New Feature: Quick & Delicious Lunchtime Dishes

This post introduces a new “feature” on my blog: reports on tried and tested easy and tasty lunches. (Also new: the snow!)

Since I work from home a lot, I look forward to lunch not only to satisfy my hunger but also as a break from reading and writing. A proper break goes a long way to having a productive afternoon. With this in mind, I’ve been on the hunt for tasty lunches that can be made in under half an hour. Rather than making a separate post about each one, I figured I’d combine 3-in-1 and post whenever I have three accumulated. My criteria are that they have to be reasonably healthy, easy to prepare, and interesting (boring lunches=bad). Bonus if they use up leftovers, etc.

{1} Roasted vegetable pasta with mint and yogurt (Original recipe here)
This dish is great because you can throw pretty much any vegetable into it (I used tomatoes, eggplant, and mushrooms), and, since most of us have dried pasta around, even a modified version of this is easy to whip up. You can also toss the veggies in the oven and forget about them while they roast if you want to do other things. The pasta salad was tasty, but I would definitely recommend using less vinegar; 3 tablespoons was too much! The addition of a bit of Greek yogurt adds a creamy texture, and the mint balances out the acid nicely. With wholewheat pasta this can be very healthy as well.

{2} Instant ramen noodles with peanut & ginger dressing (Original recipe here)
This uses instant ramen noodles (known as Mr. Noodles to me!), which, before making this, I had not had since I was about 15. Since I found packets for 18p each at Lidl, this was a very budget-friendly lunch. I left the steak from the original recipe out and instead made the dressing using lime juice, ginger, peanut butter, & water, and then topped with coriander, spring onion, and cucumber. This went over well!

{3} Scroungers’ bean salad (My own concoction)
This is the ultimate scrounge-around-the-cupboards dish. Back from a weekend away earlier this week, the fridge and cupboards were almost bare. I mixed together chickpeas and red kidney beans, plus whatever veggies I could find, which were a red pepper and tomato (note: greens needed next time), and some feta cheese. I dressed the salad with only olive oil, lemon juice, and salt & pepper, but you could use any dressing you like really.