Roasted Carrot and Bean Salad

Another 101cookbooks recipe, this one caught my eye as a tasty way to eat carrots (I've been leaning towards cakes recently). I had some friends round for dinner and we eat this with roasted trout and artichokes with almonds, breadcrumbs and mint from Jamie Oliver. Unfortunately, there aren't any pictures but the recipe is here and believe me it was delicious and the carrot salad went perfectly. Just enough bulk to fill you up but light enough that you feel comfortably full.

We eat this at room temperature and I think it definitely needs a good 30mins for the flavours to settle and develop and will no doubt be delicious the day after. What follows is my version, I made a few tweaks to suit what I had at home. Parsley instead of dill and a little ground cumin for warmth.

Ingredients
5 medium carrots
2tbsp olive oil
1tsp ground cumin
1 can borlotti or cannellini beans, drained
1tbsp brown sugar
1 red onion, finely diced
1 small bunch parsley, roughly chopped
juice 1/2 lemon


Wash the carrots well and slice diagonally into coins about 1/2cm thick.
Put in a pan, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 mins. Drain.
Heat the oil and cumin in a large frying pan until sizzling. Tumble in the carrots, fry over a high heat for about 5mins until golden.
Add the beans and sugar and fry until beginning to caramelise.
Spoon the mixture into a large bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir well and season - checking if it needs a drizzle more oil or a little more lemon juice.

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Roast Chicken and Bulghar Wheat Salad

A summery take on a simple roast chicken - using sage from our garden, lemon zest, garlic and butter as flavour. Eaten with this courgette and bulghar wheat salad, an extra smattering of pine nuts and some cooling, garlicky tzatiki.


To make the taztiki, I grated a cucumber, salted it and left it to drain for 15-30mins. Squeeze out the excess water (there should be a lot), tip into a bowl and mix with greek yoghurt, finely chopped garlic and a little lemon juice. Finish with black pepper and a drizzle of oil.

This is perfect summer eating, there's no pressure to serve it piping hot, indeed it's better lukewarm and eaten casually outside. In fact, you could joint the chicken and BBQ it instead, swapping the butter for olive oil. I'm a fan of uncomplicated BBQs - making one great piece of meat the star so you don't spend hours cooking burgers and sausages. We're recently had success with a huge leg of lamb, marinaded overnight, cooked briefly in the oven and then finished on the BBQ. Sliced thinly and eaten in pittas with tazatiki and tomato salsa - that's my kind of BBQ.
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Carrot and Radish Salad

This came about by using up the dregs leftover in the fridge (as is so often the case). We're not massive fans of radish in our house and we always seem to have more carrot than we know what to do with. As I've said before, I will happily eat grated carrot with nothing more than a drizzle of sharp mustardy dressing, but Pete has started to complain so I threw in a few extras to jazz it up.

Bright, colourful and crunchy, with added saltiness from proper deli olives and tang from mustard dressing. It will happily and indeed should sit around for an hour or two for the flavours to meld and to take some of the edge of the red onion. We eat ours with little cubes of crispy roasted potatoes and a piece of fried salmon - simple summer eating. Also, everyone knows how good carrot and hummus sandwiches are - imagine how good leftovers of this are on hummus sandwiches.


Ingredients

Makes a large salad - enough for 4 people as a side salad

4 medium carrots, peeled and grated coarsely
1 small bunch of radish
1 small bunch of parsley, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
small handful olives, sliced
generous drizzle mustard dressing
handful of seedy sprinkle

This is essentially an assemble job, mix the ingredients together, drizzle with dressing and leave until you're ready to eat - at which point I would stir it a little to freshen it up or decant into a clean bowl (I'm a big fan of decanting into clean bowls). All I will mention is how I cut up the radishes. Clean, top and tail and cut into 4 slices lenghtways; while still holding them together, cut into 4 slices in a perpendicular direction so that you end up with radish batons - a little labour intensive but it works much better with the grated carrot.

