Quick Lunches

I work from home, which has its drawback and its advantages. As with any jobs, some days are busier than others. Luckily for me on my slower days I have time to prepare a delicious lunch, or prep for dinner. However, on days that I have a heavy workload I have to be ready to make a quick meal. For these quick lunches, I usually don't have time to poke around for a good recipe, I just look in my fridge and decide to throw a couple things together. Don't get me wrong, if I am in a meeting, my mind often wanders to what kind of creation I can come up with. 

Here are two lunches I made this week.

A Crazy mix up with a Kale, Basil, Strawberry Salad. I really can't think of anything else to call my side dish besides a crazy mix up, because that literally is what it was. Pinto beans (I had leftover), tofu - cubed, quinoa (pre-cooked) and sauteed mushrooms. I began by heating oil in a skillet and adding a clove of minced garlic. I then threw in the mushrooms and tofu because I knew they would take the longest to cook. I probably should have left the tofu on for longer but I don't really have an issue with the texture or flavor of tofu, so no big deal. I then threw in the pinto beans and quinoa. While that was cooking I prepared my salad. I took one leaf of kale, removed the stem and tore the leaf into bite sized pieces, chopped up two strawberries and combined with basil chiffonade (rolling up multiple basil leaves like a cigar and slicing across). 

I put a bit of olive oil and pepper on the kale and massaged it, then added the strawberries and basil. 

Voila! All done. I also added a strawberry and some frozen peaches to a glass of coconut water to drink.

Another pretty quick lunch was my pesto, mushroom and kale flatbread. My mom found me some naan (indian flatbread) at an international food market. The naan was more of a pita bread than the naan I am used to at indian restaurants. 

The previous day I had made an almond basil pesto:

• 1 cup basil leaves
• 1/4 cup almonds
• 1 garlic clove
• grapeseed oil to desired thickness

Put all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth (my food processor sucks so I still had a few baby almond pieces) 

To make the flatbread I put the oven at 350 degrees. I spread the pesto over the "naan" and then put raw mushrooms, kale and pickled red onions on top. I figured sautéing the mushrooms would just make them soggy and by keeping them raw, they would still get cooked a bit by being in the oven. I put this in the oven for about 8 minutes. So delicious. I also added a bit of homemade hummus topped with kale for a little extra flavor. 

By the way, homemade hummus is definitely better with tahini. For the longest time I avoided buying tahini because it is rather pricey. Finally I gave in and I am glad I did. A friend of mine gave told me a secret about tahini.... you can get it super cheap at a international food market. There are so many hummus recipes, that I am not going to share mine with you... maybe one day if I make a crazy kind of hummus, but this one was just normal everyday hummus - with tahini.