroot - when he asked what was for lunch, I rattled it off very quickly so that he might not hear the beetroot part and pull a face but he surprised me by saying that he remembered the beetroot &pink grapefruit salad from the other week (see 27 August post) and really liked that.  Let's see how he takes to raw beetroot now...  In hindsight, I think I should have rattled off the part mentioning lettuce and cucumber which he did pull a face at - it sounded a little too salady for his liking I think.  Lucky I put in some leftover cheesy spinach muffins from the other day (which he loved) and mango which is always a treat!  So now onto the recipe...

Raw Beetroot & Orange Salad

1 beetroot (peeled and grated - I always use a foodprocessor for the grating - quicker and less messy!)

segments cut from 2 oranges & their juice (actually it could have done with 3 or 4 oranges but I only had 2 - feel free to add more to your liking)

a little lime juice (due to my lack of oranges I needed to add a little more acidity - unnecessary if you have the requisite number of oranges)

a drizzle of flavourless oil

salt and pepper

Stir together... et voila!  It's that easy!

Falafel & Humous

Mini Baked Falafels (gluten-free)

I absolutely love falafels but I noticed that all the recipes on the internet included flour and varied hugely on their ingredient list so I decided to play around with the ingredients and make a gluten-free version instead. I like my food to pack a punch with flavour so the amounts of spices may need to be reduced a little if you like a more delicate tasting falafel. Under normal circumstances I would make these in the food processor but sadly mine died a death last night so I used my trusty hand held blender instead which seemed to work just fine except that the result was a smoother consistency falafel. Once I get a new food processor I think I'd go back to that to get a little more texture in the falafels.

350g chickpeas (I actually used beans instead - a mixture of white beans & black-eyed beans because I had some leftover in the freezer)

3 garlic cloves

1 small red onion

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp baking powder

3 tsp fresh parsley (finely chopped)

5 tsp polenta

1/4 lime (flesh & juice) (lemon would be more appropriate I think but I only had limes in my fruit bowl)

salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 200˚C. Place a lightly greased baking sheet in to warm. Throw all the ingredients into a food processor and whizz until well mixed. Season well with salt and pepper. Take teaspoonfuls of the mixture and shape into little balls. Shape all onto a chopping board before putting on the baking sheet*. When they are finished, remove the greased baking sheet from the oven and quickly place all the little falafel balls on then put it back in the oven to cook. Bake for 30-45 minutes (depends on the size of the falafels) turning occasionally. The best (and yummiest) way to check whether they are done is to bite into one and see whether the inside is completely cooked.

* I did this so that the oil on the sheet wouldn’t cool while shaping the mixture and then make the mixture soggy and oily instead of being a quick burst of heat that cooks the mixture and makes it crispy.

Humous

Purists avert your eyes now please... this is not an authentic recipe – it’s certainly different to the humous you find in the shops here in Muscat – but it’s my recipe and I love it. I’m not rigid with amounts for making humous – I usually just throw things in the food processor and keep tasting and tweaking until it tastes just right. I do like quite a loose consistency and quite a bit of lemon. This is what I used for today’s humous:

1 tin chickpeas (400g)

2 cloves garlic

½ lime (flesh & juice)

1 tsp cumin

½ tsp paprika

Salt & pepper

2 dollops of tahini

Olive oil (pour in enough to bind into a smooth paste)

Water (enough to loosen the mixture up to the desired consistency)

Whizz the chickpeas, garlic, lime & spices first until it’s all chopped up finely. Then add the tahini and whizz again until well mixed. Then slowly pour in the olive oil, little by little and whizzing in between, until it is a smooth paste. Finally add the water, little by little, until it looks and tastes just perfect!

I think hubbie will be very happy with his lunch today as, even though it's veggie (he moans and groans about veggie food), it's a little more meaty than his normal lunches. - and he loves falafels and humous! I also threw in some chopped carrot to dip into the humous and a little green salad (you can just about see it underneath the falafels). Snack for today was mandarin.

Note: This was tasty but the falafels were a little on the dry side - I need to amend the recipe I think... maybe adding a little oil would help. Also, it was a fairly substantial lunch - next time I might just add a minty yoghurty sauce for the falafels instead of the humous.

Red Pepper & Feta Salad and Cheesy Spinach Muffins

Well I had a little baking frenzy today making some delicious gluten-free chocolate brownies (not quite healthy enough for the lunchbox though!) and tasty little cheesy spinach muffins.  I feel very virtuous - how good a housewife am I?  However, I'm already feeling that I made a mistake with the brownies as I can't seem to go 10 minutes without popping back to the kitchen for another nibble...  this is not good for the old "losing a few pounds" quest that I'm on this month.  Hmmm, why did I make chocolate brownies you ask?  Because they taste SO good!!!

Anyway, as the brownies weren't in the lunchbox they don't quite qualify for inclusion in this blog but the pepper salad and cheesy spinach muffins are so good that you're really not missing out.  Here are the recipes...