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Seedy Spinkle

Having been a vegetarian for so long (although decidedly lapsed now...) I know you don't need meat to complete a meal. And while I certainly appreciate the charms of a roast chicken, or sausage or steak; I love vegetables and am happy to make them the star of the show.

Unfortunately, they are often jostling for space with my other favourites - eggs, cream, cheese, potatoes, pasta rice - you get the picture. In an attempt to eat a balance diet, I often shoehorn in more veggies with a side salad. Nothing fancy and at this time of year, its downright easy with everything tasting so damn good.

I always have seedy sprinkle and mustard dressing on hand, these two will liven up anything. Be it a few lettuce leaves or a grated carrot. I like to add finely chopped red onion or spring onions. Cool and creamy avocados for a hint of oily goodness. Quartered cherry tomatoes - so sweet and full of flavour right now. Thinly sliced fennel or cabbage, a handful of defrosted peas add a little sweetness. The list goes on...


I used to make this seedy sprinkle in big batches when I worked at pieceofplenty, hazelnuts, sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds roasted in chilli powder, paprika and soy sauce. You're left with crunchy, spicy seeds that make any salad instantly delicious, be it simply grated carrots or a couscous salad.

I've not been able to get my fix lately, so I knocked up my own batch today. It was all done in half an hour.


To make this, heat a couple of tablespoons of sunflower oil and sprinkle in 2tsp of paprika and 1-2tsp chilli powder (depending on how hot you like it). Heat until sizzling and tumble in 500g mixed seeds or nuts. The mixture is down to you, I like lots of pumpkin seeds, but chopped cashews would also be delicious. Stir really well and make sure the seeds are coated in the bright red oil. Roast in a large tray for 20-30mins until brown.

Pour back into the saucepan and drizzle over 2-3tbsp soy sauce. Heat and stir frantically until the soy is absorbed, giving the seeds and salty coating. Allow to cool and store in an airtight jar.
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Brown Rice and Spinach Pilaf

Eggs are my new favourite thing. Especially poached eggs, nestled atop a bowl of rice. I like to break open the yolk and let the insides trickle down. Recently it's been a stir fry, full of garlic, ginger and chilli and topped with plenty of toasted cashews. I came across this simple comforting bowl in Waitrose Food Illustrated and couldn't resist. Delicately spiced with cumin, cinnamon and cardamon, with plenty of spinach stirred through at the last minute and topped with toasted pine nuts.

Originally intended to be bulghar wheat pilaf, I reached into the grain drawer only to find I'd used all my bulghar wheat already. So brown rice it was, a little disappointing, only in the sense that brown rice takes about 3 times as long to cook and we were impatient for our dinner. Either grain would work well as they each lend a certian nuttiness to the end result.

Ingredients

serves 4
25g butter
2 garlic cloves , crushed
1 large onion , finely chopped
4 cardamom pods , bruised
1tsp cumin
1tsp cinnamon
250g brown basmati rice
500ml hot, vegetable stock
200g spinach, finely chopped
50g pine nuts
4 eggs, poached

• Heat a frying pan (that has a lid), as you do so, toast the pine nuts and remove.
• Add the butter and a little oil. Once bubbling add the onions and garlic and fry for 5-10mins until brown.
• Add the spices and cook for a few more minutes until they begin to smell delicious.
• Tip in the rice and stir well. Pour in the hot stock and bring to the boil.
• Turn the heat down, cover and simmer for 20-30mins until the rice is cooked, adding more water if necessary.
• Stir through the spinach, cover and leave to sit for a few minutes until the spinach is wilted. Season well and stirin the pine nuts.
• Serve topped with a poached egg.

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Summery Salad

I picked up some lovely organic pork meatballs from Waitrose (who can resist a 'reduced' bargain these days?), at the time I was thinking of a rich stew spiced with cumin, coriander and cinnamon to eat with a mound of cous cous and a dollop of yoghurt (serious comfort food) . Alas, the weather was having none of it, after sweating it home on the tube, the thought of cooking a stew and then eating was not appealing.

