There is something strangely satisfying about these salad bowls, having my food organised and compartmentalised feels grown up and as if I’m one of those girls who has their shit together 😉Read More »
Tag: salad
Steak Salad
Ingredients
- 200-400g Thin cut rump steak
- 1-2tsp coconut oil
- Mixture of roasting vegetables – red onion, peppers, sweet potato, tomatoes, courgette etc…
- Artichokes in olive oil, chopped (optional)
- Fresh cherry tomatoes
- 1 bag of Watercress and/or rocket salad
- 1tsp Wholegrain mustard
- 1tsp honey, agave or maple syrup
- 1tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 Spring onions finely chopped
Method
Season the steaks well with salt and pepper. Add 1 tsp of coconut to a frying pan and heat to a very high heat. Use a stopwatch to cook the steaks. You want 30 seconds on one side and 30 seconds on the other then straight onto a plate and cover with foil to rest and cool down.
When the steak are cool you can slice them super thin and use some of the juices that have escaped in your salad dressing.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees and prep your roasting veg – be rough with it but aim for bite-size pieces. Roast for 35 minutes with a little coconut oil then leave to cool down.
Mix up the dressing – steak juices, oil, honey, wholegrain and a little squish of lemon juice if you have any.
Lay out the watercress, artichokes and spring onion with some fresh chopped cherry tomatoes then lay out the steak on top with the roasted veg and pour over some of the dressing and demolish! Enjoy!
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Goats cheese and Grain Salad
Ingredients
- 150g soft goats cheese cut/torn up into smaller pieces
- 2 ready cooked beetroot balls
- 2 sweet potatoes
- Salad leaves
- 2 spring onions chopped finely
- 1 tbsp Lemon Thyme leaves
- 1 tbsp honey
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- Merchant Gourmet Grain Mix
Method
Cut the sweet potato up into small chunks and roast in the oven for 20-25 minutes in some coconut oil. Leave them to cool. You can do this the night before and leave them in the fridge.
Lay out the grain mix on a serving plate or platter.
Sprinkle over the thyme leaves and spring onion.
Chop the beetroot into bite-size pieces and add to the platter with the goats cheese and sweet potato.
Mix the honey, lemon juice and olive oil and season well with salt and coarse black pepper. Taste the dressing – it should be quite tart with a background sweetness. Adjust with more/less honey or lemon as necessary.
Pour this over the salad then add the salad leaves and toss well together.
Its extra specially tasty with a nice cold cheeky glass of Pinot Grigio 🙂
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Prosciutto Rolls & Salad
I came up with this lunch idea at the weekend, I love prosciutto and combining it with good quality mozzarella and peppery rocket makes this a really delicious option for lunch. Please try and go for the best possible quality mozzarella you can realistically afford, I promise it makes a difference. I’ve added a cheeky little video for you, hope you like it!
Serves: 1
- 2 slices of prosciutto
- 2 tsp mascarpone
- Couple of torn-off pieces of mozzarella
- 3-4 sundried tomatoes
- Rocket
- Handful of spinach
- Cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
- Squeeze of lemon juice
Lay out the prosciutto and spread the mascarpone over them and season well, you could add a little bit of oregano at this point too. Lay on the rocket and sundried tomatoes and add the mozzarella. Squeeze over a spritz of lemon juice and roll these up into little parcels of joy, you can secure them with a little cocktail stick if you need to.
Put the spinach and tomatoes in a Tupperware container and pop the parcels on top.
Try and wait until lunchtime.
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Italian Salad – mozzarella, tomato and avocado
This is a delicious summer salad and its a really quick recipe with one simple rule, everything has to be amazingly ripe. The tomatoes can be substituted for normal ones easily, so long as they are ripe. The avocado must be beautifully soft and ready to eat.Read More »
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Family Salad – a quick meal to get in the mood for Summer
Summer is just around the corner, I can almost touch it! So I’m testing out lots of new salad ideas, packing as much nutritional punch as I possibly can. I try and add lots of additional beneficial extras – things like mixed seeds, nuts, bee pollen, flax seeds – you barely notice they’re there but they do heaps of good for your insides! You can easily omit the chicken in this recipe or replace it with rare cooked tune or steak or seafood – its really versatile.
I’ve used a spiraliser on my salad vegetables to get nice long thin curly pieces but you can easily just use a peeler to shave them into your salad bowl.
Ingredients
1/2 pack of bean sprouts
Buckwheat/Soba Noodles
500g Chicken mini-fillets
Mixed seeds or nuts
2 spring onions, finely chopped
Finely chopped coriander, basil and mint – it doesn’t matter if you don’t have all of these
any or all of the following
Carrots
Cucumber
Mooli
Peppers, sliced
for the dressing
2 tbsp Tahini
Juice of 1/2 a lime
1 tbsp Fish sauce
1-2 tbsp dark soy sauce or tamari
1 tsp chilli flakes or fresh chilli
1 tbsp honey or agave
You can also add a bit of fresh chopped ginger and garlic to the dressing, if you want/have it in
Method
Ok a lot of this is going to be prep work for the vegetables and then pulling it all together at the end.
