Category: Salad

Warm & cool beetroot, tuna with couscous salad meal recipe.

Yeap, another recipe for salad. Can’t you tell that we’re desperately trying to eat more healthily? All those late night suppers and crisps and salted chunky chocolate chip cookies have truly shown on our mid sections -_-

Just last night at 3am, I cracked 6 eggs, grated half a block of mature cheddar to make the most decadent cheesy scrambled eggs on marmite toasts.

Yeap. Trust me, we need these damn salads.

# – Beetroot, tuna & couscous salad meal.

The redeeming point is that this salad taste pretty damn good. And, quite gorgeous to look at I must say :D

For the salad:

  • 1 can of solid tuna in brine, drained
  • 1 beetroot, sliced
  • 3 tablespoons of malt vinegar
  • 60 grams of couscous
  • 2 potatoes, cut into cubes
  • 2 carrots, cut into thick strips
  • 2 cucumbers, cut into cubes
  • 3 eggs, hard boiled
  • Water
  • 3 tablespoons of Extra virgin olive oil
  • A dash of salt

For the dressing:

  • 100 ml of extra virgin olive oil
  • 50 ml of balsamic vinegar
  • A dash of salt and pepper

# – First of all, hard boil the eggs. What I normally do is submerge the eggs in water, then bring to a boil for 4 minutes. Turn off flame and allow to rest while I do other tasks.

# – While the eggs are cooling down, pan fry the tuna till crisp on the edges with just a touch of oil. Set aside.

# – In the same pan, pour enough water to cover the amount of beetroot slices, then add the 3 tablespoons of malt vinegar. Give it a dash of salt too.

# – Throw in the beetroots, cover and let them simmer for about 20-30 minutes. Cook longer if you want the beetroots to be softer.

# – Take the beetroot slices out and you’re now left with a deep purplish red liquid. Pour it away if there’s too much, leaving an amount enough to cook the couscous in. Cook the couscous in the liquid. This is my favourite part of the dish, making these deep purple red caviars :)

# – Now, it’s time to assemble the chilled part of the salad. Throw in the couscous, tuna, cucumbers, beetroots and eggs into 2 plates and stick in the fridge for at least an hour. Since we’re eating the salad as our main meal, the portion is quite large. However, if you’re making it as an appetiser to accompany other dishes, I reckon this recipe could be divided into at least 6 decent portions.

# – In the meantime, chuck the carrots and potatoes into a roasting tin. Drizzle with olive oil and a dash of salt. Shake the tin to coat the vegetables well. You can totally throw in some peeled whole garlic cloves too (yummy!).

# – Stick the tin of vegetables into a preheated oven of 190 degrees celcius for 45 minutes – 1 hour.

# – Make the dressing but whisking the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper together.

# – After the vegetables have done roasting, take the now chilled salads and throw in the beautifully roasted carrots and potatoes.

# – Drizzle the balsamic vinaigrette dressing all over the salad. Serve immediately.

# – Warm & cool beetroot, tuna with couscous salad meal, DONE!

I’ve actually made this a couple of times. This is surprisingly delicious for a salad (I am a carnivour), with a variety of textures in every bite.

The sweetness of the roasted carrots & potatoes went really well with the slightly tart beetroots and the purple couscous. The eggs and tuna provided the essential delicious proteins while the fresh cucumbers kept it all crisp and refreshing.

We’re toying with the idea of eating salad meals like this for a lengthy period of time and to be honest, I really wouldn’t mind as long as they taste like this every time.

All that’s left to do now is to conjure up more salad recipes that could replicate the fun & exciting eating experience of this salad!

Quick basic coleslaw recipe.

This is a recipe for a basic coleslaw. I whipped this up as an accompaniment to the baby back ribs I made a while ago. It’s so easy to make….delicious, refreshing and crunchy.

# – Quick basic coleslaw.

This is way healthier than eating coleslaw outside too. I find it comforting to know exactly where each ingredient came from and what went into flavouring it.

The ingredients:

  • 1/2 a cabbage, sliced
  • 2 carrots, grated
  • 1 small onion, sliced
  • 6 tablespoons of mayonnaise
  • 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
  • A pinch of black pepper
  • A pinch of nutmeg
  • A pinch of celery salt or ordinary salt

# – First, slice the cabbage.

# – Then, grate the carrots and slice the onion. Dump into a mixing bowl.

# – Dump in the cabbage as well, followed by 6 tablespoons of mayonnaise (I like my coleslaw creamy, feel free to reduce amount of mayo if you want).

# – Give it a splash of red wine vinegar.

# – Season with some celery salt or ordinary salt.

# – A pinch of nutmeg for a wonderful aroma.

# – Lastly, a dash of black pepper for a bit of a kick. Stir well, cover and stick in the fridge to chill for at least one hour for the flavours to settle in. However, you can eat it straightaway if you like :D

# – Quick basic coleslaw, DONE!

I love it when I can get my vegetable intake with no cooking involved. Heheheh /lazy

The refreshing and delicious watermelon salad recipe.

I met my brother’s girlfriend for the first time last night. I made pasta with stuffed pork meatballs and watermelon salad for dinner, followed by lemon almond sandwich cookies for dessert. It was a nice dinner, that’s all I’m letting out :)

My first experience with watermelon salad was at a BBQ-Addicts party and it has become one of my favourite salads in the world. Unbeknownst to the folks at BBQ-Addicts, the other reason I love their parties is the watermelon salad! So this recipe was very much inspired by it.

I was a bit worried about it at first, because I’ve never made it before and it might turned out nasty. Then there was the hurdle of buying a watermelon. I’ve never bought a watermelon alone. I was SCARED T_T

I must have done something good though because as I was cluelessly checking out watermelons in Tesco, a total stranger started tapping on all the watermelons and suddenly, he pointed at one and told me in mandarin, “That’s a good one” and just nonchalantly walked away. Of course, I bought the one he pointed at and he was right, it was sweet and juicy!

Thank you watermelon angel!!

This recipe serves 4 and requires no cooking (yay!!!).

# – Watermelon salad.

The ingredients:

  • 1.5 kg of seedless watermelon (weight with rind on), rind discarded and cut into cubes
  • 100 grams of mature cheddar, cut into cubes (you can use feta cheese or goat’s cheese too!)
  • 15 black olives, sliced
  • 1 small red onion, sliced thinly
  • 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1 bunch of Italian parsley, roughly chopped

The dressing:

  • 100 ml of olive oil
  • 50 ml of balsamic vinegar
  • A dash of coarse sea salt

# – First, cut the watermelon flesh into cubes and dump into a large mixing bowl.

# – Then, throw in the sliced olives.

# – Followed by the thinly sliced red onion.

# – Okay, lets cut to the chase….throw in the parsley, cherry tomatoes as well as mature cheddar cubes!

# – In a measuring jug, pour in the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a dash of coarse sea salt. Whisk till combined. Dressing is now done.

# – Pour the dressing all over the salad.

# – Toss the salad…

# – Watermelon salad, DONE!

Thankfully, in spite of my first time making it, the salad turned out delicious! So much so, the BF was stealing salad from my plate!

I love this salad because it’s so refreshing and tasty! The crisp & juicy texture of the watermelon goes amazingly well with flavours of savoury cheese and olives. The dressing holds everything together as though they are meant to be.

Well, they are MEANT TO BE! I’ll be having dinner alone tonight and guess what I’m making :)