Sprouty Salad

I don't know why people don't like sprouts, other than they've only ever eaten them cooked by somebody else who doesn't like them and therefore doesn't know how to cook (or not cook) them properly.

One of the best dishes I ever made for a dinner party was a sprout salad. It was delicious.

Today, on my whole-but-still-Christmassy-food mission I decided to make another sprout salad for lunch.

Ingredients:
120g shredded raw sprouts - do not cook them!
2 handfuls chopped walnuts
abt 2 matchbox sized pieces low fat feta
1 apple cored and chopped up
1 stick celery halved length wise and chopped
handful parmesan shavings to chuck on top

and for the dressing:
1 heaped tspn dijon mustard
juice from one wedge lemon
abt 2 capfulls of white wine vinegar
tblsp ish of olive oil
tiny drizzle honey
Sea salt & black pepper
1 egg yolk - optional but makes it more creamy and increases protein content.

Normally cheese wouldn't really be considered whole food as its original ingredients have been fiddled with somewhat but both feta and parmesan are made with unpasteurised milk so I let it slip.  You could use any other cheese with a good 'bite' such as stilton too. In fact stilton is super yummy in this salad.  If you wanted some meat it goes nicely with grilled chicken or crispy bacon bits as well.

Make sure the sprouts are good and shredded...maybe give them a quick blitz in a blender to make sure.  If you have big lumps it doesn't work as well and the dressing can't coat all the little bits of spout.

Anyway, basically mix all the ingredients of the dressing, throw all the salad bits in a bowl except the nuts and parmesan.  Pour dressing over and mix up...it should just be enough to coat but no more.  Sprinkle over a pinch more sea salt and then leave for the sprouts to mellow into the dressing a bit. They can be a bit bitter otherwise.

When you're ready to serve add in the nuts and finally scatter a few parmesan shavings and some black pepper over the top.

There you have it!

The salty cheese and the tangy mustard and lemon balance the sproutiness really well and the apple, nuts and celery add different flavour combos - a bit like a waldorf really, but yummier :).

The Whiledorf salad

The other night I was staring at the chicken that we'd roasted at the weekend to provide quick and easy protein for our meals during the week, and I thought to myself, "I really don't want another chicken salad." 

So then I stared into the fridge for a few minutes. 

And I stared into the cupboard for a while too. 

Eventually, after several more rounds of staring, a meal started to form in my head. 

I remembered a while ago I used to make a really nice miso soup style thing with buckwheat noodles, chicken and lightly steamed broccoli, and I remembered I used to scatter a few blueberries on the top.

Which sounds disgusting but it was really nice.  The blueberries, apart from being insanely good for you (I watched a program once where people who ate blueberries as their afternoon snack increased their brain function or concentration or similar by about 1 gazillion percent for the rest of the day - caveat, I may not have got the statistics of that exactly right.), they're yummy and unlike lots of other fruit, not too sweet.  They have a great earthy taste and they add just the right element of zing to an otherwise quite flat dish.

So, there began my salad for that night.  

Instead of buckwheat noodles I started with a base of grains - one of my famous packets of 'gravel', perfect for such an occasion.  I think this one was just a mixture of red quinoa, buglar, freke.  Just enough to add a bit of bite.  

Then I added some broccoli I had blanched in boiling water for just a few minutes and then plunged straight into cold water afterwards.  This keeps it lovely and green and al dente...nobody likes slodgey fart flavoured broc in their salad.

Next came an apple (my favourite, pink lady) chopped into pieces and some celery before tearing up some roast chicken and adding that too.

Finally I crumbled a few walnuts over the top for our healthy fat stress busting component and a little earthy taste with a good old crunch.

I decided not to use any dressing or seasoning as I wanted it to stay really fresh and crisp and for all the individual vibrant flavours to stay in tact.

And all that staring into cupboards and fridges paid off as not only was it very tasty, it also felt super healthy and it was really satisfying because of all the different flavours and textures.

I used to absolutely HATE any type of fruit near any sort of savoury food (I'm thinking duck a l'orange, sultanas in coronation chicken..bleurgh), but done like this in a really simple, fresh and non sweet way, it really does chuck a different spin on the boring old chicken salad.

So,I'm calling this, my twist on another classic featuring apples and walnuts, the Whiledorf salad!

Rainbow bright

We were sposed to have morrocan chicken soup for tea tonight, but I just didn't fancy a bowl of heavy, chickpea laden, brown plop.  I stared into the fridge trying to conjure up some sort of alternative and spotted a nice bunch of asparagus that I suddenly did fancy.

I grabbed a couple of other brightly coloured bits from the veg and salad drawer, unearthed some feta and some chicken slices for a bit of protein, lightly steamed the asparagus and after a quick drizzle with some left over mustard dressing, we had ourselves a meal.

A veg packed, multicoloured, full of nutrients and flavour meal in a jiffy. So much lighter than the soup option which can wait for another night. 

Happiness on a plate!

Pretty on a plate

Having made up my own nectarine and goats cheese salad the other day, I decided to try and stick more closely to the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe today.