Off I went to the cookbooks and came back with this recipe from Delicious magazine. A fresh and summery salad of sweet peas, broad beans, crunchy radish and meatballs made by splitting open sausages and rolling them into balls. View this as completely open to interpretation - we used what we had in the fridge for ours, some thinly sliced fennel, peas, lettuce and red onion along with the lovey meatballs.



What brings the whole thing together is a generous scattering of mint and parsley and a deeply flavourful dressing made from (a lot of) anchovies, garlic and lemon juice.

Leave out the meatballs and this is a great side salad or try it grilled chicken or fish and here you could add capers for extra zing. I must admit I also mixed the leftovers with some bulghar wheat for my lunch - perhaps a little unorthodox but the extra carbs bulk it up and make it a little more exciting for lunch rather a leftover soggy salad.

Dressing
1 garlic clove
4tbsp olive oil
6 anchovy fillets, chopped
juice 1/2 lemon

To serve:
1 small bunch of mint and parsley, roughly chopped

To make the dressing, heat the anchovy fillets and olive oil gently until the anchovies melt, now add the garlic and lemon juice and some black pepper.



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Peanut Noodle Salad

My weekends are for cooking and while I tend to rely heavily on leftovers for lunch, I like to make some kind of salad to stash in the fridge during the week for snacking or for lunch when we've been over zealous and eaten every last scrap of dinner.

Something robust that will survive a few days in the fridge is in order - couscous, or rice usually. I've also recently re-discovered the joys of this simple brown rice salad dressed in thick and syrupy ginger soy dressing with lots of cashews, if you're not a fan of brown rice, this will turn you. So, this weekend I tried another gem from Nigella, Sesame Noodle Salad - noodles dressed in salty and sweet satay sauce with plenty of crunchy veg. This is very much open to interpretation, use whatever you have - red cabbage, carrot, cucumber, radish, spinach, mushrooms. I like to add a handful of chopped peanuts to the mix for extra crunch and some extra garlic and chilli. Just make sure you keep the ratio of sauce to noodles, you need enough sauce to coat everything well. Read more...

Brown Rice Salad

This was more Saturday morning cooking, but this time I was definitely trying to be healthy. Not in any worthy sense of the word, I just wanted to eat something that was of course tasty but felt like it was doing me good and didn't send me back to bed for a nap.

My main inspiration was this recipe for Tuktuk salad from Waitrose Food Illustrated (my new food magazine of choice). But as these things so often go, I was limited by ingredients and ended up going down my own path, albeit still a tasty one.

The base is brown rice which I always find works best in salads when its been allowed to cool first. Some lentils for texture and added health benefits although chickpeas would be good too. Plenty of red onion and garlic or try spring onions. Some toasted seeds for crunch, but toasted cashews would be equally delicious and a simple zingy salad dressing. I like to put parsley on everything if I can and the freshness works well here, but you could try coriander or mint.

The great thing about a salad like this is that it will hold up well for a few days, have it with a dollop of hummus in a pitta or with grilled fish or on its own for lunch and like me, feel very virtuous.

Ingredients

Serves 4

125g puy lentils, cooked
250g brown rice, cooked
2 red onions, finely diced
5 tomatoes, diced
200g frozen peas, defrosted
100g sunflower seeds, toasted
1 small bunch parsley, chopped

Dressing
1 ½ tsp dijon mustard
1 ½ tbsp cider vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil

This is really just an assembly job, all the work goes into preparing the ingredients.

Mix all the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk the dressing and pour over. Mix well and check for seasoning.

Make sure your cooked brown rice is completely cool before assembling the salad.

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Courgette and Bulghar Wheat Salad

Lovely nutty bulghar wheat with plenty of mint and coriander - the base for a classic tabbouleh. This time I used courgette, cut into small pieces and fried until golden along with a decent hit of chilli for a full flavoured salad that improves with age, making leftovers perfect for lunch. I also made a simple tahini sauce to drizzle over that is perfect with roasted vegetables too.

