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Salads aren't my most favourite food, if I am to be honest. Seeing a recipe for salad on anyone's blog doesn't usually float my boat. So I don't expect this simple recipe to turn the Internet's head and send millions of unique visitors my way. But it really was a refreshing salad when I ate it yesterday, and I thought it worthwhile to make a post of it. The best part was that the apples were from my own little container tree, which has done rather well this year. i think I got about 20 apples from it, all told. It's only got two branches!
I had picked a couple of apples to see if they were edible or whether I would have to make an apple crisp or cake, because last month when I tried one, it was much too sour to make pleasant eating. (I made a cake with the apples then). They are meant to be eating apples, you see. But this time they were perfect, beautifully juicy and sweet with the right amount of tartness. Really lovely. Why I fancied a salad using the apples, I have no idea. I don't usually want a salad for dinner. But I had also picked some mint too, and I wanted to use that. So here it is. I can assure you that the salad is refreshing and I really enjoyed it. It is not any more exciting than that, unfortunately.
No wait, that's not quite true. There was SOME excitement while I was slicing the vegetables - I used a mandoline to make wafer-thin slices, and it was so viciously sharp and efficient at its job that I found I had sliced a bit off the side of my forefinger before I knew it. I cursed a bit and ran cold water over my finger, then went back to the mandoline. And it happened AGAIN, this time to my thumb. It was painful, but at least I can claim that I put myself into my salad. You don't have to do the same, though. I'm sure the salad would taste just as nice without the blood, sweat (metaphorically speaking) and tears.
Recipe for: Apple, cucumber and carrot salad

Ingredients:
2 medium eating apples
1 small cucumber
1 medium carrot
2 tbsp walnuts
handful of Chinese cabbage or lettuce, shredded very fine
For the dressing:
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp very finely chopped mint
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp apple balsamic vinegar
Salt to taste
1. Slice the cucumber, apples and carrot very thinly (I used a mandoline).
2. Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing. Adjust the taste to your requirement.
3. Mix the salad vegetables together, then add the dressing a little at a time - you may not require all of it, so go easy. Sprinkle the walnuts on top and eat immediately.
I’ve always found it difficult to force myself to eat something simply because it’s considered healthy. Health-giving properties alone don’t make the cut, as far as my tastebuds are concerned. I accept that it is entirely my loss. But I am trying to trick my tastebuds into accepting non-rice (or non-white-rice) wholegrains as tasty, mainly by disguising them in familiar recipes.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of how shepherds help orphaned newborn lambs survive, by putting them together with ewes whose own lambs died at birth. Basically, they tie the fleece from the dead lambs onto the orphaned ones, and then introduce them to the mama sheep… and the mama sheep, smelling only their own dead lambs’ smell, accept the orphans as their own. Eventually, they get used to the adopted lambs’ own smell and then there is no need for the fleece to do the tricking job.
In other words:
Shyam (me) = mama sheep, who can’t/won’t accept
other lambs = brown rice, millet, broken wheat, quinoa, etc.,
in place of
her own beloved lamb = white rice.
Did y’awl get that awesome symbolism? Good, isn’t it? I’ve been planning my acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature ever since I’ve been able to put pen to paper. (Please try not to hurt my feelings by saying I’m baaaaaaaaaad (get the pun! get the pun!) at metaphors.)
So anyway, I think mama sheep was quite reasonably fooled into accepting the millet “curd rice” lamb as a reasonable substitute for her own white rice baby.
I’ve listed a few optional extras in the recipe below to add to the millet, none of which you will see in my photos – but that is because I didn’t have green grapes or cucumber handy, and couldn’t be fagged to grate any carrots because I was doing other things at the time.
One thing I noticed about the cooked millet – how much it resembled cooked quinoa, but luckily without the distinctive taste. The millet took less getting used to than quinoa. Which is a good reason why it worked so well in this recipe. My dinner was millet "curd rice" with 1-1/2 brown rice dosas and molagapodi. Pretty satisfying, all said.
Recipe for:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup millet

Water as required
Yogurt as required (I used Greek-style yogurt)
1 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
A few curry leaves, torn up
1/4 tsp asafoetida powder
2-3 green chillies (or to taste), sliced into thin rounds
Optional: 2-3 tbsp cucumber cubed small OR 2-3 tbsp grated carrots OR a few halved green grapes
Method:
1. Cook the millet in plenty of boiling water till soft and cooked (takes about 15 minutes, but keep testing the millet during the cooking period to see if it's done).
2. Drain the water off as well as you can and let the millet sit covered for 10 minutes. Let it cool.

3. Add as much yogurt to the millet as required, mixing gently, until it's of a consistency you like.

Ideally, it shouldn't be sloppy/runny, and it should also not be thick and dry.
4. For the tempering, heat the oil in a small pan, add the asafoetida powder, green chillies (if using), mustard seeds and curry leaves. Cover the pan and let the mustard seeds pop.

5. Now pour this tempering over the millet and mix it in gently. You can also mix in the cucumber, carrots or grapes at this point.

Serve cold or at room temperature.

This can be had by itself or with pickles and any vegetable curry.
RECIPE: MILLET "CURD RICE"
Ingredients:
1/2 cup millet
Water as required
Yogurt as required (I used Greek-style yogurt)
1 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
A few curry leaves, torn up
1/4 tsp asafoetida powder
2-3 green chillies (or to taste), sliced into thin rounds
Optional: 2-3 tbsp cucumber cubed small OR 2-3 tbsp grated carrots OR a few halved green grapes
Method:
1. Cook the millet in plenty of boiling water till soft and cooked (takes about 15 minutes, but keep testing the millet during the cooking period to see if it's done).
2. Drain the water off as well as you can and let the millet sit covered for 10 minutes. Let it cool.
3. Add as much yogurt to the millet as required, mixing gently, until it's of a consistency you like. Ideally, it shouldn't be sloppy/runny, and it should also not be thick and dry.
4. For the tempering, heat the oil in a small pan, add the asafoetida powder, green chillies (if using), mustard seeds and curry leaves. Cover the pan and let the mustard seeds pop.
5. Now pour this tempering over the millet and mix it in gently. You can also mix in the cucumber, carrots or grapes at this point. Serve cold or at room temperature. This can be had by itself or with pickles and any vegetable curry. Millet "curd rice"
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.