I bought some beautiful flat peaches at the local market, defrosted some peas and got going.

The original recipe has fried yellow courgettes in it but I didn't bother with those, just didn't fancy it.  I also changed the dressing as I couldn't imagine how an olive oil and balsamic dressing would work with the flavours so quickly shook up some olive oil, honey and apple cider vinegar.

It looked SO nice.  I just wanted to sit and look at it. I even got my best plates out in honour of it's prettiness.

So, even though I already posted about my first self concocted version of this salad, I feel compelled to post about this even prettier version with about 8 million photos of its loveliness.

Go-to Gravel

Well what a busy week.

Have swum in lakes and rivers, cached like a mad thing (25 in one day at one point!), kayaked in the pouring rain, walked in the countryside and spent an entire, sweltering day sorting out the garden.  Today's mammoth kayaking jaunt saw us in the thing for nearly 4 hours, against the wind and the current and up a cut that looked anything but navigable.  But we survived and saw 2 kingfishers in return, even if it did mean not eating lunch until about 5pm.

So, not massively surprising that my back, which had mentioned to me earlier in the week that I ought to just be careful, decided to pay me back and seized up with a vengeance.

Which meant that when Alex came home, quite rightly in search of dinner, there wasn't any.

"It's ok, I'll just get a takeaway" he offered.  "No", I said, best wifely martyr face on, "I'm sure I can rustle something or other together."

My favourite (shop bought) dressing

Determined not to be beaten by any of aforementioned setbacks, I shuffled about the kitchen grabbing a selection of random things and assembled them on a plate.  I say random, I did at least attempt to make sure there was a vegetable contingent and a protein contingent (got to love keeping a stash of tinned beans of various descriptions for such moments). Luckily my husband is not of the variety that insists on there being meat on the plate before it is deemed meal worthy.

Turns out I accidentally made a decent enough salad in less time than it would have taken to say "chicken fried rice" (which I guarantee he would have said, had I not made him dinner).  Thanks to a packet of ready made gravel, without which it would have been a bit light and empty and husband would have been hungry again a few minutes later.

Gravel is what my mum and brother label any kind of weird (to them) and wonderful (to me) grain/pulse/wheat type concoction they find in my fridge. I think today's mix included quinoa, blugar wheat, lentils and soy flakes (which sounds vile but is nice).  Apparently my brother was once heard declaring

"There's no point looking for stuff to eat in Emma's fridge, all she has in there is gravel."

Well, gravel saved the day today and will continue to remain a staple in my basked and my fridge so there.

Leftovers lunch

Today saw me, my brother and my grandma set off on an impromptu trip to the beach - well, a beach by a lake in the middle of Surrey but a beach nonetheless!  I had about 20 minutes to spare before they came to pick me up and I decided we needed a picnic.  I didn't fancy picking up some grotty garage sandwiches along the way but didn't really have the time or ingredients to rustle anything up.

Until I spotted the leftover quinoa from last night (see, always make too much!).

I quickly chopped up and bunged in some avocado, cherry tomatoes, parley, feta and lemon juice (all also left overs from other meals), sprinkled on some seasalt and  black pepper, chucked it in a tupperware and was all done.

Grandma and I enjoyed our lovely light summery salad lunch later on. I couldn't, however, convince my brother to partake of any 'gravel', he had a pork baguette instead :).

                

Kale convert

There are very few foods that I do not like.  But when I don't like a food, I really, properly do not like it. At all.

I can count on one hand the foods that fall into this category (that I know of so far):

- Parsley
- Anchovies
- Kale
- Crab
- Whitebait
- Sardines
(there's a small evil fishy theme here)
- and weirdly, cream cakes (not strictly 'food' as such in the cleanest terms but can be eaten nonethless!) or anything involving starchy white things alongside sweet red things, ergo jam sandwiches.  I know, I did say it was weird but I can handle not liking this manky stuff. It just gives me an instant headache and makes me go all woozy and whatnot.

I've also just noticed that either I can't count or I have a deformed hand with rather more fingers than it should have.

The point is, I like most things apart from the above.

Or so I thought.

Turns out my taste buds, my attitude, my sense of adventure or my willingness to challenge convention and the stories I've made about myself based on previous experience, has changed.

I now regularly use parsley in dishes, in fact it's now my herb of choice for freshening things up.  I've eaten crab twice in the last week...I just fancied it, and it didn't kill me (although the smell nearly knocked Alex out, he's not budging on his absolute distaste for any form of seafood).

And I now absolutely love, adore and worship the ground kale, um, grows in.  For something that looks just so green and vegetabley, it's so so tasty. It has its own natural saltiness somehow. And it is unbelievably and ridiculously good for you in so many reasons it's almost impossible to list them. It's basically a very super, superfood.

I think the thing with kale, and parsley actually, and broccoli before them, is that my opinion of them had been formed by 1970s and 1980s style cooking of them - ie boil them to within an inch of their life (and beyond).

