GREEN QUINOA RISOTTO

NUT FREE LUNCH BOX This is a brilliant dish for upping your greens. It’s made with sautéed asparagus and courgettes, which are stirred into quinoa with a creamy lemon and pea purée before being topped with a handful of rocket. It’s a really adaptable dish too; keep the quinoa and peas as they are and swap the other veggies for things you have in the fridge like broccoli, kale and spinach.

Great

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

1. Put the onion and garlic into a saucepan over a medium heat with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of salt and pepper and gently heat for about 5 minutes, until softened. The smaller you’ve cut the onion the quicker it’ll cook, and the better it will mix into the quinoa.

Step 2

2. Once the onion is soft, stir the quinoa into the mixture. Dissolve the stock cube in the boiling water then pour into the pan. Let the liquid come to the boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for 10–12 minutes, until the quinoa is light and fluffy.

Step 3

3. While the quinoa cooks, chop off the woody ends of the asparagus and slice the stems into rounds. Place in a frying pan with the courgette half-moons and a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt and gently sauté on a medium heat, until soft.

Step 4

4. Now make the pea purée. Put the frozen peas into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave them for a couple of minutes, then drain and add to a blender with the lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, the mustard, almond milk, nutritional yeast, and some salt and pepper. Blend until smooth.

Step 5

5. Add the pea purée, courgette and asparagus to the pan with the quinoa and stir everything together.

Step 6

6. Add a handful of rocket and lots of pepper on the top of each serving.

Step 7

TIP To save on time and washing up, you can also cook the asparagus and courgette in the quinoa, but I think it has more flavour when you sauté it. If you don’t have quinoa, you can also use pearl barley, which is delicious. Simply replace the quinoa with 200g pearl barley and cook as above but for 45–50 minutes or until soft.