Bean Salad. WITH BARLEY!

I love barley but I never make it. Heck, unless it's in a soup, I never eat it. Today I decided to go into my first foray into making barley as a major part of a meal.

Enter: Bean and Barley Salad

This salad is crunchy, chewy (in a good way) and filling. It's also incredibly cheap. All these ingredients cost maybe $15, and you wont be using nearly all of it for this recipe. The most expensive ingredients, the vinegar and oil will last for MONTHS.

Ingredients
1 can of mixed beans
1 cup of cooked barley (cook according to the package)
1/2 cucumber diced
2 tbsp diced red onion
1 handful of chopped cilantro
big handful of grape tomatoes, cut in half
balsamic vinaigrette
lemon
salt and pepper
baby spinach
Optional: whatever other veggies you might like... hot peppers, olives, maybe a green apple?

Let's do it!
Throw the beans, barley, and veggies (except spinach) plus maybe about 2 tbsp of vinaigrette and a squeeze of lemon into a leak-proof container. Give it a taste. Season with a dash of salt, and more lemon, pepper and vinaigrette as needed. In an effort to use less salt, try adding more balsamic or lemon instead. What you're looking for is a nice, full flavour, without destroying your kidneys. Let this marinate in the fridge. Shake it up every couple of hours to really let the flavours meld. Or eat it right away, whatever.

If you've never made balsamic vinaigrette before, it's very simple. 1:1 ratio of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Put in a jar and shake. Because my coworkers don't steal food, I have a bottle of both balsamic and olive oil in the cupboard. I put them in a jar and shake before pouring over my salads. Yes, you're also supposed to add some mustard, chopped garlic and salt, but I don't always do it and it ends up just fine. I tend to put a little more balsamic than olive oil, but only because I love sour flavours.

Lunch it up!
If you're going to eat your lunch within maybe 4 hours, you can throw your spinach in a container, then top with the bean salad and some more dressing. The dressing will season the spinach without making it too soggy. If you love your spinach crunchy, package it in a separate container. If you can, bring some vinaigrette in a jar so you can season it to taste when you get to work. I tend to drench my salads in dressing, particularly balsamic vinaigrette, thus my salad-dressing supplies at work.

There you have it, a healthy lunch that combines whole grains, protein, dark greens and vitamin C! This recipe will yield about 4 servings, which makes it a great thing to make on a Sunday night and eat throughout the week.

Spinach and other stuff salad

In an effort to detoxify my body after a bit of a french fry (and let's face it, booze) binge, I decided to have spinach salad for a few lunches. The great thing about spinach salad is that all you need is a box of baby spinach, some protein, some quinoa (which keeps very well in the fridge), some fruit and some dressing. Basically, I kept everything in the work fridge (separately) and assembled the salad every day.

Ingredients
Two handfuls of baby spinach
1/2 cup of chickpeas
1 mango, diced
1/4 cup cooked quinoa
homemade balsamic dressing

Let's do it!
I don't really like prepared salad dressings, so I keep a little jar of 1:1 balsamic dressing and olive oil with a dash of salt in the work fridge. The olive oil solidifies in the fridge, so you need to take the jar out of the fridge for maybe 15 minutes before you eat it. Or you can hold it under the tap.

Basically, I threw everything into a plastic container, shook it up and dumped it on a plate. The mango really elevates this salad from torturous to delicious.

This is the ultimate healthy lunch when you have a grocery store nearby and don't feel like splurging on prepared restaurant food. For the protein, you can also bring canned salmon (make sure it's one of the SeaChoice picks), hardboiled eggs, other beans, or meat. You can obviously also add whatever other veggies or even fruit you like.

Easy pasta salad

My plan today was to buy sushi for lunch. This morning, my cheapness overcame my laziness and I made one of the laziest, but still satisfying, meals I had in my arsenal.

Working Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: roughly 10 minutes

Ingredients

Pasta, cooked as per directions on package (also a great recipe for leftover pasta)
Diced cucumber
Diced red onion
Black olives
Chopped sundried tomatoes
Beans
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp oil of your choice
salt
Optional: any veggies or leftover meat laying around the house. Originally, I was going to put in some baby spinach, but I forgot.

Let's do it!
Cook the pasta as per specifications and prepare the beans. For this recipe I used a rainbow farfalle. Generally I stick to the non-long type pastas, as it's easier to get spoonfuls of pasta and veggies together. I used frozen soy beans so I tossed them into the pasta during the last minute. You can use canned beans, or nuts even.

Chop up everything and throw into a container with a lid. Add the pasta and shake shake shake. Sprinkle with salt.

Pour the oil (I used veggie oil because I get sick of olive oil sometimes) and vinegar into a jar and screw the lid on very tight.

Lunch it up!
This one's easy. Shake up the dressing vigorously, then pour some (or all, if you like a ton of dressing) into your container. Shake shake shake some more, and you have a good, balanced lunch!