695. Soda Bread

I made this really weird salad. I had a bunch of salad veggies, and some leftover roast pork, and some cauliflower which I figured I could roast with some spices on, and I mixed it all together and threw some hot sauce on it and had a chunky slice of soda bread on the side. I’m pretty sure none of those things are classic flavour combinations but hey, it worked out tasty in the end. Soda bread is a nice change to regular bread as it’s dense and soft and a little sweet.

695 down, 1101 to go

687. Waldorf Salad

Having spent the past few months unemployed (which is about to come to an end :) ), I’ve been trying to at least use my time productively by making myself slightly more interesting lunches than just the standard soup or sandwich. The other day I decided to make myself a Waldorf salad, and topped it off with some grilled chicken. I’ve seen Waldorf salads with a few different bits and pieces added to them, but I kept mine to the basics - apples, celery, walnuts and a light mayonnaise dressing.

687 down, 1109 to go

677. Carrot and Cumin Salad

When I was looking up recipes for carrot and cumin salads, there were a huge number of variations. Some used cooked carrot, some raw. Some used whole cumin seeds, some ground. Some added a bunch of other ingredients, others kept it really simple. And I saw carrots sliced, cut into sticks, grated and just about every other way you can prepare a carrot. In the end I decided to keep my salad basic - I roasted the carrots with the cumin seeds, left them to cool, then dressed them very lightly with a little olive oil and orange juice. It made for a nice change from green salads and went really nicely with the sandwiches I made, which were like a Middle Eastern spin on pulled pork.

677 down, 1119 to go

556. Coronation Chicken

Coronation chicken is one of those dishes which has a basic concept, but has loads of variations depending on which recipe you look at. Sometimes it has dried fruits, sometimes in has nuts… but basically it’s just cooked chicken in a curried mayonnaise dressing. For my own version I like to mix half mayo and half yogurt, flavour it with curry powder, add a little mango chutney for sweetness, and then stir in chopped chicken breast and flaked almonds (if it was totally up to me I was also add some chopped dried apricots but Pie doesn’t like them so they usually get left out). I do not like when people put raisins in it, I find that a bit weird.

It’s a really easy great way to use up leftover chicken, and it tastes great in a sandwich, on a salad or as a topping for a baked potato.

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527. Celeriac Remoulade

I completed the first part of my move this weekend - I’m now completely out of my old apartment and into my friends’ flat where I’ll be staying for the next 5 weeks. So I thought I should start back posting again with another food that I enjoyed at their house. This was one of the sides that we had at the international barbecue. Celeriac remoulade is kind of like coleslaw - julienned veg in a mayonnaise dressing, but obviously made with celeriac (celery root) rather than the usual carrots and cabbage. It doesn’t sound especially exciting, but it was actually great. The celeriac was lovely and crunchy and it was a delicious accompaniment to the barbecued meats.

Oh, and I made the colourful-looking salad to the left. It’s a Thai papaya salad (which is supposed to be with green papayas but I could only get regular ones), and it’s amazing. I first had it at work, and then tried making it myself at work using this recipe. Even my friend who usually doesn’t like fruit with meat liked it. Just try making it, trust me.

527 down, 1269 to go

512. Greek Salad

I thought I should start off my Athens posts with a classic. I’ve had Greek salad before, I’m sure most of you have, but trust me if you haven’t eaten it in Greece then you haven’t really eaten it. The vegetables - the tomatoes and the cucumbers and the green peppers - are all just so intensely flavourful (I’m sure from being grown in such glorious sunshine). The tomatoes in particular just don’t even resemble the tasteless crap that we get in England. Those plus the salty feta, olives and capers just make for a perfect combination.

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492. Holy Basil

As part of my trying to eat healthily, I thought I’d knock up a quick chicken noodle salad. I poached the chicken, and then cooked the noodles in the chicken broth, then mixed them up with julienned carrots and cucumber and pak choi. I wanted an Asian-inspired dressing so I mixed up some holy basil and chilli sauce I got from work, with a little fish sauce and palm sugar and a touch of the chicken broth. It was a little spicier than I was expecting but the holy basil was definitely a welcome flavour - it was slightly sweet and aromatic.

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452. Grains of Paradise

And we’re back to Quebec again; I had this as my starter one night. Alongside the little melted camembert toasts, there was a salad dressed with this pungent, peppery dressing that was flavoured with grains of paradise. It had a really lovely spicy flavour.

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421. Bang Bang Chicken

This was a bang bang chicken salad I had when I went out for dinner with a couple of friends to Giraffe. I love salads as long as they have lots of nice tasty bits like chicken and nuts and fruit and spices and noodles and herbs in them. Recently I have been eating healthy so I have been having quite a few variations on this theme.

421 down, 1375 to go

361. Hot Smoked Salmon

This was my boss’s starter at our work Christmas party and she kindly let me try a little bit. I hadn’t tried hot smoked salmon before, only the regular cold smoked kind, so it was good to try something different, but I think I still prefer the cold-smoking. I found that this still tasted distinctly salmony, whereas the main reason I like smoked salmon is because it doesn’t taste that much like salmon (kind of more like bacon…).

361 down, 1435 to go