When I saw this recipe for a chilled-spiced beetroot soup in the current (Jan/Feb 2011) issue of Pick n Pay‘s Fresh Living magazine I knew it make a great packed lunch for a warm Summer’s day. The flavours and vibrant colour would provide a welcome midday break and ensure I could forge ahead with the afternoon’s tasks.
Today’s Lunch:
beetroot, beetroot soup, cheese, grapes, soup
Packed Lunches
Last week a group of friends and I had dinner at Keenwä, a newish Peruvian restaurant situated on the Cape Town fan walk in Waterkant Street. We where one of a handful of tables in the restaurant that evening and thus got to speak with the hostess and owner at length about the menu and general intricacies of running the first Peruvian restaurant in South Africa. An interesting example being the two staple and readily available ingredients in Peru, limes and quinoa, are the two most expensive ingredients for them to source in South Africa.
We tasted dishes including Cerviche, Tiradito, a reinterpretation of Aji de Gallina and of course quinoa. Today’s lunch is inspired by the quinoa salad we shared, although I used the vegetables I had on hand instead of trying to recreate the dish we had that evening.
Today’s Lunch:
lettuce, mange tout, pomegranate, quinoa, quinoa salad, red pepper, salad, spring onion
Packed Lunches
Pasta salad is one of those dishes that is perfect for packed lunches. It’s meant to be eaten chilled so you can prepare it in the evening and stick it in the fridge. Then in the morning pop it into one of those lunch cooler bags with a little ice brick and it’ll stay perfectly cool until lunchtime. A great summertime lunch that is also a wonderful vehicle for a few of your daily fruit and veg servings.
Today’s Lunch:
cheese, cucumber, feta, pasta, pasta salad, salad, sping onion, tomato, yellow pepper
Packed Lunches
So here we are, a couple of weeks into 2011 and probably just getting the hang of writing 1 and the end of the year instead of that mischievous 0. By now we are all trying to make the transition from holiday mode to work mode whether we had an end of year break or not. For me work mode also includes getting back into my routine of packing lunches for myself. For the first packed lunch of the year I chose a basic almost school lunch combo of tortilla wraps and fruit. Perhaps not very exciting but it fulfilled it’s destiny of filling my tummy and helping me stay awake during the late afternoon slump.
Today’s Lunch:
caprese, cheese, grapes, juice box, lettuce, mozzarella, peach, tomato, tortilla, wrap
Packed Lunches