I remember a particularly harrowing kale experience where a giant, curly, spiky lump of the stuff got stuck in my throat and threatened to kill me. Ish.  It wasn't nice anyway and I've never forgiven it. Until now, armed with the proper knowledge and skills as to how to actually cook and use it properly.

Tonight's dinner was a case in point.

I'd saved a recipe for warm quinoa and kale salad to my pinterest board a while ago from MindBodyGreen that I wanted to try and having been out all day and eaten a fairly large lunch quite late on, I realised I had all the ingredients so decided to give it a go.

The full recipe is here and to avoid any kind of copyright I won't re-post.

I fully intended to stick to the recipe religiously for once but alas, my tahini had seen better days (mostly prehistoric days judging by the use by date and the state of it) so I adapted a little and used some houmous I had in the fridge in the dressing instead.  Not ideal as it was shop bought rather than home made but life is too short sometimes...anyway I couldn't make my own due to aforementioned tahini sitch.

Another thing that appealed about this salad was the quinoa, of which I am a huge fan.  For any quinoa virgins, it's keen-wa, not kwinowa, and is a sort of peruvian protein packed grain thing that is super easy to cook, yummy to eat and general all round fab and versatile meal base.  It's also gluten free and doesn't seem to bloat me out like couscous etc.

If you're interested, check out my Quinoa Queen post for some tips on cooking the perfect quinoa.

So, the verdict.  It was delicious.  It really packed a punch on the flavour side of things. The houmous and tamari (a kind of wheat free soy sauce) dressing was really rich, musky and tangy, it reminded me a little of miso. The kale had a lovely nutty flavour from the coconut oil and the avocado on top added a light freshness to it all.  I was careful to only cook the kale until it was wilted to retain the crispness and bright green-ness of it which also helped.  The recipe said to season with salt and pepper but I didn't bother as I didn't think it needed it at all.

So, we've decided to add this to our staples and might experiment with a few different varieties or toppings.

Peaches and cheese

Today sees a new twist on the whole fruit and cheese combo.  This time I do know where I got the inspiration and that's my new cookbook, which like every new cookbook I buy (um, lots), is now my most favourite cookbook in the world ever.  It's Hemsley and Hemsley - the art of eating well and I love it. Well, I love looking through it, have yet to make anything from it!

Anyway, today whilst flicking through I spotted a salad with peach and goats cheese. I didn't stop to read the recipe but whilst out shopping I decided all I wanted to eat for lunch was indeed a peach and goats cheese salad.  So I made it up. 

My version went like this:

Rip up some butterhead leaves and chuck on some chopped up nectarine ( I remembered I don't like the furriness of peaches!), chuck on some soft goats cheese, drizzle on some of the yummy honey, mustard dressing mentioned in an earlier post, dry fry a few pine nuts til nice and brown and chuck them on too. Just for good measure I also drizzled on some basil flavoured olive oil and some walnut flavoured olive oil and served with some heavenly focaccia from Waitrose. 

O. M. G. I don't like to blow my own trumpet but it was delish. The dressing was so lovely and unctuous and hints of the basil and walnut flavours added a lovely fresh, grassy, earthy dimension to what could have been quite sweet and flat otherwise. 

Can't believe I used to run a mile at the thought of fruit in savoury dishes before! (I still draw the line at duck a l'orange and sultanas in curries tho. Bleurgh.)

Having eaten it I checked the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe to find it really quite different to mine and involving peas, red onion, courgettes and mint - one to try another day!

Watermelon and Feta

The other day I just decided I fancied a watermelon and feta salad.

I've no idea where the notion to combine these two flavours came from, but boy did it work.  The crisp, watery sweetness of the melon really contrasted beautifully with the soft, creamy, tangy saltiness of the feta cheese.  Feta is one of my favourite ingredients, especially in salads and this was defo a favourite combo.

For a bit of added crunch and earthy depth I toasted some pine nuts and used a mixture of nice soft butterhead lettuce and peppery rocket.  Then to balance the whole thing with a bit of acidity I made a lovely dressing with mustard, olive oil, honey and white wine vinegar...as well as the beloved Maldon salt.

And I must say the result was rather pleasing and super yummy. I love making up new recipes (new to me anyway ) so I allowed myself a little moment of pride as I munched my way through it.

You could be forgiven for dismissing the humble watermelon as just a load of watery nothingness, but you'd be wrong. It is in fact a super healthful fruit full of lycopene (normally associated with tomatoes), excellent inflammation basher and muscle relaxant (handy for the old sciatica and whiplash) and full of vitamins and minerals.  Check out everything the lovely pink juicy one has to offer here.

You might also be thinking, yes, but feta, olive oil, pine nuts...that's a lot of fat! So what?  Fat is good, natural, healthy fats in moderation that is.  Try telling the Greeks and Italians (two of the healthiest nations around) to stop eating oil and cheese and see what happens.  We actually need fats in our diet  (not the kind in a double bacon cheeseburger)  for loads of different reasons so boo to the fat bashers.

So, all in all, very happy with this result, and to feed the happy a bit more, it even looked pretty.