Salad days

We’ve had some sunny spring weather recently, which has had Chris and I craving salads, rather than the warming casseroles of the autumn and winter months. We can quite happily sit down to a simple meal of salad leaves, cheeses and lovely fresh bread (with some cold meats thrown in for those who eat them). When we go to France in the summer (I can say it as thought it’s an annual occurrence now, since we’ve gone three years in a row, even though I don’t know if we’ll manage it this year) this is our most common evening meal – usually eaten al fresco on a terrace and washed down with plenty of red wine. My mouth waters at the thought, frankly.

However, we also like to try a variety of salads and not just stick to the leaves, cucumber and tomato staple. Salads with cheeses, bean salads, warm salads…

Here are some of our favourites and a few occasional experiments. They’re all vegetarian and some of them are vegan, or easily made vegan by leaving out the cheese.

Greek salad • Red cabbage, blue cheese and walnut salad • Sweet potato, red onion
and feta cheese salad

Greek salad

This is a really refreshing salad (more so if you leave out the feta). I really like to have it alongside risotto to lighten the dish (and lower the GI!) Soaking the onion in water takes away the bite and makes it much less overwhelming. As someone who has always hated raw onion, this trick has made a huge difference to me.

Ingredients

1 red onion
cold water for soaking
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp sea salt crystals
½ cucumber
3 medium tomatoes
1 Romaine lettuce
100g feta cheese
1 lemon
2 handfuls pitted black olives (optional)

Method

Halve, peel and then finely slice the red onion. Place it in a bowl of cold water, thoroughly separating all the bits. Leave to sit for at least half an hour – an hour if possible.

Peel and finely dice or crush the garlic and place in a salad bowl along with the sea salt. Grind the two together.

Slice the cucumber and place in the salad bowl, mixing thoroughly with the garlic and salt (use your – clean – hands).

Slice the tomato and place in the salad bowl, mixing thoroughly.

Shred or chop the romaine lettuce and mix with the rest of the salad.

Chop the feta cheese into 1.5-cm (roughly) cubes and mix with the rest of the salad.

When ready to serve, juice the lemon and mix in thoroughly with the rest of the salad.

Add the olives now, if desired.

Adaptations

You can leave out the feta to make it vegan. You could also throw in a handful of capers to add an extra zing.

Red cabbage, walnuts and blue cheese salad

This is delicious, but very rich – I wouldn’t serve it as a main salad, but it’s nice as an accompaniment to other salads.

½ red cabbage
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
75g blue cheese (Danish blue works very well, Stilton not so much)
2 handfuls walnuts

Method

Cut the cabbage into thin strips and cut them down to around 3cm lengths.

Place the cabbage, red wine and sugar in a saucepan and cover.

Heat on a low heat for around half an hour, until well reduced and even a bit caramelised.

Chop the cheese into small cubes (around 1 cm).

Roughly chop the walnuts.

Mix together and serve still warm (though it is nice cold, as well).

Sweet potato, red onion and feta cheese salad

This isn’t as rich as it sounds, but definitely needs cutting with a fresher, lighter salad – a plain green one would do fine.

Ingredients

3 medium sweet potatoes
2 red onions
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
100g feta cheese

Method

Peel and chop the sweet potatoes into roughly 2-cm cubes.

Peel and chop the red onions into roughly 2-cm cubes.

Place sweet potatoes and red onions in deep baking tray.

Pour on the olive oil and vinegar.

Mix well and bake for 20-30 minutes at quite a high temperature (220C/Gas mark 7/425F). It’s best if some of it has caramelised.

Chop the feta cheese into roughly 2-cm cubes and mix in with the baked potatoes and onions.

Best served warm, though it’s still tasty cold.

Mediterranean vegetable salad • (Plain green salad – recipe not given) • Apple, pear and strawberry salad

Mediterranean vegetable salad

This is one of my all-time favourite salads. I could eat it all day, warm or cold. It’s also quite nice served with some pasta (again, warm or cold).

