Lunching at Home

After our trip to Paris I’ve been enjoying the rest of the week at home.  Having time to cook a lunch at home is such a luxury for me.  I am a tad frustrated with my work lunches.  We don’t have a proper kitchen at work and I swear the fridge warms food up rather than cools it down.  That combined with a long commute means I don’t often take cold foods to work.  As a result my lunch comes down to almond butter sandwiches with gluten free bread or oat cakes, rice cakes, sometimes a salad.  Not very inspiring... So, I love this time at home to make wholesome lunches from scratch.  It feels so much more healthy and satisfying.  This week I made this warm beetroot and kale salad bowl with millet inspired by a recipe from The First Mess blog.  (There are about a million things I want to make from this site).  I have to confess I’m rubbish at cooking millet, it always ends up looking more like mash potato but I keep trying.  Either way this dish was lovely.  The earthy rich flavour of the balsamic beets with the kale work so well together and the sugar gives a hint of sweetness.  The tangy goats cheese adds a salty element and rounds out the flavours perfectly.  I changed a few things from the original recipe, mainly dialling back the sugar and vinegar as I love the strong flavour of roasted beets on their own.  I also wilted my kale in the oven with the beets for a couple of minutes.  I find this is a great way to cook kale and saves on washing up.  Try to catch it before it crisps up although crispy kale is pretty good too.  Come Monday morning I will be making sandwiches at 6am again and it will be dark outside.

Recipe adapted from The First Mess

Serves 2

1 large beetroot cut in to wedges

Bunch of kale (I used cavolo nero aka black kale)

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp demerara sugar

Extra virgin olive oil

Goats cheese for the top

Quinoa or millet to serve

Preheat oven Gas Mark 6, 200°C, 400°F.  In a baking dish toss the beets with the balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  Sprinkle with demerara sugar.  Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.  Check the beets and give everything a mix, remove the foil then return to the oven for another 15 to 20 minutes.  Wash the kale and roughly chop.  About five minutes before the beets are ready add the kale to the baking dish and coat evenly with the oil and vinegar mixture.  Return to the oven for five minutes until the kale has wilted.  Meanwhile cook your quinoa or millet according the pack instructions.  Serve the beets and kale over the quinoa/millet and crumble the goats cheese on top.  Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil if you like.  Season with salt and pepper as desired.