Crisp salad with apples

It was just too hot today for any indoors cooking, with the temperature touching 30 degrees C. Pete sweltered happily at the barbeque, and our friends chomped down on pork and beef and sardines (!), but I simply couldnt face any hot food. There were mock-sausages for me, but on my best days, quorn is not my favourite form of protein - and on a day this hot and still, even the thought of it put me off. A meal of ice cubes seemed more appropriate.

No much nutrition in ice cubes, though, so I decided to make myself a salad. Not one of those gourmet salads with exotic ingredients, but a run-of-the-mill garden salad with the lettuce and red cabbage cold from the fridge, crunchy and crisp. Some shredded carrot, sliced tomatoes, cucumber as well. And since there was a nice red apple in the fruit bowl, I sliced up that too.



Olive oil didnt seem right for this salad, so I used a tablespoon of light salad dressing, added a generous sprinkling of freshly ground pepper, a dash of salt and a good squeeze of lemon juice and mixed it all up.

And that, along with a tall glass of fresh, tart-sweet lemon juice over lots of ice cubes, was my meal. Absolutely gorgeous and exactly what the weather called for.

Recipe for: Crisp salad with apples

Ingredients:

Two generous handfuls of iceberg lettuce, roughly torn up
1/2 cup shredded red cabbage
1/2 cup shredded (or matchstick-cut) carrot
1 red apple (I used Red Delicious), sliced into medium wedges
1/2 cup cucumber, sliced into medium wedges
2 firm tomatoes, sliced into medium wedges
1 tbsp light creamy salad dressing
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
1-2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice

Put the salad vegetables into a big bowl. Add the dressing and seasonings and mix well. Serve cold.