Ingredients

1 aubergine
1 courgette
table salt
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
2 red onions
3 tbsp  olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp dark agave syrup (or 1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar)
1 tsp sea salt crystals (optional)
100g feta cheese (optional)
2 handfuls black olives (optional)

Method

Peel and chop the aubergine and chop the courgette (no need to peel). Place in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Leave to sit for half an hour and then rinse thoroughly and pat dry. (You don’t have to salt them, but it changes the texture somewhat if you do.)

Peel and chop the rest of the vegetables – into cubes or strips as you prefer.

Place all the vegetables in a large, deep baking tray.

Pour on the oil, vinegar, syrup (or sugar) and salt (don’t add extra salt if you salted the aubergine and courgette, though) and mix together thoroughly.

Bake at quite a high temperature (220C/Gas mark 7/425F) for around 20-30 minutes. It’s quite nice if some of it has caramelised, but not necessary.

Chop (into cubes or strips, as preferred) or crumble the feta and add if using.

Add the olives if using.

Serve warm or cold. This is also lovely in a tortilla wrap.

Apple, pear, strawberry and cheese salad

I made this tonight for Carol’s In Season Challenge. I then realised that the inclusion of strawberries (which came from Morocco) probably disqualified it as ‘in season’. Never mind, there’s another apple salad below!

Ingredients

4 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp light agave syrup (might well work with golden syrup too, but I don’t know)
1 tbsp oil (olive oil may be too flavoured, so rapeseed oil or groundnut oil could work well)
2 apples (I used Pink Ladies)
1 pear (I used Conference)
10 strawberries
75g cheese (I used Wensleydale with cranberries, but think a blue cheese would almost certainly have worked better)

Method

Make the dressing first by whisking together the red wine vinegar, syrup and oil.

Peel, core and finely slice the apples and pear, placing in the dressing and mixing round immediately to avoid oxidisation.

Wash, cut the tops off and finely slice the strawberries and mix in with the rest of the fruit.

Chop or crumble the cheese in and mix.

Adaptation

I think this would go really well with some baked breaded camembert or brie, though would cut out the cheese from the recipe then.

Egg salad (recipe not provided – just hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise) • Greek butterbean salad • Apple, carrot and celery salad • (and two oatcakes with hummus on – recipe not provided)

Greek butterbean salad

This is another of our staples. It goes especially well with Spanish tortilla (including with the potato-free tortilla that I came up with for our low-GI diet).

Ingredients

1 onion
3 tbsp olive oil
200g tomato purée
1 lemon
2 tsp paprika
2 400g cans of butter beans

Method

Peel and finely dice the onion.

Heat the oil in a pan then add the onion. Sauté until soft and almost translucent.

Juice the lemon.

Add the tomato purée, lemon juice and paprika and mix well.

Heat on a very low heat for 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and mix in the (drained) butter beans.

Serve warm or cold.

Apple, carrot and celery salad

This is another one of our staples. The girls don’t like it at all, but we love it. Chris and I make it in slightly different ways, both of which are lovely. The recipe shows my way. The adaptation shows Chris’s way.

Ingredients

1 lime
2 small apples
3 celery sticks
1 medium carrot
handful sunflower seeds

Method

Juice the lime and place the juice in a salad bowl.

Peel and grate the apples (leaving the core). Add to the bowl and mix with the lime juice.

Peel and grate the carrot. Add to the bowl and mix.

Top and tail the celery. If the sticks are quite wide then cut lengthwise first and then slice finely. (If the sticks are quite narrow, you can just thinly slice.) Add to the bowl and mix.

Scatter on some sunflower seeds.

We usually keep this for a couple of days and have some with lunch and dinner.

Adaptation

Chris usually chops the apple, rather than grating it and chops the celery in larger chunks. He also usually uses pumpkin seeds, rather than sunflower seeds.

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I would love to hear about other salads now the salad season is returning. Feel free to leave a link to any recipes you’ve blogged or just recipes you’ve found somewhere.

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