Spinach and Potato Curry Roti

Potato in curry is one of my favourite things in the world. So the first time I had spinach and potato curry roti, my mind was absolutely blown.

Anyway, this is a great spicy lunch for a super cold day.

Seriously, Toronto?

I added in peas for some protein, to round out the meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 4 medium yellow flesh potatoes, peeled and chopped into roughly 1" cubes
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons or so Jamaican-style curry powder (I use Irie brand)
• 1 can coconut milk (buy the one with the highest percentage of actual coconut in it)
• 1 package frozen spinach (300g), defrosted and drained
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• Salt and/or fish sauce to taste
• Hot peppers to taste
• Flour tortillas. The big ones, not the 6-inch ones

Let's do it!

1. In a medium sized soup pot, heat up the coconut oil over medium heat.
2. Add the onions and curry powder and stir for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the potatoes and let them fry on the bottom of the pan. Stirring once in a while, maybe cook for 4 more minutes.
4. Add garlic and fry for 1 minute.
5. Add the coconut milk and stir. Bring this to simmer and cover.
6. I like my potatoes really soft, so I simmered this for about half an hour.
7. When the potatoes are cooked through, add the frozen spinach and stir to combine.
8. Once that's all nice and simmering again, add salt or fish sauce to taste. Personally, I think fish sauce and curry are a winning combination, but not all of us like fish sauce. So you may have salt.
9. Add more curry powder if you think it needs it. I love a ton of spice.
10. At this point, I also added about 1/2 teaspoon of my homemade "hot sauce", which is actually just fresh red chilli peppers, garlic, salt and vinegar blended. It's crazy hot and doesn't really change the flavour of anything. It just adds heat.
11. Add the frozen peas, stir to combine. Turn off the stove and cover. Nothing worse than overcooked peas.

Lunch it up! 

You can assemble this at home, or you can bring the tortilla and curry separately. I like to keep things separate (therefore, less soggy). Put the big tortilla on a big plate, spoon some curry into the middle, then roll up into a neat little package. Microwave and you're done. 

Chick'n chicken salad

I really wanted to have some nice Asian-style chicken with my salad in an effort to slowly wean myself off the bad eating I've been doing lately. I mean, grilled chicken is pretty good for you, right? So what if it's a thigh piece and you don't trim ANY of the fat off?

Ingredients

1 chicken thigh, bone removed
1/4 cup Japanese soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
splash of sesame oil

2 handfulls baby spinach
some white onion, thinly sliced
some cabbage, thinly sliced
1/2 a tomato, cut up
1 hard boiled egg

Your choice of dressing. I used 1:1 white vinegar and veggie oil, which was kind of gross, even after I squeezed half a lime into it. I mean, I was still able to eat it and all, but it wasn't as awesome as I'd like. Next time I'm using vinegar and olive oil. That always seems to work.


Let's do it!
Chicken: Put the soy sauce, honey and sesame oil in a shallow dish and stir. Taste and adjust to your liking. Place the chicken in the dish and poke some holes in it with a fork. Let marinate for at least 15 minutes.

Grill on a panini press (if you're lucky enough to own one) for about 15 minutes.. I really wasn't keeping watch. Maybe 10 minutes? I don't know. I pierced it to make sure it was cooked all the way through. If you don't have a panini press, you can bake in the toaster oven at 350ºF for 15-20 minutes, or fry on the stove. Let it rest on a cutting board for about 15 minutes or cool enough to handle. Slice into... slices.

Egg: For perfect hardboiled eggs, cover the eggs with cold water in a small pot. Put the pot on the stove on high, uncovered. As soon as the water boils, turn off the stove and cover the pot. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

I'm certain you're smart enough to put the rest together. I put all the veggies in a dish with the spinach, and all the meat in another dish while transporting to work. The salad dressing is applied at the very end so it doesn't get all mushy.

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.