Thursday, 17 October 2013

Working Autumn Lunches by Katie & Jane

I love everything about Autumn (apart from the rain!). Many of my favourite things are the burnt orange colours of the fallen leaves, gorgeous blue skies on a crisp, misty morning and wrapping up warm to brave the elements but... my ultimate love of Autumn is the food!

Autumn is a time for me to ditch the cold food and opt for more comforting, warm dishes. When Katie and I are working and eating together, we try to include seasonal foods such as: beef, pork and chicken, cod, crab, sea bass and squid, cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes and kale and apples and pears.

Autumn colours

Working from the Kitchen Table
Obviously if we are working from one of our homes, we like to keep lunch simple and quick to prepare so we don't get too distracted from what we are doing. It's easy for us to get carried away and forget to eat when we're together which is why I find it a good idea to prepare food in the morning to eat in the afternoon.

Following a nice Autumn walk the other day, I made Katie a wintery noodle salad which she loved. The recipe is adapted from one of my favourite cookbooks by Sophie Dahl entitled From Season to Season. The dish consists of soba noodles, shredded red cabbage, carrot sticks and a sliced spring onion. Simply cook the soba noodles and leave them to cool while preparing the veg. Make a sauce of sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce and agave syrup and pour all over.  You eat the vegetables raw, so it's easy to cook it in the morning ready for lunch.

British countryside

Firing Up Our Brains
Some spices are said to boost brain power which is always welcome when we're prepping for a social media training session or organising the marketing for our first app! I'm slightly addicted to cooking Mexican street food at the moment (think burritos and tacos) and chef Thomasina Miers has some amazing recipes in her book Mexican Food Made Simple. Autumn Tacos with Onion, Squash and Chorizo (minus the chorizo for me) and Winter Tacos with Creamy Greens are two current favourites to enjoy over lunch.

Thomasina Miers

Eating Out and About
If Katie and I are out at meetings (or taking a class) we like to find somewhere to work before or after as a nice change of scenery. I took Katie to Boston Tea Party in Birmingham where we chose tea and cake after a long meeting. Boston Tea Party has a gorgeous menu and so many different teas and cakes to try. I particularly love their Eggs Florentine and selection of gluten-free cakes. It's also got a great, unique atmosphere with really friendly staff.

Tea and Cake

Sometimes the only option is to eat on the go so I grab a healthy Eat Natural bar packed with nuts, seeds and fruit and sometimes chocolate and yoghurt! I've tried so many 'healthy' bars in a quest to find a perfect snack without tonnes of sugar or preservatives in and these are, by far, the best!

Tea Time!
Often we'll work with each other for half a day as we find having time to get our work done apart really helps but we'll always make time for tea! Katie and I are kind-of green tea connoisseurs now having made it our mission to drink more of the super-tea throughout the day and we both agree our favourite brand is Clipper. Katie's kitchen looks a little like a teashop with the amount of herbal teas she has but we always go back to our favourite... Clipper Pure Green Tea! 

Clipper green tea

And our perfect pick-'us'-up with our tea? Homemade Banana Bread of course! My favourite recipe is from the domestic goddess Nigella Lawson available on her website here.

Banana bread nigella

Well all this talk of food is making me hungry so I'm off for lunch!


Jane x

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