Soup, Salad and Soda Bread- easy vegan lunch combo

Simple, fuss-free, delicious and nutritious- the perfect weekend meal!

I don't know about you, but the absolute last thing either of us want to do after a hard working week is spend Saturday morning slaving over a hot stove, much as we both love to cook. That's why we wanted to share this lunch/ brunch/ anytime meal idea, as it has the best of both worlds; it's healthy and cooked from scratch, yet quick and easy, especially if you have a food processor/ blender and a pressure cooker. None of it is rocket science- in fact you may well have your own versions of it that you've been making for years, but just in case you are new to the concept, here's how we do it in our kitchen:

If you get the soda bread in the oven first you can then use your food processor to chop or grate some veggies and add them to water, seasonings and beans/ dal in a pressure cooker. For a smoother soup, use a blender (a hand blender is quickest and makes the least mess). The salad takes just minutes and then you're done!

The Soup

Follow the above guidelines for a very quick bean and vegetable soup, or try out some of our soup recipes here, here, here or here. Using a food processor for fine chopping and then a pressure cooker shaves minutes off the cooking time because food cut small cooks more quickly and you usually only have to get the pan up to pressure and then switch it off and the veggies are done- about five minutes.

The Salad:

We find that the quickest salads are those that involve the least chopping (told you it's not rocket science...) so here I just grabbed some homegrown sprouts from the windowsill and tossed them together with baby rocket and lettuce leaves from the garden, a dash of lemon juice and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. If you want to jazz it up even more, throw in some sundried tomatoes or olives and top with your favourite sprinkle, like almond parmesan or coconut bacon.

The Soda Bread

I guess if you eat yeasted bread and have a bread maker then that would also be an option, but this wholemeal soda bread is so tasty and nutritious and quick to put together- no kneading or rising- it's well worth making. The secret ingredients here are soya milk (seems to lessen the soda-y taste you sometimes get) and ground flax/ chia seeds or shelled hemp seeds. Top with pumpkin or sunflower seeds before you put it in the oven. Get the basic recipe here and the hemp or other seeds version here.