Lunch in a box!

Easy, healthy, enjoyable and you can eat it outside!  We all want something tasty for lunch, and our recipe for summer is a couscous one pot meal. Couscous can be mixed with a variety of items to make a tasty accompaniment to a meal, or make an entire meal in itself.  Enjoy our couscous recipes at your desk, outside in the sunshine on a day trip, or as part of a family picnic!

Basic ingredients (per person)

• 50g couscous

• 60ml boiling water or stock made from a vegetable stock cube

• 1 tomato – chopped

• 56g (2”) cucumber – chopped

• 1 spring onion – chopped

• Seasoning – salt and pepper

Method

• Put couscous into a bowl, pour on the boiling water (or stock), stir, cover and leave for 10 minutes (or time given on packet).

• Remove cover and stir with a fork to separate the grains.

• Leave to cool.When cold, add the chopped tomato, cucumber and spring onion, salt and pepper to taste.

• Now stir through one of the below mixtures to complete your lunch in a box.

• Add a fork, napkin, bottle of water, piece of fruit and you’re ready to go!

Tuna and sweetcorn

• 28g tuna, drained

• 56g sweetcorn, drained

• 28g chopped red pepper

• 10ml mayonnaise

Cheese and ham

• 28g diced cheese

• 28g diced ham

• 10ml mayonnaise

• 5ml whole grain mustard

Prawn and lemon mayonnaise

• 28g cooked prawns

• 15ml lemon juice

• 10ml mayonnaise

Roasted vegetables

• 85g leftover roasted vegetables (pepper, courgette, butternut squash, red onion) cut into rough chunks

• 15ml balsamic dressing

Curried chicken

28g cooked chicken, chopped

28g sultanas – soaked in 10ml orange juice

4 dried apricots – chopped10ml mayonnaise,

2.5ml curry paste, 5ml mango chutney mixed together

Method

Leave the sultanas in the orange juice for a few minutes to soak up some of the juice.Add chicken, sultanas (and the juice), and dried apricots to the mayonnaise mixture.

Recipe supplied by HC3S – Hampshire County Council’s catering service.