Tag: salad

Warm pea and chilli salad

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warm pea and chilli salad

It is Open Farm Sunday this coming Sunday (9 June) and as I mentioned in an earlier post, we’re looking forward to spending the day at Wookey Farm, meeting the goats, enjoying tractor rides and wanging a few wellies!

In the run up to Open Farm Sunday, many of the initiative’s sponsors have created recipes to celebrate British farming by showcasing British produce. I was invited to try out this warm pea and chilli salad, courtesy of Asda magazine.

It’s a lovely summery dish, also  featuring new potatoes, spring onions and green beans in a tasty mustard dressing. We ate ours with some simple chicken satay, but it would be equally good on its own with some crusty bread to mop up the dressing, or as an accompaniment for a barbecue.

warm pea and chilli salad

Warm pea & chilli salad

Serves 4

350g new potatoes
350g peas (frozen or fresh)
200g fine green beans, trimmed
3tbsp olive oil
4 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
1 or 2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
1tbsp cider vinegar
1tsp clear honey
1tsp Dijon mustard

Boil the new potatoes until just tender, then drain. When cool enough to handle, halve or quarter them, depending on size. Put in a bowl.

Add the peas and beans to the pan with enough boiling water to just cover them. Bring back to the boil and simmer covered, for 4 minutes. Drain and add to the potatoes.

Heat 1tbsp oil and cook the spring onions and chillies over a low heat for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Add the rest of the oil, the vinegar, honey and mustard. Season.

Add the warm dressing to the potatoes, peas and green beans and toss together before serving.

Open Farm Sunday

The eighth annual Open Farm Sunday on 9 June 2013 provides a great opportunity for the public to truly get to know how their food is produced and how the countryside around them is cared for.

For more information and to find a farm near you that’s taking part visit www.farmsunday.org

Round Up: March’s Recipes for Life Challenge

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Beetroot, carrots and cheese. Those were the three ingredients selected by the cookery club at SWALLOW for this month’s Recipes for Life challenge. And they did indeed present quite a challenge.

But I should have known I could rely on you food bloggers to deliver the goods. We received a surprisingly diverse range of recipes this month, showing just how versatile these humble ingredients can be…

Sarah from The Garden Deli got the ball rolling with this sumptuous Carrot and Beetroot Soup with Cheesy Croutons. Featuring garlic and cumin, this beautiful soup is a proper winter warmer and I love the croutons for dunking topped with one of my favourite cheeses, Wensleydale.

I experimented with some Beetroot and Carrot Pancakes for my first entry and, while they tasted pretty good – particularly with the herby mascarpone on the side – I was a bit disappointed the pancakes didn’t turn out pink like the batter!

Last month’s challenge winner, Chez Foti came up with this fantastic Roasted Roots and an Easy Roasted Roots Pizza. Louisa’s dish brings together sensational seasonal roasted root vegetables on top of a quick and easy wholemeal scone pizza base, not forgetting lots of lovely mozzarella. Yum!

Helen from The Crazy Kitchen really did go crazy with not one, not two, but three entries for Recipes for Life. Anyone who was stumped by the three set ingredients this month – look and learn! First up were these incredible Baked Cheesy Meatballs with Beetroot Sauce. Now don’t they look good? And a crafty way to sneak vegetables into unsuspecting children…

Another fiendishly clever way of disguising veggies comes in this gorgeous Two-of-your-five-a-day Chocolate Cake – the second entry from Helen at The Crazy Kitchen. “It’s sooooo good!” was the verdict of Helen’s 10-year-old, beetroot-hating daughter! Say no more!


There’s been a lot of talk on Twitter and food blogs recently about the 5:2 diet. So much so, my husband and I are both giving it a go. This Beetroot, Carrot and Cottage Cheese Salad, the final entry from The Crazy Kitchen’s Helen would definitely make a delicious lunch for a 5:2 fasting day and I plan to give it a try very soon.

I love the look of this Roasted Vegetable and Goat’s Cheese Risotto from Under The Blue Gum Tree. It sounds so simple to make but you just know it’s going to be absolutely packed full of flavour, with the gorgeous creaminess of the goat’s cheese a perfect partner for the earthiness of the root vegetables.

