lunch ideas

loismustdie

basically would be grateful for ideas not including bread and with no canteen for means of heating up. been instructed by dietician to eat main meal at lunch time. have already thought of rice/pasta salad with salad and meat or tuna. any other ideas though? thanks in advance...

Miss Fluff

Rocket, parma ham, cherry tomatoes, chives with some shredded goats cheese. Lots of nourishment there and filling too. No need for heating and you can bring all the ingredients with you and make it at work. YUMMY, nice now that summer is here too.

Caesar Salad another great one that I do a lot. Just add more chicken if it's your main meal and I'd definitely recommend the pre cooked chicken breasts from M & S as they are tasty and convenient.

Alternatively, if you can't heat stuff up buy a thermos container and make yourself a yummy dhal. Very filling and tasty. Not giving you my recipe as would take me half an hour to remember everything but it's similar enough to this, except I put LOTS of puree in and add garam masala.

prep time: 15 minutes | cooking time: 50 minutes | makes 6-8 servings

Toasting and grinding your seeds is so worth the effort, and doesn't take long at all. Serve this dhal as a main dish with rice or as a side dish. It is aromtaic, rich and delicious.

Equipment:
Coffe grinder or spice millor mortar and pestle, saute pan, large, soup pot

Ingredients
3 tablespoons peanut oil
1 medium yellow onion
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup dried red lentils
2 tablespoon tomato paste
4-5 cups water or veg broth
5 plum tomatoes, chopped
juice of 1 lime
1 cup lightly packed chopped fresh cilantro

Spice blend
2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
6 whole cloves
4 cardomom pods

2 dried red chilis (seeds removed)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions
In a saute pan over medium heat, toast the seeds (but not the dried red chili) for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from pan and let cool. Transfer to coffee grinder, aling with the dried red chili and cinnamon, and grind to a fine powder.

Over medium-high heat oil a soup pot, add onions and saute for 5 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and saute 5 more minutes. Add spices and salt, saute 5 minutes more.

Add 4 cups of water and stir to deglaze the pot. Add tomato paste and lentils. Bring to a boil then lower the heat a bit and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, lime juice and cilantro and more water if it looks to thick. Simmer 10 more minutes, or until lentils are completely tender.

loismustdie

that sounds fab, thanks a mil. obviously any more ideas would be greatly apreciated but that's definitely a nice few dishes there, just have to find some of the ingredients, hopefully tesco will have them. thanks