We had it as part of the mezze spread, but it would be good with haloumi, lamb or chicken. Of course, you can always use couscous if you don't fancy/have bulghar wheat.

Ingredients
Serves 4 as a side dish

200g bulghar wheat (approx 1cup)
2 medium courgettes (approx 300g)
1 small bunch coriander, chopped
1 small bunch mint chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 chilli finely chopped
6 spring onions, sliced
juice ½ lemon
3tbsp olive oil

• Cover the bulghar wheat with 500ml water (add a little vegetable stock for flavour), cover and simmer for about 5mins until all the water is absorbed, then turn off the heat and leave for 10mins.
• Meanwhile, cut the courgettes into 4 lengthways and slice out the fibrous central bit, and slice into thin crescents.
• Heat a pan and fry the courgettes in 1tbsp sunflower oil until golden, season well and add a squeeze of lemon juice.
• Once the bulghar wheat is cooked, combine in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients.
• Serve on a large plate with the tahini sauce drizzled over

Tahini Sauce

1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice
2tbsp tahini
2 tbsp yoghurt
2 tbsp water

Mix the ingredients together well, adding a little more water if necessary to loosen the mixture. Read more...

Couscous Salad

I went camping this weekend, no ordinary camping, to a tipi! Camping trips always conjure up thoughts of lovely local shops selling lovely local food and cosy pubs with lovely warm fires. In reality, depending where you are, it can be hard to find a good pub and even harder to find one with good food. So, as we arrived late on Friday and wanted to make the most of our tipi, I planned ahead. Out came some sausages from the freezer, some homemade bread, leftover haloumi and... busy trying to use as much things from the fridge that were on the turn as possible, I decided on couscous, the perfect snack for the journey.

In reality of course, the campsite was brilliant (another winner from The Cool Camping Guide), with a delightful cafe on site, selling delicious breakfast and several pubs all within walking distant selling grat pub food, mostly mussels, which were literally caught over the road. Still... being the country, by the time we arrived on Friday, nowhere was selling food so I glad of my pack lunch (and the bottle of wine I thought to pack).


I love couscous, its such a pleasing vehicle for so many things - roasted carrots, smoked mackerel and brocolli.. I like it fresh and zingy as below with feta, parsley and lots of lemon juice, or with roasted vegetables and flaked almonds. The recipe below is obviously just a starting point, use whatever you have handy - peppers always nice, as are olives, anything you'd put into a salad really... Hummus is another great partner, or some leaves packed into the top of the box so they don't get soggy.



Serves 2

150g couscous
225ml hot vegetable stock
1/2 can chickpeas
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cucumber, cut in half, the middle scooped out and sliced
100g feta, crumbled
1 medium carrot, grated
bunch parsley(and some mint too if you have it), chopped
juice 1/2 lemon
3tbsp olive oil
1/2 red onion, diced
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
1 small handful toasted sunflower seeds or pine nuts

This is really just an assembly job...

• wiegh the couscous out in a large bowl, pour over the hot stock, cover a with a large plate and leave to steep for about 5mins.
• Once all the stock has been absorbed, fluff up using a fork. Pile all the ingredients into the bowl and mix thoroughly.
• Squeeze the lemon juice over and pour in the olive. Mix really well and taste, it'll probably need some salt and pepper.

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The Best Salad Dressing

I felt I had to blog about this as its possibly one of my favourite discoveries. We get the Abel and Cole salad box, so always having lovely organic vegetables about means we have a salad with most meals. Almost any vegetable will make it in, just a little bit of slicing, shredding, chopping and dicing.

Now, here is the secret. My mustardy dressing, it livens up any salad and what's more you can make up a big batch of it and it will keep for weeks as its just mustard, vinegar and oil. I literally drizzle it on anything I can and I encourage you to do so too.

