Apple, cucumber and carrot salad

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.

Egg salad with creamy salad dressing

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAACK! At least for today. This recipe is more for the salad dressing than the salad itself. You can use whatever salad vegetables you like, that you would eat raw. Mine had shredded carrots and beetroot, rocket (arugula), baby spinach, some lettuce of the red-veined variety (who knows what it's called!), tomato wedges, cucumber slices and of course boiled eggs.

Oh, and please ignore the rather gruesome grey-green ring around the yolks. I'm usually pretty deft at getting a perfectly yellow-yolk in my boiled egg, but it so happened that I completely forgot that I had eggs simmering away on the hob. I was distracted by a Facebook status and got sucked in, as you do. I don't know about you, but I blame Mark Zuckerberg. I was loath to throw the eggs away for this blemish and, besides, the green-ringed yolks aren't harmful to eat. So there you have it. By the way, the dressing works rather well with the eggs. I wouldn't have thought it, to be fair.



Recipe for: Egg salad with creamy salad dressing
Ingredients

For the salad dressing:
1 tbsp low-fat mayonnaise
4 tbsp Greek or natural yogurt (not sour)
1 htbsp grated parmesan cheese
1.5 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp lime juice
1 small garlic clove, grated
Freshly ground pepper
pinch of salt
pinch of smoked paprika

For the salad:
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup shredded beetroot
2 medium tomatoes, quartered OR 10-15 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup cucumber slices
Generous mixture of salad leaves as desired
4 boiled eggs, peeled and quartered

Method:

1. Whisk all the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl. Thin it with a little water, whisking it in, until the dressing is thick but pourable. Adjust the ingredients as required till it tastes good to you. Chill the dressing until required.

2. Put all the salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss them together until evenly distributed. Just before serving, divide the contents between two bowls and dollop most of the dressing over. Mix it into the salad lightly and carefully with your hands fingers or using salad "hands". Place the quartered eggs on top, dab with the remaining dressing and serve at once.