Work lunches, or a bag of washed rocket and spinach leaves, three ways

I mentioned sometime ago that I want to try and eat more healthy lunches. Last week, I bought a bag of washed rocket (also known as arugula) and spinach leaves, and with a few other bits and pieces and a little help from Jac, TFP was eating healthier lunches!

Monday – Jac made some salmon patties with sweet potato, potato, chilli and lemongrass on Sunday night. She baked them in the oven without any oil. I did think they looked a little dry, but was pleasantly surprised, and the chilli and lemongrass gave them a fresh Thai-style flavour. I placed them on a bed of rocket and spinach dressed with a little Nandos three bell pepper dressing (I didn’t use my packet of dressing on the weekend, but we took it home for use later!) and garnished with fresh tomato wedges with cracked black pepper. I ate the patties cold, and they were really quite yummy!

Ovenbaked salmon sweet potato and potato patties on rocket and spinach salad with tomato

J bought herself a frozen meal for lunch, which she zapped in the microwave – it was McCain Fettucine Carbonara. It smelled really good! It was cheesy and loaded with ham (it looked more like ham than bacon) and mushrooms. It even had a sprinkling of green herbs through it. A nice touch. She ate her pasta while I munched away on my salmon patties and salad. I must say that pasta looked and smelled really good.

McCain Fettucine Carbonara

Tuesday – more rocket and spinach, this time eaten with oven-roasted sweet potato slices, flavoured with olive oil and oregano. Jac cooked the sweet potato in the oven while she was cooking the salmon patties. She also made a batch of coleslaw using red cabbage as well as regular green cabbage. Along with my salads and sweet potato, I had a Vita-Wheat cracker with a slice of Jarlsberg Light cheese and sliced fresh tomato. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention – Jac also roasted a couple of whole garlic cloves with the sweet potato, and I had one of these sweet roasted garlic cloves with my lunch. I wanted to show you my little salt and pepper grinders, which is why they are featured in the photo. They are very cute and functional. They’re real grinders – I have rock crystals and black pepper corns in them. I saw them for sale at the counter at Howard’s Storage World (currently Jac’s favourite shop – she loves storage!) and fell in love with them, and Jac bought them for me. They live in my desk drawer at work and get brought out at lunch time to do their thing.

Oven-roasted sweet potato, homemade coleslaw, rocket and spinach salad, Vita-Wheat with tomato and Jarlsberg Lite and my salt and pepper shakers from Howard's Storage World

Wednesday – J and I decided to grab noodles from Noodlebox. J has been eager to try Noodlebox’s custom order system. In the corner of the store is a thing that looks like an ATM machine. It’s a touch screen that allows you to design your own custom noodle order. It’s very easy to use, and when you’ve made all your choices it prints out the order for you to take to the the front counter so they can cook it for you. J made up a stir-fry consisting of thick egg noodles, prawns, chicken, broccoli and snowpeas with oyster sauce. She was impressed when she found the first prawn, which was simply enormous. She was less impressed as she got through the noodles and it became apparent that there were no other prawns.

J's custom order noodles from Noodlebox

I chose from the standard menu – teriyaki chicken noodles, very simple: thick egg noodles, chicken and vegies in teriyaki sauce.

Teriyaki chicken noodles

Before we went back to the office, J bought a tray of melon from IGA supermarket. Left to right: rockmelon, honeydew melon, watermelon. The watermelon was not seedless (boooo!), the rockmelon was sweet and juicy (though I have never been fond of it), and I remembered once again why I don’t like honeydew melon. It’s just so weird and crunchy.

Melon plate

Thursday – I had a small teriyaki chicken and a salad from Jaws Mint. I’ve placed my chopsticks in the photo for a size comparison.

Small teriyaki chicken and salad

The teriyaki sauce was so moreish. I licked it off the lid of the takeaway container, and I relished every grain of teriyaki sauce-soaked rice.

Small teriyaki chicken

We both enjoyed our noodles. We got to Noodlebox at around 11:30am, nice and early, before the lunch rush. We haven’t been game to try the regular size boxes yet, as they look really big! I reckon I could finish a regular easily if I was really hungry, but most of the time, the small will be enough for lunch.

Friday – I had a meeting scheduled at the hideous time of noon (I didn’t schedule the meeting, by the way!), and told J and SRM to feel free to grab lunch without me. They trudged off to Munch Terrace for the Friday special nasi lemak.

When I got out of my meeting I made myself a quick salad with the last of the rocket and spinach leaves, red capsicum, mushrooms and corn kernels, with tuna slices in chilli oil. I poured a little of the chilli oil from the can over the salad, as a dressing.

Chilli oil tuna slices with salad, Jarlsberg Light and Vita-Wheat

And to go with my colourful salad, a Vita-Wheat cracker with Jarlsberg Light, tomato, mushrooms and more tuna.

Vita-Wheat, Jarlsberg Lite cheese, tomato, chilli oil tuna and mushrooms

SRM and J came back from lunch singing praises for the nasi lemak. This time, instead of the cold fried chicken wing, they got some crispy chicken! SRM reckons it was the best nasi lemak yet, from Munch. They’re returning to Munch this Friday for more nasi lemak, and this time I plan to be with them.

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