I've posted the recipe again below for convenience, a bit of whisking and you end up with a delicious, creamy emulsion. Use it on carrot salad or winter coleslaw.

Ingredients

1tsp honey
1tbsp dijon mustard
1/2tbsp english mustard
3tbsp cider vinegar
100ml olive oil

Add the vinegar to a jug and spoon in the mustards and honey, whisk until smooth. Pour in the oil judiciously, whisking lazily until emulsified, add a bit of salt and pepper and keep in a jar or a squeezy bottle like I do for easy drizzling.

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Jansen's Temptation

I saw this recipe in this month's Olive for a Swedish dish of potatoes and onions layered, covered with cream and anchovies and baked with a crunchy breadcrumb topping. How can you go wrong?

I ended up using this recipe from Hollow Legs and it was pretty good, although I'm not sure I was completely turned, possibly too many onions for me. We had it with a delightful salad of veg box ingredients as the cream makes it pretty rich.

It reminds me of a Jamie Oliver recipe that my friend Rose makes all the time, now that is a good fish bake. Read more...

Chickpea and Haloumi Salad

Aaah another recipe from good old Cranks, combining all the old favourites, chickpeas, olives, sun blush tomatoes and haloumi. This is possibly my favourite way to eat haloumi, although now there is a contender in the fennel and pomegranate salad.

You could make up the chickpea part in advance and just add rocket and tomatoes to serve with the haloumi, the chickpea marinade will dress the salad.

Ingredients

Serves 4

½ small red onion, diced
juice ½ lemon
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
olive oil
250g cherry tomatoes, roasted
1 block haloumi, sliced
1 tin chickpeas, drained
small bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped
100g rocket

Combine the chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic, parsley and red onion with a 1 tbsp olive oil and some seasoning, stir well and set aside to marinade. Spread the rocket over a large plate, top with the chickpeas and sprinkle over the tomatoes. Heat a frying pan or griddle pan and fry the haloumi on both sides for a few minutes. lay over the top of the salad and eat immediately Read more...

Haloumi, fennel and pomegranate seed salad

You'll have to forgive the slightly hazy photos, they were taken when my friends Kat and Jamie came for dinner, they are not so used to the obligatory 5mins spent trying to take a good picture, so these were taken in haste.... I digress, the point is, this salad is great! Its actually a recipe from Waitrose, you know those little recipe cards you get in supermarkets? Except the Waitrose ones tend to be quite good.

Its a salad of fennel, leaves, haloumi and pomegranate seeds with a sour cream dressing. I've only recently come round to the idea of fruit in savoury food, but here, with the salty haloumi and garlicky dressing, it works really well.

This is the Waitrose recipe, I've also given my own below as I did it slightly differently and didn't faff about putting the fennel in iced water etc.

Ingredients

Serves 4
1 fennel bulb
100g yoghurt, sour cream or creme fraiche
1 small clove garlic, crushed
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 handfuls salad leaves - watercress or rocket are good
Juice of ½ lemon
1 pack haloumi, sliced
seeds of 1 pomegranate

Use the biggest plate you have, spread the leaves across the bottom. Cut the fennel in half lengthways through the root. If there any leafy fronds, finely chop these and add to the plate. Cut off any old looking ends of the fennel and slice as finely as you can. Sprinkle these over the leaves. Mix the yoghurt, lemon juice and garlic and season well. Set aside. Now heat a frying pan or griddle and fry the haloumi for a couple of minutes on both sides, lay the haloumi on top of the salad and drizzle over the dressing before sprinkling judiciously with pomegranate seeds. Read more...

Scallops with Lentils and Roasted Tomato

Mmmm, yes more decadent eating. This was a mesh of lots of recipes that I saw, mostly including bacon, so I adjusted them a little bit. In fact, the sweetness of the roasted tomatoes goes really sweet scallops. If you're not feeling so flash, I think this would go really well with haloumi instead.

