The days I forget or don’t have time to prepare a lunch box for work are sad days. I work in the London’s West End with plenty of lunch places on my (office) doorstep but I still fail to find something I want to eat for lunch. Sure, sometimes I’ll go the taco route or succumb to a nice burger, but most of the time I just get bored looking in Eat and Pret A Manger. And all the healthy food places are a no no for my stomach as I can’t have wholegrain anything or any cabbage, and it seems, cabbage is in EVERYTHING.

So without actually doing much cooking, especially if I’m short for time, I try to come up with simple yet delicious lunch solutions I can bring to work.

The salad above is a great example of lunch dishes I love to eat. The only cooking involved was to slice courgette and aubergine and bake them in the oven with some oil and herbs. While that was cooking I made the feta crème (feta, creme fraiche, salt & pepper, thyme and a bit of olive oil) and the next day I just assembled it at work with spinach, cherry tomatoes and serrano ham straight from the supermarket. I never ever mix a salad before I’m about to tuck into it, instead I keep each ingredient in its own little container. It makes it so much fresher!

When it’s too cold for a salad this warm Jerusalem artichoke purée (boil artichokes, drain and mix with butter, salt and pepper) with some fried leek, mushrooms and pancetta.

This couscous salad with fried leeks, roasted sweet potatoes and fried halloumi is another quickly made lunch I can eat again and again and apart from the roasting time for sweet potatoes it’s quick to prepare.

The time I struggle the most to make lunch is when I have several nights out in a row, but the night before I try to prep a few lunches and even if I don’t have time to prep for all the lunches at least I don’t have to buy lunch many days either. A good compromise.