Welcome to Week 7 at Lunch Matters

1610Monday Originally uploaded by Lunch Matters.

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Click here to see this week's menu suggestions

NEWS

Things are really heating up this week at Lunch Matters as we work towards our first exhibits at the Ecosustainability Fair and World Vegan Day. We are really excited at the prospect of being able to meet with people and to hear their thoughts about the lunchbox and the Lunch Matters concept. Whilst there are obviously lots of plusses about running a web based business, the downside is that the only contact that we have with customers is via email. The fairs will really give us an insight into what the Australian customers are interested in.

In other breaking news I have had some wonderful discussions with Jennifer McCann of the Vegan Lunchbox and we are going to be in a position to have her book straight off the press and available in time for Christmas, so if you're looking for a wonderful resource to add to your lunchpacking repetoire then watch this space. If you're lucky enough to be in Melbourne and able to come to World Vegan Day, we anticipate having a sample copy of the book for you to see and we'll be taking preorders on the day.

RECIPES

With all the focus that we've had on Veganism this week I thought I'd post the recipe for the Vegan Patties that you can see in this week's menu suggestions. If you are looking for a lunch idea that packs some serious punch you can't do much better than these serious super food patties.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Patties

Adapted slightly from http://www.vegan-food.net/recipe/255/Sweet-Potato-and-Black-Bean-Burgers/

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons oil
2 onions, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 carrots, grated finely
2 cups black beans, tinned (available from organic wholefoods stores)
10 sun dried tomatoes, soaked in hot water until soft, coarsely chopped
2 cups shitake mushrooms, dried, soaked in hot water until soft, coarsely chopped
2 baked sweet potatoes, scooped out of skin
2 cups quinoa, cooked
1 1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 - 1 cup tomato puree
4 tablespoons mustard
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

METHOD
Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and lower heat. Cook until lightly browned, several minutes. Add carrots, beans, tomatoes and mushrooms and cook an additional 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn off heat. Mash slightly in pan, until beans are half crushed.
Place mixture in large bowl with remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. If mixture is too moist, add more wheatgerm. Form into 12-15 patties and baked on an oven tray for 25 minutes at 180C.

They freeze really well - so you can make a big batch and keep some in the freezer for the rainy days.

Rocket, parmesan and sundried tomato rolls

Adapted slightly from Jill Dupleix's recipe that appeared in Delicious Magazine October 2004

This recipe is for the omlette featured in the photo of the week. I imagine that you're thinking - when am I going to find time to make an omelette? But the beauty of this is that it literally takes about 3 minutes to make and it keeps beautifully if made the night before and stored in your lunchbox (in the fridge) until morning and then kept with your icepack until lunchtime the next day.

INGREDIENTS

3 eggs
splash of verjuice or dry white wine
Olive oil
6 sundried tomatoes + a little of the oil that they are stored in
50g rocket
50g parmesan, shaved

METHOD

Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk, add the splash of verjuice

Heat oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat and add half the egg mix. Tip the pan to help it spread thinly and cook for about 1 minute until lightly golden. Flip the omlette out onto a wire cooling tray. Repeat to make the second omlette

Finely chop the sundried tomatoes and place in a bowl with the rocket and parmesan. Toss together with one tablespoon of the sundried tomatoes' oil. Place the mix onto the cooled omlette and roll up. Garnish with a little of the left over salad mix.

If you are making lunches for school children - this may be a bit adult for the average child, so I packed this for my husband and me and made the omlette roll ups that you can see in the menu suggestions for my son. They were light and delicious the next day and a fun way of adding some protein to his lunchbox.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES OF INTEREST:

We've made some great cloth napkins to give away at the fair on the weekend thanks to some fantastic resources made available by Tea Priestess, a member of the Laptop Lunchbox Flickr group. I'm continually amazed by the generosity of people over the web and the sense of belonging to the global village that this can give you - even in these crazy times when the news seems so full of the sad stuff.

If you'd like some napkins for your box you may like to make your own - if you have a child who's particularly into a certain theme, this can be a great way to incorporate it into lunchtime without upgrading lunchboxes everytime a new craze hits. You don't need to be a wizz to make them, all you need is some fabric, about 20 minutes and a sewing machine (you could even do them by hand if you didn't have that).

WEEKLY SHOPPING LIST: Remember for optimum health the aim is to have 3 fruit and 5 veg a day...

Fruit: (roll on summer - I think we're more than ready for some of that summer diversity here)

oranges
apples
kiwi
pear
lemons

Vegetables:

Tomatoes
Beetroot
Garlic
Lettuce
Broccolini (YUMMO - much nicer than it's straight cousin in my experience)
sweet potatoes
carrots
onions
fennel
celery
beans
red pepper
rocket

In the pantry:

verjuice
tomato paste (another item where you really need to read labels!)
freeze dried veggie chips
kamut bread
Lavosh bread (from the freezer) tinned chickpeas
Prunes
Dried unsweetened SA cranberriesOrganic free range eggs
Organic tinned black beans
Quinoa
Smoked organic tofu
ham

Dairy:

Bocconcini cheese
goat's cheese
parmesan
cream cheese
cheddar cheese