Weekend Winter Lunches: Curried Couscous and Veg Fried Rice

Last weekend we wanted to have some home cooked cozy lunches to fill the kids up for their afternoon activities. Saturday, we made curried brown rice couscous with prunes, red peppers, onions, leeks, and cabbage. Luke and Susannah did a lot of the cutting and definitely did some nibbling along the way. It was admittedly only partially homemade, so easy using a Lundberg's brown rice Mediterranean curry and adding lots of vegetables! To cut the salt content we used less than half the flavor packet. Then I sauteed the vegetables separately in olive oil and added one more spoon of the curry seasoning. The vegetables without the couscous were light and tasty. When the couscous was ready we mixed the cooked vegetables, prunes and couscous in a bowl. Then, everyone wolfed it down, Luke had three servings until I had to force him to save some for the dad who as we know does not always get while the gettin' is good...

Sunday, we made a large fried rice with cabbage, kale, red pepper, bean sprouts, spinach, garlic and ginger. Bean sprouts are a great source of healthy protein and add a lot of texture to the dish. I had leftover rice making the whole shebang fast and easy. (YES that rice is white, came with Indian food, what can I say?) A few of the kids added a touch of pineapple to their own plates. I saved some vegetables aside for myself not wanting the rice in the middle of the day. One of the kids set her vegetables aside and just ate the rice...hmm...can't win them all.

I usually add a salad to whatever I am having and pictured is my lunch salad of cucumbers, maitake mushrooms, kale, arugula, watercress, lettuce with Villa Manodori organic balsamic vinegar and Zoe organic olive oil. And I just wanted to add the picture of the Good Health Natural's macrobiotic platter, my easy order in dinner or lunch, comes in 20 minutes or so, hot and delicious. Their hiziki (more often called hijiki) is my absolute favorite seaweed dish in the city so I usually order extra and often forgo the brown rice. They serve the platter with sweet carrot ginger sauce and at dinner time it comes with their delicious salad...so when we do not have time to cook we have an easy healthy tasty option. The kids usually get the veggie and black bean burrito and sweet potato soup.