Fruit and vegetables play a pretty important part in being healthy. Why? Because they are an excellent source of vitamins, minerals, fibre and can help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and some cancers.
We are therefore encouraged to eat them every day. But many of us don’t realise that well known 5-A-DAY message is the minimum amount of fruit and veggies we should be aiming for per day. Yep, the minimum! This means if we’ve reached our 5-A-DAY, we shouldn’t stop there and ought to be striving to squeeze in more! But many of us barely even meet this magic number, so it’s hard to imagine how someone could actually begin to exceed our national target.
This is where I come in. I’ve been put to the test to develop an easy, bulk lunchbox style recipe, which: contains your whole 5-A-DAY, provides three lunches and costs under £5 to make!
If you are clever about it, it’s surprising how easy it can be to meet your 5-A-DAY (and maybe more). The idea behind this recipe is if you concentrate on meeting your 5-A-DAY in just one meal, and then squeeze in a banana on your breakfast cereal and a portion of your favourite veg at dinner, you’re well on your way to 7-A-DAY. So if you’re up for a challenge, try this recipe and wear your health halo with pride. Your body will thank you for it.
This week we have a nutritious autumn salad containing Moroccan style spicy roasted chickpeas, roasted sweet potato, crunchy green beans and a kale and walnut pesto. There is also some feta cheese, red onions and juicy raisins sprinkled on top which add a delicious balance of saltines and sweetness. Walnuts and feta cheese used in this pesto recipe are cheaper than pine nuts and parmesan cheese but still are still packed with flavour and nutrients.
It’s a really easy salad to make. While the chickpeas and sweet potatoes are happily roasting away, simply whizz up the pesto ingredients in a blender and steam your green beans. Then mix everything together in an airtight container, and you have an extremely nutritious lunch prepared for the next three days.
Where does the 5-A-DAY come from in this meal?
A serving of fruit or veg is typically 80g. While it’s pretty obvious green beans (1) count towards your 5-A-DAY, remember that pulses such as chickpeas (2) and dried fruit such as raisins (3) can both count too (although pulses can only count as one portion per day however many you eat as they don’t contain as many vitamins and minerals as other fruit or veg).
Pesto is also not usually thought of as a portion of vegetables but the pesto in this recipe contains a whole portion of kale per serving, bringing the ranking up to (4). And while potatoes can’t count towards your 5-A-DAY, sweet potatoes do….et voilà, we have (5).
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5-A-DAY lunch box: Spicy roast chickpeas with sweet potatoes, green beans and kale pesto
The quantities used in this recipe make three hearty lunchbox style servings, for under £5
Ingredients
For the pesto:
-240g curly kale, removing any particularly large or tough stalks
-1 lemon
-4 tbs water (to thin the pesto)
-Extra Virgin Olive Oil
-100g walnuts
-90 g feta cheese (keep ¼ aside to sprinkle over the salad at the end)
-Salt and pepper to taste
For the roasted chickpeas:
-Salt and pepper
What’s left:
-240g sweet potato, washed, dried and diced (leave skins on to retain fibre)
-240g green beans
-½ medium red onion, thinly sliced with a sharp knife
-90g raisins (rehydrated in water for 10 minutes and drained to make them juicy)
Method
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C.
Add the chickpeas to a roasting tray mixing well with the spices, a drizzle of oil and seasoning. Add the sweet potato to another roasting tray with the oil and seasoning. Put both trays in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, turning half way through. You want the sweet potato to be turning golden and the chickpeas to be crispy. Watch carefully in the last few minutes so as not to let it burn.
While this is roasting, whizz all the pesto ingredients in a blender. I find it easier to blend this in two batches as the kale initially takes up quite a bit of room. Add more water if the pesto is still too thick.
Steam the green beans for a couple of minutes, plunging them into ice cold water when cooked to retain their green colour.
Combine the ingredients in a large Tupperware and refrigerate until time to eat for lunch.
For more information about what counts towards your 5-A-DAY, go to the NHS 5-A-DAY page.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
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Follow Rosie on Twitter @GlutenFreeRosie or over on her blog here
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.