Bean salad

Every day with my salad for lunch I have some bean salad. Regular salad wouldn't keep me going for too long, but I find beans a great filler. It started out as a tin of kidney beans and one of chickpeas mixed together for the week. It has now grown into quite a yummy, huge bowl of the stuff in the fridge for the week. A few people have asked me how I make it, so I thought I would give a bit of a recipe, though it's always different and done to personal taste I suppose.

Ingredients

• 1 tin kidney beans
• 1 tin chickpeas
• 1 tin butter beans
• 1 large tin of tuna (in brine, mainly drained)
• 1 small, red onion\ scallions
• Half a red pepper
• Half a yellow pepper
• Juice of half a lemon.

When I can, I use beans that have to be soaked overnight, but sometimes you just don't think of these things! It doesn't matter what type of beans you use, but I find it is nicer if it's roughly equal parts of each variety. The tuna bulks it up that little bit more, but if you don't like it just leave it out. We sometimes add anchovies - even just a few can really add a lot to the taste. We also often, as the week goes on, top it up with green beans or mange tout. With trial and error I have found it is best not to put a lot of them in at the beginning of the week as they got soggy, but throwing a few in each morning when you're packing the lunchbox or as I said, towards the end of the week can work a charm. Always good to add green to any meal you can, isn't it?



Not the most attractive-looking food, maybe, but
 it's tasty, filling and healthy - what more could you want?!

 If you squeeze lemon juice over the salad it will stay fresh for longer. It also gives it a little kick. All these flavours mean I don't have to add any sauces to the dish so I know exactly what I'm eating. If you wanted to give it a real kick, you could add some chopped chili to it...the larger the chili the less spicy so it doesn't have to blow your head off. Chili also increases the metabolism, so this could be a win-win situation.

If you try it, I hope you enjoy. If you have any ideas of other things to add to it or other fillers to go with my lunch (variety is the spice of life after all!!) please let me know in comments box below.

Thanks! :)