Red Pepper & Feta Salad

This is a recipe which I've been meaning to try for ages from Nigella Lawson's "Nigella Bites" book (click here for the recipe). I only wish I'd tried it sooner - it is divine and I think will be oft repeated in my lunchtime scavenges. I had a few red peppers in the fridge so grilled and peeled them all then chopped the leftovers into strips and put into a sterilized jar covered with olive oil so that I can easily replicate this delicious salad whenever I like... that is, unless I eat them all in the next 24 hours which is highly likely!

Cheesy Spinach Muffin

Ok, a bit of a feta overload but I thought the pepper salad could do with a little starch to add some bite so I decided to play around in the kitchen and create a new gluten-free savoury muffin. The result was a little flat as I had to use a roasting tin that was far too big for the amount of mixture (my muffin tin is currently residing in someone else's kitchen - it reminded me I must go and get it back!) but the flavour was excellent. They could do with being a little less stodgy though so next time I think I'll use less polenta and be a bit quicker with my mixing and throwing in the oven.  Here's the recipe in case you want to replicate it...

1 cup gluten-free flour

1 1/2 cups polenta

1 pinch baking powder

200g chopped spinach

1 cup grated cheddar (about 45g)

1/2 cup chopped feta cheese (about 60g)

1 cup milk

1 egg

a scattering of pine nuts

1 pinch nutmeg

fresh black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 210˚C. Combine flour, polenta, baking powder, milk & egg. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Pour into a greased muffin case (fill full) and sprinkle with sesame seeds to decorate (if you like). Bake for 30-40 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean). I think next time I make this I will be using less polenta, perhaps more flour, a bigger pinch of baking powder, more feta and perhaps a little pinch of paprika to liven it up a little.

Snacks for today were some sliced mango and a peeled mandarin - yum!

Bejewelled Quinoa Salad

Well it's the start of a new week and I have some exciting new recipes in mind! Starting off with a delicious quinoa salad using dried fruits and nuts and lots of fresh herbs to add heaps of flavour. The little pieces of fruit and nut looked so pretty in the quinoa that I decided to call it "bejewelled quinoa salad" - sounded a little more exotic than fruit and nut salad which sounds like some sort of chocolate confection! The cumin in the dressing and heaps of fresh mint and parsley add an arabian flavour to this tasty little lunchbox meal - fitting for where I'm living now.

Bejewelled Quinoa Salad

quinoa

dried cherries or raisins

dried apricots (chopped)

pistachios (chopped)

cherry tomatoes

fresh mint

fresh parsley

cumin

olive oil

lemon juice

This is so easy to make - simply cook the quinoa (in the same way as you would cook rice) then mix all the ingredients together.  Voila!  Snacks for today were a kiwi fruit sliced up to look pretty and a pear quartered and then doused in lemon juice to prevent it from going brown.

Smoked Mackerel Salad

Smoked Mackerel Salad

iceberg lettuce (shredded)
red onion
green beans
black olives
chickpeas (leftovers)
a little grated carrot (leftover)
grated lemon rind
fresh parsley
vinaigrette using rapeseed oil, a little walnut oil, white wine vinegar and garlic
black pepper
smoked mackerel fillets

This was a surprisingly tasty concoction of leftovers that needed to be used up before the weekend (green beans from dinner a couple of nights ago and shredded lettuce, chickpeas and grated carrot from previous lunches this week). I took inspiration from the french nicoise salad to make a tasty little salad replacing the tuna with smoked mackerel - something I adore! I was going to put a boiled egg in there too but it ended up being quite a big salad and since the aim was to use up leftovers, i didn't want to make so much that I was left with even more leftovers of the salad! Only one snack for today (big lunch) - a juicy plum.

Now, off to get ready for the weekend - hooray!

Vietnamese Cabbage & Carrot Salad

Vietnamese Cabbage & Carrot Salad

Another sublime Nigella recipe (click here to see the full recipe here). I removed the chicken from the recipe as hubbie wanted to go veggie (only at lunchtimes!) this month but it was still outrageously tasty! This is THE introductory salad to non-salad eaters. I had to make another bowl of this for my husband's secretary as she loves it so much!

Snacks for today were some sliced kiwi fruit and dried apricots mixed with pistachios.

Soba Noodle Salad & Broad Bean Salad

 Soba Noodle Salad

Nigella recipe with soba noodles, sesame seeds, spring onions, and a very tasty asian dressing. It is divine! Click here to see the full recipe on Nigella's website... yum!

Broad Bean Salad

This was really just to brighten up the brown of the soba noodle salad and add some greens to the lunchbox...

broad beans
peas
sweetcorn
spring onion
mustard vinaigrette
lemon juice
fresh mint
fresh parsley

This was very tasty with lots of fresh zingy lemon juice. The soba noodle salad went down extremely well with my Japanese obsessed husband! Snacks for today were chopped fresh pineapple and another juicy plum.