Recipe: Colourful salad

When you have a call with the US (exactly 12 hours away) looming large over your evening and a few 1000 errors to run before the said call, a cheerful face is all you need to see. And when the one face you want to really see is working the night away at his office desk, this colourful, fresh and healthy 20-min salad is maybe the next best thing!


Ingredients

1. 2 corn ears
2. 1 big bell pepper
3. 1 small boiled potato
4. Salad leaves
5. Hung curd
6. Balsamic vinegar
7. Dried parsley and basil herbs
8. Olive oil
9. Salt and pepper

Prep

Hull corn ears and steam
Cut bell peppers in half and roast in oven till they start charring
Cut the bell pepper in bite sized slices
Once cooled, remove kernels from corn
In a zip lock bag, place corn kernels and bellpeppers
Add a dash of olive oil, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. Shake well but gently and let sit for atleast 15 mins.
In the meantime, cut the potato into cubes, add salt and pepper, dried parsley, dash of olive oil and mix well. Let sit for minimum 5 mins.
Wash and place all the salad greens in a salad bowl, tip the corn bag on it and top with the potatoes

 

Serve with a few tea spoons of hung curd on top and enjoy the freshness!

Yum, yum, dinner done!

Salad and mushrooms for dinner? Excellent idea!

Loved every single mouthful of the roasted bell peppers + steamed corn + boiled potato + fresh Italian greens + balsamic + hung curd + salt n pepper salad...

... accompanied with herbed mushroom bruschetta and sauteed mushrooms.

Yum, yum, dinner done!

A berrilicious Sunday

It's been a while since I've made a 'Sunday breakfast' and I missed the absolute lethargy, lull and feeling of contentment which follows a Sunday brunch. So today was the day!

Although the dark, foggy, brooding weather (see the cloud covered hill in the background?) doesn't suggest it, we are in the middle of HK spring and what better way to celebrate the season than have a 'berry' themed meal!

A pitcher of hot 'berry' green tea followed with (very experimental) french toast in berry puree seemed like a great idea.

And then I thought, spring is about all things green and new, leading to a fresh grape and lettuce salad brainwave!

Now that I am stuffed full and sated, on to my guilty pleasure - a 'Koffee With Karan' marathon (!!) while the husband heads to a Sunday in office.

Happy Sunday everyone... see you on the other side of the week! :)

Recipe Alert: Homemade Caesar salad

Best thing abt home cookiing? Can customise it!

Of late, I have developed a fondness for Caesar salad but the anchovies and chunks of chicken really do put me off (very difficult to get veggie Caesar salad in HK for some reason!). And the time had come to address my craving with some efforts at home.

It's surprising how simple it is to put together a good Caesar salad without using anchovies,  chicken, raw eggs and mayonnaise!

Ingredients

• Caeser romaine leaves
• Croutons
• Crushed garlic
• Salt 
• Pepper 
• Olive oil 
• 2 spoons Greek yogurt
• Lemon and lime juice
• Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Preparation
Wash and put the salad leaves in a large bowl 

For the dressing - combine all the other ingredients, except croutons, in a bowl and mix well. Let sit for an hour or so.

Add croutons to the salad leaves just before eating.

And pour the dressing on the leaves, mix well. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top, if desired.

Your healthy, yummy, low calorie salad is ready! Eat immediately after preparing else the leaves will lose their fresh crunchiness.

Do let me know of other low calorie substitutes for salad dressings! Hope you liked the recipe and will try it out sometime soon! :)

Recipe: Homemade Greek salad in 15 minutes!

Today is a holiday in HK and a long weekend warrants at least one big brunch!

The holiday brunch included baked beans with asparagus, french toast and my favourite, Greek salad.

Sometimes I wonder why I have Greek salad outside when it's so easy to make at home!

Here's the recipe for all you salad lovers and especially for my friend, Pragya Narang.

Ingredients -

• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Reduced fat feta cheese
• 2 tablespoon lime juice
• Lettuce leaves
• 1 onion
• 1 cucumber
• 6 baby tomatoes or 1 whole tomato
• 1/2 bellpeppper; I used yellow bellpepper for the colour but you can use anything

How to make -

Dressing - Combine the olive oil, lime juice, crumbled feta cheese, salt and pepper and keep aside

Wash the lettuce leaves and make a bed of leaves in the salad bowl

Cube the onions and cucumbers. 

Cut the baby tomatoes into quarters. 

Finely chop the bellpeppers. 

Put everything together in a bowl.

Pour 1 tablespoon of the dressing on the vegetables and toss till everything's mixed together.

Now, transfer all the vegetables to the salad bowl. Pour the rest of the dressing on it and voila, your salad is ready!

I like my Greek salad cold so I tend to pop into the fridge and take it out just before eating. This ensures that the vegetables remain fresh and crunchy!

The thing I like most about the Greek salad? The lemon and olive oil juice right at the bottom. Scoop up the juice with the lettuce leaves and enjoy!

Can you see the juice?

Do let me know if you liked the recipe! What more can we add to make it even yummier? Would you like to share your favourite salad recipe? Let me know in the comments below!