Put some coconut oil in a pan and add your chicken mini fillets – I cook just a couple at a time on a high heat – this means that they will get super crispy on the outside which is lovely for some added texture to your salad – you can’t have a crowded pan to do this. Once it is all cooked, chop it up into bitesize pieces. Set the chicken aside to cool.
Prep all your vegetables, using a peeler or a spiraliser and set aside. This may take a while – play some music, dance around, get family to help.
Boil your noodles for 5 minutes, drain and run under a cold tap to cool quickly. Mix with your salad vegetables and bean sprouts.
Pop all the dressing ingredients into a saucepan and warm through gently until the sesame paste (tahini) has melted down. I add my spring onions to the dressing because I think warming them through takes away that sharp bite they can have when they’re completely raw.
Now just put it all together, its nice to put this on a big serving platter or a chopping board and everyone can get stuck in at the table. Lay out the veg, bean sprout and noodle mix first, then put the chicken over the top, drizzle over your dressing and then add seeds/nuts and your mixed herbs.
I really enjoy this salad, we’re having it once a week at the moment because everyone likes it so much. I think this would be lovely as a side salad for a BBQ – one for me to test further down the road.
Let me know what you think xxx Have a great weekend all xxx
Laura of London
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Who wouldn’t want dinner ready in 15 minutes?
I’m a big fan of fast cooking during the weekday, I have a regimental order post-5.30pm that must be followed otherwise we’re heading for a meltdown (mine, not my son). I learned this Vietnamese salad as part of a cookery lesson at Recipease a couple of months back and realised its a great little ‘go to’ dish when you need something quick and super healthy to make you feel good. Most of it is just prep work with a final flourish at the end to pull it all together.
You can also prep the salad and wrap it in soaked rice paper and then use the dressing as a dipping sauce – Vietnamese Rolls – this is quite a nice ‘fancy’ starter when you have friends round.
If you’re not big on prawns, leave it out or replace with chicken, mackerel or beef strips just make sure they’re cool before you add to the salad/rolls.
Ingredients
Packet of cooked prawns
Vegetable stir fry packet including bean sprouts
Buckwheat/Soba noodles
10cm piece of Mooli (if you can get it)
1 carrot
10cm piece of cucumber
3 spring onions
Good handful of nuts – cashews or peanuts
For the salad dressing/dipping sauce
1/4 cup of Fish Sauce
1/3 cup of either Rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar (I tend to use whatever I have in the cupboard)
Approx 4 tbsp Honey – depends on your taste
Juice of 1/2 a lime
2 cloves of garlic
2cm piece of ginger, cut into matchsticks
At least 2 fresh chillies split lengthways
Optional
Pack of Rice Paper Sheets
Extra chopped chillies in the salad
Method
Put all the ingredients for the salad dressing (or dipping sauce) in a saucepan and heat gently for 5-6 minutes then take off the heat and leave to cool. Taste it with a bit of salad from your bowl – its meant to be quite strong – add more of the fish sauce, vinegar, lime or honey depending on what you think it needs. Go for less sweetness than you think it needs.
Put the stir fry packet in a large bowl. Peel the skin off the carrot and then proceed to use your peeler to peel the carrot into the salad bowl so you end up with nice thin ribbons of carrot. Do the same with the mooli and the cucumber. Alternatively you can cut them up into matchsticks if you prefer. Boil the soba/buckwheat noodles in water for 3-4 minutes and drain, leave to cool then add to your salad bowl.
Slice the prawns lengthways and slice the spring onions finely at an angle and add to the bowl. Chop up your nuts and leave to one side.
Once your dressing/sauce has cooled, pour 4-5 tablespoons of it over your salad, toss and taste to see if it needs more of anything. Add a final squeeze of lime juice then throw on your nuts and munch away!
If you’re turning these into rolls then just soak a paper sheet in warm water, as per packet instructions, put it on a clean kitchen towel and then put 1-2 tablespoons of the salad into the middle. Wrap it up and put any left over salad on the side or save it for lunch the next day. Keep the dipping sauce on the side otherwise the sheets will go too mushy.
Let me know how it goes!
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Mackerel salad with lemon buttermilk dressing
Ok this is amazing! Truly amazing. It’s the dressing that does it. If you didn’t fancy mackerel you could do this just with Parma Ham or veggies alone or salmon or chicken or…or….or…. You get the picture. Try it, it’s fab. And quick, did I mention it’s just 20 minutes to lushdom?
Ingredients
2 mackerel fillets
3 slices of Parma ham (optional)
4 tomatoes. I used yellow and red varieties
2 asparagus spears
1 little gem or other preferred leaf
6-10 baby potatoes
Zest and juice of one lemon
Half tub of buttermilk (roughly 140ml)
Drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and pepper
Method
Boil your potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes. Shave your asparagus into strips with a potato peeler. Cut your tomatoes into quarters and then slice them horizontally. Tear up your Parma ham and mackerel.
Arrange all of this loveliness on a big platter.
To make the dressing add the buttermilk and lemon zest to a bowl and gradually add the juice, tasting all the time. The buttermilk will balance out the lemon for a lovely mellow taste. Add the Extra Virgin olive Oil for richness and season with salt and pepper.
Drizzle over the salad and serve!
Laura of London 