Another method of roasting tomatoes that I'm considering trying too, is to preheat the oven to 170°C, prepare the tomatoes as below, put them in the oven, immediately turn it off and leave them overnight so they end up like those sunblush tomatoes you can get. you could make loads this way and then keep them in jar covered in oil until needed.

Serves 4

250g cheery tomatoes, halved
150g puy lentils
12 scallops
½ lemon
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp thyme (dried or fresh)
1 pinch brown sugar
100g rocket

Put the cherry tomatoes in a roasting tray with enough space to be slightly spread out. Add seasoning, a sprinkle of brown sugar, ½ the garlic, thyme and a drizzle of olive oil. Mix well and place in an oven at 150°C for 1hour.

Meanwhile cover the lentils in water, bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 10mins, now simmer for 35mins until soft. Drain and dress with plenty of seasoning, the garlic, olive oil and spritz of lemon juice.

To cook the scallops, season and drizzle with a little oil. Get a pan really hot and sear the scallops on either side for a few mins.

To assemble, add a large spoon of lentils to the plate, add a handful of roasted tomatoes and some rocket leaves, now place four scallops on top drizzle with oil and feel proud of yourself. Read more...

Mackerel and Beetroot Salad

Faced with the mountain of beetroot building up I made this salad. I love beetroot, it goes really well with sharp salty cheeses like feta or goats cheese, but the sweet, earthy beetroot goes surprisingly well with the oily mackerel. I was lucky in that I had all the lovely organic vegetables from my veg box, having said that this would still be pretty tasty with the pre-cooked beetroot you can get.

When handling beetroot, the thing to remember is to wash your hands and any utensils straight away otherwise they will stain.

Mackerel and Beetroot Salad

4 fillets mackerel
1tsp dried or fresh thyme
½ lemon
125g cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 handfuls spinach, sliced
2 medium sized beetroot
1 clove garlic, finely chopped

Boil the whole beetroot for 40-45mins until soft. Drain, allow to cool and cut into thin wedges. Season and drizzle with some olive oil and lemon juice. Drizzle the mackerel fillets with olive oil, season well and sprinkle over the dried thyme. Get a frying pan really hot, fry the mackerel for a couple of mins on each side, when cooked, remove and squeeze over some lemon juice. To assemble the salad, mix the vegetables and place the fish on top.

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The Best Carrot Salad

This is possibly the simplest, easiest salad to make, but is such a delight, serve it with simple dressed leaves alongside anything. Goes particularly well in a sandwich with hummus. I pretty much eat this with every meal.

Grate as many carrots as you like. One carrot per person is a good estimate for a side salad. Add some finely chopped garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning. Theres your basic salad. I usually add either spring onions or some finely chopped red onion. Toasted seeds are also a must, sunflower or pumpkin. A little bit of chilli is nice too. In this picture I added some finely sliced fennel too because it was in my veg.

Also, see this recipe in The Guardian for a japanese version Read more...

Superfood Salad

I'm not going to lie, in an attempt to eat a bit healthier, I was trying to recreate the delicious superfood salad at Leon. Anyway, writing this, I discovered there's already a recipe online!

The key is lots of lovely fresh green things, paired perfectly with feta and crunchy seeds. Oh and sprouts and quinoa, possibly the healthiest things ever, hence the 'superfood' title.

Ingredients
(makes enough for your lunch for several days)

1 cup quinoa
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 handful sprouts
1 handful toasted pumpkin seeds they taste sooo much better toasted)
1 brocolli, cut into small florets
½ cup frozen peas
1 avocado, sliced
250g feta
1 bunch chopped mint and parsley
½ lemon
olive oil

Add 1½ cups water to the quinoa, bring to the boil, simmer for 10mins until the water is absorbed. Meanwhile, boil the brocolli and peas for a few mins, drain and refresh under cold water. Mix all the ingredients together, except the avocado, place this on top when serving and feel virtuous. Read more...