I wish I could bring you pictures of this Beetroot, Carrot and Goat’s Cheese Tatin from Martin at The Tempest Arms as it sounds simply divine and should look stunning. But I promise to make it very, very soon and I will post photos when I do.

Meeting the lovely Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog was one of my highlights from the Bristol Blog Summit earlier this month, which also gave me the perfect opportunity to persuade her to enter Recipes for Life. She promised she’d try, and I was very pleased to see she was true to her word with these ingenious Beetroot, Carrot and Goat’s Cheese Muffins. As with all Choclette’s recipes, there’s some chocolate in there, as well as a little kick from a touch of cayenne pepper. I look forward to trying them out.

This is a dish we eat quite a lot in our house, so I just had to enter it – my Beetroot, Carrot and Feta Cheese Salad. It’s ever so simple and ever so tasty, and a great way to create a summery-feeling salad with winter vegetables.

The final entry came in at the very last minute but I was so glad to see it – a Carrot and Beetroot Cake with a Cream Cheese Topping from Lucy at The Bell Inn. Again I sadly don’t have photos of this one but when you read the recipe you just know it’s going to taste good and I absolutely adore beetroot and carrot in cakes. Another one to try very soon.

But of course, what you’re waiting to hear is who did the SWALLOW cookery club choose as this month’s winner? Well, Lucy at The Bell Inn came a very close second with her Carrot and Beetroot Cake but first place goes to… Helen from the Crazy Kitchen for her scrumptious Baked Cheesy Meatballs with Beetroot Sauce. The group said they particularly liked the sound of the oozy cheese in the middle of the meatballs. Me too!

So a huge congratulations to Helen for her well deserved win – a small prize will be arriving in the mail very soon. Thank you so much to everyone who entered their wonderful recipes this month, and watch this space for the next set of three ingredients for April’s Recipes for Life challenge.

Beetroot, carrot and feta cheese salad

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Today is the last day to enter the March Recipes for Life challenge. So if you’re sitting on a delicious dish featuring beetroot, carrot and cheese – well, I hope not literally as that could get a little messy – then today is the day to let me know about it! Details of how to enter this month’s challenge are here.

For my last-minute entry, I bring you a fresh and zingy salad – one that we eat regularly in the Bangers & Mash house, or variations of it at least. It’s a surprisingly summery salad considering its winter root vegetable ingredients. This version uses of course beetroot and carrot, but you could also try it with turnip, swede, celeriac or any kind of red or green cabbage. It’s based on an Ottolenghi recipe and I love it for its versatility and its slightly sweet and sour dressing which is just mouth-wateringly tasty.

As I made it at the weekend for Recipes for Life, I tried it with some feta cheese this time. It worked extremely well – the soft tanginess of the feta is a perfect contrast to the earthiness of the beetroot and parsley. You can use whichever herbs take your fancy. The original recipe used parsley and dill but I went with parsley and coriander, simply because those are what I had in the fridge. It also features capers but you could leave these out if you don’t have or like them, or perhaps use olives or chopped gherkins instead. I left out the dried sour cherries from Ottolenghi’s version; sometimes I’ll use another dried fruit instead or chopped apple. But not this time, as I thought there was probably enough going on. Go experiment!

By the way, I use organic vegetables so I don’t bother to peel them for salads like these. But if you’re not sure what your veggies have been grown in, it might be best to peel them first.

Beetroot, carrot and feta cheese salad

Serves 4 to 6

3-4 medium beetroots, scrubbed and grated
3 large carrots, scrubbed and grated
large handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
large handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
200g feta cheese, cut into small cubes
30g capers
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp sugar
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste

This is so simple. Place the grated beetroot and carrot in a large mixing bowl with all the other ingredients (keep back a few pieces of cheese to place on top at the end) and mix together well using your hands. Ottolenghi describes it as ‘massaging’ the ingredients, so that the vegetables get the chance to absorb all the delicious flavours.

Leave the salad in the fridge for at least an hour before serving, when you can throw in the last few pieces of brilliantly white feta, which I think look fabulous alongside the pink pieces.

