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!
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 🙂
I haven’t had a frittata for well over a year, I’m not a big egg eater you see but my family are and I’m on a mission to keep our meals cheap at the moment.
Spanish Frittata
This is a Spanish frittata with a summery salad topping, I’ve given some optional extras depending on how much veg you have in and whether you want to make it vegescarian, meaty or fishy! You’ll need a really good non-stick pan for this dish.
Ingredients
4 eggs
1tsp coconut oil
1 leek or onion or 3-4 spring onions
1 pepper, red, green or orange is fine
100g chestnut mushrooms
Handful of peas
1 tsp thyme leaves
2 medium size white potatoes
1/2 avocado, scoop lumps with a teaspoon
2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
Salad leaves – I used lambs lettuce
Optional extras
100g diced chorizo
50g grated cheese
200g shrimp/small prawns
1 tsp chilli flakes
Method
Finely dice the onion/leek and pepper. Strip the thyme leaves from their stalks. Thinly slice the mushrooms and the potatoes.
Put the potatoes in a pan of boiling water for 7 minutes and drain. Leave to cool a little.
Heat the coconut oil in the pan and add the onion/leeks and cook well for 5 minutes. Then add chorizo or prawns (if using) and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the red peppers, thyme, paprika and mushrooms and allow to cook down. Add the potatoes and season well.
Turn the oven on to the grill or the oven/grill function at about 180.
In a bowl, crack two of the eggs. With the other two eggs, separate the whites and the yolks. Add the yolks to the bowl containing the other two cracked eggs and whisk. Then whisk up the separated egg whites well until white and frothy. Pour the egg whites into the egg mix and whisk all together. This will make it lighter and it’ll puff up a bit under the grill.
Pour the egg mix into the saucepan containing all your lovely veg and leave for a minute to set around the edges. Add the handful of peas.
Add the grated cheese and place under the grill for 5-7 minutes until brown and crispy on top.
Remove from the oven and loosen around the edges with a palette knife.
Shuffle it onto a plate and top with your salad and a spritz of lemon juice.
I served mine with a little chilli sauce mixed into some mayonnaise as a little treat.
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 »
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.
Oriental Chicken Salad with Nutty Dressing
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.
The vegetables in my salad, using a spiraliser
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
Herbivores unite! Basil, Coriander and Mint
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
Nutty Dressing
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 