Recipe Series: A Month of Lunches

Post by Paula Jahn and Olivia Martino, Registered Dietitians and Co-owners of Nourish Northwest

Welcome to our lunch blog series! We are always preaching to clients about the benefit of setting aside one day of the week to cook in mass quantities. Many people have trouble putting together a healthy, balanced lunch. Lunch can be a challenge–whether you’re working and find yourself ordering food out, or a stay at home parent, too busy feeding little mouths to worry about your own.

In this series, we will make 4 weeks of delicious, healthy lunches that are easy to make in large batches and that keep well for at least 5 days.

This Week: The Rice and Bean Bowl

We love the vegetarian bowl trend. Piling vegetables over rice (or quinoa) and beans and adding a zesty sauce is one of our favorite ways to eat. It’s nutritionally balanced, versatile, satisfying, and full of fiber and antioxidants. Plus, what can be more budget friendly than rice and beans?

We finally made it to Harlow last week and split the Betty Bowl. It was tasty! The Bye and Bye and the Sweet Hereafter make some great vegan/vegetarian bowls, too. Today, we took inspiration from the Betty Bowl and our neighbor across the street at the Whole Bowl. We tried our hand at their top secret Tali Sauce. There are many versions of this “crack sauce” circulating the internet. We adapted ours from some of those and thought it came pretty close.

Now that we have a ton of brown rice and pinto beans cooked, we can add different vegetables and dressings throughout the week and never get bored. Although, I think it will take us more than a week to tire of the imitation Tali Sauce.

 

Imitation Tali Sauce

1/4 cup almonds, peeled ( pour boiling water over raw almonds, cool, and slip skins off)

Juice 1 large lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup water (more if needed)

1/4 cup garbanzo beans

2 garlic cloves

3 Tbs large flake nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp dry mustard powder

1/4 tsp each of curry powder, onion powder, garlic powder, turmeric, cumin, cayenne

Pinch of salt

1. Blend all the ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth. Add more water, if needed, to achieve the desired consistency.
2. Serve the sauce over rice bowls. Leftovers may be refrigerated for 1 week or frozen for 2 months.

 

Short Grain Brown Rice

Ingredients

2 cups short grain brown rice, rinsed

4 cups water

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

1. Bring all ingredients to a boil in a pot with a tight-fitting lid.

2. Reduce to a simmer, keeping the lid on.

3. Set timer for 40 minutes.

4. Test rice for doneness. All of the water absorbed and rice should be chewy. Put lid on again and continue to simmer if needed.

To assemble the bowls, we layered pinto beans, the cooked rice, sautéed onions and zucchini, red cabbage simmered in water and red wine vinegar, flaked nori and the sauce.

Happy Lunching!