Lunchbox challenge: Vegetable-packed stir fried rice with beans

Cate's February challenge for 'Anyone Can Cook Vegetarian Food', over at Cate's Cates, is lunchboxes. When I saw this at the start of the month, I was quite excited. As you might guess from my obsession with small Tupperware-like containers, my personality aligns nicely with lunchboxes. They are organised, structured, and contain food. What more could one want?

It is actually a minor source of regret that I don't have anyone to pack a lunchbox for. Mr Bite makes his own work lunches, and doesn't take a lunchbox per se. Also, he pretty much has the same thing every day. The closest I can get to excitement is baking him biscuits to swap in for the commercial biscuits that he would otherwise take for afternoon tea.

Packing lunch for myself isn't as fun as making up a package for someone else...unless I have a lunchbox challenge to think about, and then it becomes a little more enjoyable.

So, thank you, Cate, for providing me with a lunchbox focus for this month at least!

My lunchbox challenge recipe is a vegetable-packed stir fried rice with peas. To round this out, I packed up a lunchbox with fruit (a plum and a nectarine), raw almonds and goji berries, and some of that vegan pebble road.

The stir fried rice recipe was made up as I went along, so it is fortunate that it turned out as well as it did. There is star anise in the mix. It is easy to make. It is delicious cold. In all, it is perfect to make ahead and then take to work, school, or just have at home for lunch the next day.

Ideally, this would be made using rice that has been cooked ahead and cooled. However, if you're like me, that may not be possible or you may not be organised enough to manage it. I didn't, and this still worked fine.

Vegetable-packed stir fried rice with beans

Makes 2 lunch-sized serves
Vegan

Print recipe

Ingredients

Generous 1/2 cup uncooked rice

1 star anise flower

~1 tsp olive oil

2 shallots (or spring onions, or 1/2 a brown onion)

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 small capsicum, diced

1 small carrot, diced
~1/8 white cabbage, finely chopped or shredded in a food processor

1/2 cup cooked chickpeas, black eyed peas and/or white beans (I used 1/4 cup each of chickpeas and black eyed peas)

Method

Cook the rice according to packet instructions, but with the addition of the star anise to the saucepan. When cooked, set the rice aside to cool (if time permits) or to sit while you cook the vegetables.

Heat the oil in a non-stick pan and saute the onions until tender. Add the capsicum and carrot and stir fry briefly, about 4 minutes. Add the cabbage, soy sauce and rice and mix through well. Stir fry over low heat for a further 3 - 5 minutes. Add the chickpeas / black eyed peas, mix through, and then remove from heat.

This can be served immediately, but is delicious served cold.

Submitted to Cate's February lunchbox challenge for 'Anyone Can Cook Vegetarian Food'. 

Do you make work lunches or packed lunches for anyone else? If so, do you take a lunchbox or just random assortments of food? 

Despite my enjoyment of this challenge, I will confess to my work lunches more usually being of the random assortment variety than the neatly packed lunchbox variety!

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