To re-work a line from Oliver the Musical: You’ve got to pitta pocket or two.
It’s Saturday lunch time. We have spent the morning painting skirting boards and scraping small paint marks off the windows. I told the painter-decorator a few times during the recent renovation works that for every hour he spent painting etc, I spent an equal hour cleaning up afterwards.
I’m not sure why I felt it so keenly this time. I think it’s because post turning 60, I am aware that my days of cleaning up after other people’s mess have to start dwindling. I don’t want to put up with it anymore.
For lunch there is a salad, simply put together from a few store cupboard ingredients. My new best friends are these little packets of Merchant Gourmet ready cooked beans. I have an array of them ready to add to any dish. If the MG range is available where you live, consider buying just the plain beans/ grains and adding the flavourings yourself. You’ll have more fun and creativity this way.
I am a fan of Ortiz tuna in olive oil, because it’s a lovely tin of tuna. Use the leftover oil in a salad dressing or sauté a tablespoon of it with some chopped garlic and one sliced red chilli to flavour some steamed green beans, along with a sprinkling of toasted sliced almonds for crunch.
The main ingredients of beans and tuna
The other ingredients: tomatoes, radishes, pickled onion, basil
For the Salad (serves 2):
220 g ready-to-eat giant butterbeans, warmed 1 minute in a microwave oven (high setting)
18 red cherry tomatoes, halved
30 g pickled red onions
3 radishes, sliced thinly
10 g basil leaves
Small tin of tuna in olive oil, drained
2 tablespoons French dressing (use the leftover oil)
2 pitta breads, halved and toasted
How to Make:
Prepare all the ingredients. Bring out a large serving plate. Start layering the beans, tomatoes, onions, radishes and basil. End with the flaked tuna. Drizzle over the salad dressing.
Stuff the salad into the toasted half pitta pocket. This amount will fill two halves of a round pitta bread.