This salad will keep in the fridge for a couple of days. I think it tastes even better the next day. I like to eat mine in a tortilla wrap with hummus and cold meats. How will you eat yours?

Middle Eastern chicken salad with hummus dressing

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We get through a lot of hummus in our house, whether it’s the supermarket variety or the incredibly garlicky and insanely zingy homemade kind. The children love it. When they need a little snack in between meals, it tends to be a pot of hummus I reach for, plus a handful of chopped vegetables or breadsticks for dipping.

The other week I borrowed a recipe book from the local library called Make It Moroccan by Hassan M’Souli, and came across a tasty looking salad smothered in a hummus-based dressing. I’ve never thought of using hummus as an ingredient in anything before, so thought I’d give it a go. M’Souli’s original featured falafel and haloumi cheese but I’ve used marinaded chicken breast in my version instead, and it works a treat. The chicken breast is butterflied and cooked quickly in a griddle pan, so it is beautifully moist and succulent, while the hummus, chickpeas and toasted pinenuts give the salad a lovely, satisfying nuttiness.

Middle Eastern chicken salad with hummus dressing

Serves 4-6

4 chicken breasts, skinned, butterflied and flattened (cover with cling film and bash with a rolling pin)
a squeeze of garlic puree
handful of fresh thyme, picked
juice of 1 lemon
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp hummus
1 tsp cumin seed, dry fried and crushed
½ preserved lemon
1 head of lettuce, washed and roughly torn
large handful of green and black olives
large handful of sundried tomatoes
½ tin chick peas, rinsed and drained
handful of pine nuts, dry fried

Place the flattened chicken breasts in a dish and add the garlic puree, thyme, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Rub the marinade ingredients into the meat and then leave for around 20 minutes.

Whizz up the hummus, cumin and preserved lemon in a food processor with the remaining olive oil until well combined and runny. Add a little more oil if you like to get the right consistency.

Throw the lettuce leaves into a large salad bowl with the olives, sundried tomatoes and chickpeas.

Heat a griddle pan over a fairly high heat and fry the chicken pieces for two to three minutes on each side. Slice into strips and add to the salad.

Drizzle over the hummus dressing and toss it all together. Finally, sprinkle over the toasted pine nuts and serve.

And as this recipe features fresh thyme, I’m entering it into this month’s Herbs on Saturday blog challenge, devised by Lavender & Lovage and hosted by me, Bangers & Mash.

July Herbs on Saturday Blog Challenge – Win a Copy of ‘The Best-Ever Easy-to-Use Herb Cookbook’

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This month the lovely Karen from Lavender & Lovage has invited me to guest host her wonderful Herbs on Saturday blog challenge.

Herbs on Saturday is one of my favourite bloggers’ challenges as it always attracts such diverse and delicious dishes, so I really must not let the side down! It is a simple and easy way to share recipes throughout the month that celebrate cooking with herbs, as well as a chance to pick up new ideas and discover new blogs and bloggers, and I hope you’ll join in the fun.

To enter all you have to do is add any recipe you have made during the week by emailing me with the URL for your post. And they don’t only need to be recipes made on a Saturday! At the end of each month, a ‘special blogger’ will choose their favourite recipe from all the entries, and the winning blogger will receive a fantastic cookbook as their prize. The full entry guidelines are below.

July’s prize is The Best-Ever Easy-to-Use Herb Cookbook, edited by Joanna Farrow.

This beautiful book features 85 flavourful recipes for soups, salads, appetizers, fish, meat, poultry, vegetarian dishes, bread, biscuits, cakes, desserts and ice creams – all of course made with generous handfuls of fragrant fresh herbs.

There are classic dishes such as lamb with mint, and roasted tomato and mozzarella salad with basil dressing, as well as unusual combinations such as chicken with thyme and lavender. It includes a useful herb directory that identifies some of the best-known and most useful culinary herbs, as well as delicious flowers, fruits and spices to pep up a plain meal.

So, to get the ball rolling here’s my recipe for a lovely summery salad with oregano – just wish we had the weather to go with it!