Marinaded chicken salad à la Kat

This is a 'guest blog' if you will from my good friend Kat, a fellow food fanatic, although a job in the city means daily blogging (and cooking!) isn't really feasible...

I invited a friend over for lunch, and, excited at the thought of a girly lunch images of chocolate, wine and generally debauchery, maybe even cheese, went through my mind... alas! Not so! My lunchtime guest requests a healthy light lunch, due to a colonic irrigation session later that day. Hmmm. Neither sounds appealing for a Sunday.

However, I decided to make a marinaded chicken salad - making the chicken by throwing the marinade into the blender took seconds, and meant that I had it almost taken care of before I went out on Saturday night. That was appealing.

This chicken would be excellent with a more simple salad, perhaps with potatoes in there too, or perhaps make a basic pasta tomato sauce and throw the cooked chicken on top at the last minute for a quick pasta dinner.

My secret to the best flavour is a really hot pan (my long suffering boyfriend has to keep reaching up to turn off the smoke alarm whenever I cook!) as this really makes the meat delicious.


Marinaded chicken salad a la Kat - Serves 2

1 large free range chicken breast

For the marinade:

3 sundried tomatoes

1 tsp paprika (smoked if possible)

½ lemon juiced

1 fat garlic clove

some fresh herbs - I used corriander

1 squirt tomatoe puree

For the salad:

½ bunch asparagus

2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes, cut in half

2 handfuls of green beans or mange tout

A courgette

1 handful spinach leaves

1 carrot, grated

Some more fresh herbs to taste

½ lemon, juiced

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Add the marinade ingedients to a small blender, and whizz together until they form a paste.Slice the chicken breast into a few slices (ideally about 6-8), and put into a freezer bag. Add the marinade paste and carefully squidge it around with the chicken, trying to coat it as much as possible.

Tie up the freezer bag and leave in the fridge (you don't have to do this bit, but it tastes sooo much better if you do) for a few hours or overnight.

When ready to make the salad - remove the chicken from the fridge. Have a big pan of water heating up (with the lid on!!) ready to blanche the beans/mange tout and asparagus. Meanwhile, chop the courgette into slices, and pop in a hot pan with a dash of oil to lightly cook. Peel and grate the carrot, halve the cherry tomatoes. Wash the spinach leaves and place in two bowls, and scatter the grated carrot on top. Cook the asaparagus for a couple of minutes in the boiling water before adding the mange tout/green beans - how cooked you like them is up to you, but I reckon 2 mins for mange tout and 2-4 for green beans. they should look bright green still.

Meanwhile heat up a large frying pan and add a dash of oil to coat. Lay the chicken slices in, and cook on a high heat until looking crispy (and no longer pink in the middle if you want to check) - should take about 2-3 mins each side. Arrange the mange tout/beans, asparagus and courgette on top of your spinach and carrot, and the cooked chicken. For a quick dressing, whisk together some 4 tbs olive oil, juice of half a lemon and 2 tbs balsamic with 1tbs water. Voila!

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Salad à la Rose

In an effort to be healthy... this is a salad Rose whipped up for us. I'm a big fan of most vegetables raw, as long as they're cut small enough. With healthy food and indeed anything you plan to eat, its really important to feed the eyes... I'm a sucker for anything that looks really pretty.

We used pretty much everything we had in the fridge, amongst other things; cherry tomatoes, spring onions and spinach which we shredded.I think these thinly sliced carrots look fab, (you do it by running a peeler over the top of a carrot) and they were only borne out of Rose's hatred for grating carrots! You can't see them but we put peas in too, the sweetness in a really welcome addition in this. I also love toasted seeds in salads, especially those toasted seedy sprinkles you can buy, then you don't have to bother toasting your own. Pine nuts are particularly delicious in this, but then pine nuts are delicious in everything!

The mustard dressing I mentioned in the Winter Coleslaw blog would go really well with this, but we actually just used lemon juice and olive oil, with the key ingredient, garlic, it makes everything tasty, believe me. Read more...