Courgette and oregano flower salad

This fresh, light salad features delicate oregano flowers, as well as the leaves. The crunch of the courgette with the soft mozzarella cheese and juicy tomatoes is a sensational combination.

Make sure you slice the courgette as thinly as possible as it is eaten raw in this salad. It’s best to use a mandolin on its thinnest setting. And use the smaller, firmer courgettes if you can.

Serves 4

For the dressing

6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
Salt and pepper

4 or 5 courgettes, very thinly sliced lengthways
250g baby plum or cherry tomatoes
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
300g mozzarella, thinly sliced
Handful oregano leaves, picked
Handful oregano flowers, picked

To make the dressing, simply put the ingredients into a jam jar, screw the lid on tightly and give it a really good shake.

Place your salad ingredients (except for the flowers) into a large serving bowl, pour over the dressing and toss well. Carefully decorate with the oregano flowers.

This is a lovely salad to serve with grilled fish or chicken, or on its own with crusty bread to soak up the juices.

Herbs on Saturday for July – guidelines on how to enter

  1. Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther@reescommunications.co.uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date is Monday 30 July.
  2. Display the Herbs on Saturday badge (as shown above and below) to the relevant recipe post, with a link back to this post  and also to the challenge page over at Lavender & Lovage.
  3. Email me as many recipe links as you like, there is no limit and the recipes and posts can be from any day, not just Saturday!
  4. If you tweet your post, please mention #herbsonsaturday, @BangerMashChat and @KarenBurnsBooth in your tweet – I will retweet all that I see.
  5. The recipe can be one of your own or one you’ve seen elsewhere. You are welcome to republish old recipes/posts but please add the information about this challenge as listed above with the Herbs on Saturday badge.
  6. As entries come in, links to these will be added to this page and at the end of the month there will be a round-up of all entries received.
  7. A guest blogger will choose their favourite recipe at the end of the month, and the winner will receive a copy of The Best-Ever Easy-to-Use Herb Cookbook.

Hopefully that’s all crystal clear, but if not let me know. I’m really looking forward to receiving your entries for Herbs on Saturday! Come on, let’s get herby!

July’s entries for Herbs on Saturday:

  1. Sausage Plait for the Whole Family from Mamacook
  2. Pan Bagnat from Lavender & Lovage
  3. Mediterranean Feta and Tomato Bake from Cooking Around the World
  4. Les Spaghettis aux herbes et ail from Simple Quiet Modern
  5. Chicken and noodle salad with coriander and mint from Bangers & Mash
  6. Pepper and Mushroom Pappardelle  from Tinned Tomatoes
  7. Devilled Gooseberry Sauce and Tarragon Vinegar from As Strong As Soup
  8. Cheese and Herb Scone from Farmersgirl Kitchen
  9. Turkish Zucchini Fritters from Tinned Tomatoes
  10. Involtini di melanzane from Leeks & Limoni
  11. White asparagus tips with tarragon sauce from French Foodie Baby
  12. Nectarine Shiso Ice Cream from French Foodie Baby
  13. Salmon with sorrel from French Foodie Baby
  14. Penne with chicken, tarragon and broccoli from Bangers & Mash
  15. Rosemary Foccacia from Piece of Cake
  16. Blackberry Lavender Popsicles from girlichef
  17. Herbal Lemonade from girlichef
  18. Strawberry and basil jam from The Garden Deli
  19. Courgette, Feta & Basil Bruschetta from Chez Foti
  20. Beetroot with Chorizo, Feta and Mint from Farmersgirl Kitchen
  21. A Gratin of Tomatoes from how to cook good food
  22. Stuffed Tomatoes with Herbs and Oats from Lavender & Lovage
  23. Artichoke bottoms with green sauce from French Foodie Baby
  24. Herby Roast Chicken from A Trifle Rushed
  25. Pesto Linguine from How to be a Gourmand
  26. Raspberry, lemon and mint semifreddo from Bangers & Mash
  27. Grilled halloumi and herb salad by Lancashire Food
  28. Tomato and basil tart by Blue Kitchen Bakes
  29. 70s Flashback Stuffed Marrow by Chez Foti
  30. Tomato and Herb Foccacia from Working London Mummy