Halloumi and Broad Bean Salad

It's been a wee while since my last post - not because I haven't been cooking anything new, but because every time I do, I don't feel I've got it quite right, so I want to work on the recipe before posting it! The weather has definitely improved since I last posted, which is perhaps why I've been making a lot more salads and light meals. Some salads are boring, tired, lifeless things that would put you off lettuce for life, but if they're done right, salads can be just as exciting and interesting as any other meal - sometimes more so. Still, I am sometimes put off ordering a salad when I go out to eat, just in case I get a plate of bagged lettuce with some cheese sprinkled on top and then (to add insult to injury) have to pay for it! That's why it can be better to make your own salads at home. That way you know it's going to be delicious, and you can get as creative as you like.

The salad I'm going to share with you today couldn't be simpler to prepare, but is bursting with flavour, and is really good and filling. It can easily be taken into work/school for a packed lunch, too, which makes it even more of a winner in my book. Of course, it contains one of my all-time favourite ingredients, halloumi, so if you like halloumi as much as I do, I guarantee you'll love this recipe. Broad beans are an ingredient I had never really used much before, but I'm finding that a bag of frozen broad beans can be a great freezer staple to have on hand, so I'm glad that this recipe showcases them. And with the winter frosts all in the past, I have mint growing in my garden again, and I found that it was the perfect addition to this salad to take it from good to great. If you wanted to, you could add some sweetcorn or maybe diced red pepper to this, but really, I haven't felt the need to do this yet, as it's really good just as it is! If you don't have a griddle pan, you can either grill or fry the halloumi; I just like to griddle for the pretty lines it gives the halloumi.

Halloumi and Broad Bean Salad

(serves two as a lunch, or more if served as a side)

Ingredients:

250g frozen broad beans

200g halloumi cheese

a little oil, for brushing

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice 

salt and pepper, to taste

a handful of fresh mint, torn

Method:

Pre-heat the griddle pan over a high heat. Cook the broad beans in a pan of boiling water for 4-5 minutes, or until tender. Drain and peel off the beans' outer skin, if desired (I can't usually be bothered to do this!) Run cold water over the beans to cool them down, and set aside.

Meanwhile, slice the halloumi length-wise, and brush each strip with a little oil. Place the strips on the griddle pan and cook until the undersides have medium-dark lines from the pan. Turn over and cook on the other side until they also have the same lines (see how nice and professional the cheese looks now?!).

Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper together. Place the broad beans in a serving bowl and add the halloumi. Drizzle over the dressing, toss, and finally garnish with the mint.

Deli-Style Aubergine, Roasted Red Pepper, Mozzarella and Pesto Sandwich

I haven't blogged in a while, probably due to general laziness brought on by the festive season. Christmas - the perfect excuse to eat too much, drink too much, not go to the gym, and just generally laze about doing not too much at all. I love it! Anyway, despite not blogging much, I have been busy in my veggie kitchen, and today I thought it was about time to stop being so lazy and actually write about some of the yummy food I have been creating.

Going hand in hand with the whole 'taking it easy' part of Christmas, I took a couple of days off work this week. On days when I'm not working, I love that I don't have to plan and make my lunches in advance, and so yesterday I took advantage of this by popping to the supermarket for a few random ingredients and experimenting to come up with what may now be my favourite sandwich EVER! Aubergine, roasted red pepper and mozzarella all go together so well and instead of butter, I used pesto to really make this sandwich something special - like something you'd order out of a deli. I loved it so much that I also figured out a way to turn it into a packed lunch (well, almost - a kind of cheat's packed lunch) which I'll explain after I've told you the main recipe.

Deli-style sandwich - ignore the fact that the pepper looks like a tongue
(thanks to David for pointing this out!)

Aubergine, Roasted Red Pepper, Mozzarella and Pesto Sandwich

Ingredients (per sandwich):

2 slices (sliced lengthwise) aubergine

1 ciabatta roll (or other fancy bread roll)

1 tbsp pesto

2-3 slices mozzarella

1/2 roasted red pepper (from a jar, unless you can be bothered roasting your own, which I never can - wash it under running water first to get ride of all the oil, then pat dry so it doesn't soak into the bread)

Method:

Pre-heat a griddle pan and place your aubergine strips onto it. Wait until the lines are charred into the under-side, then turn over and cook on the other side until also charred. Remove from the griddle pan. At this stage, you may like to chop the strips into smaller pieces, to make them more manageable to eat once they're in your sandwich (I find that, much as the whole strips look prettier, when I take a bite out of my sandwich, the whole strip can get dragged out, rather than just the bite I wanted to take!). Cut the roll in half and spread the pesto over the bottom half. Layer all remaining ingredients on top - aubergine, then mozzarella, then red pepper. Close the roll and there you have it - the perfect sandwich!

Packed lunch method:

If you want to make the filling ahead of time, simply place the aubergine (definitely chop it into smaller pieces, in this case), mozzarella, red pepper and pesto into a small plastic tub and mix together. To get the full deli effect, if you work close enough to a supermarket or bakery where you can buy a fresh bread roll at lunchtime, buy the roll just before you prepare your sandwich. Ok, so you still have to pop out to buy it, but you only spend 30-50p as opposed to £3-£5 on a full deli sandwich. If you don't have the option of popping out to buy a fresh roll, I would suggest taking a roll with you and only assembling the sandwich right before you eat it, rather than putting the filling on at home and allowing it to soak into the bread. This way, you still feel like you're eating a fresh sandwich rather than a crushed lump out of the fridge.

If you try making this, please let me know what you think. What other deli-style sandwiches have you made DIY versions of? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Katie's Cous Cous Salad

One of my fellow bloggers, Anna at Pink Pom Poms  blogged a few months back about the difficulty of eating healthy, tasty lunches at work, and the temptations of canteens and high street offerings. Not only can you waste a LOT of money constantly buying lunch when at work, but chances are you're also not eating as healthily as you could be. I'm a big fan of packed lunches - but only if they're interesting and tasty - and not too much effort to prepare the night before. But I'm not a great fan of sandwiches - at least, not every single day. So I thought I'd blog about a nice cous cous salad I made today. In addition, I noticed that Lisa, over at Lisa's Kitchen, is running a competition for veggie salads featuring mushrooms - which my cous cous salad does - so I figured now is a good time to post this and enter the competition at the same time. For more information on this competition or great recipe ideas from Lisa, click here.

I love a good cous cous salad, and have a couple that I like, but today's was a new experiment that went well! I had it for lunch with a mixed salad (lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red pepper, mozzarella and beetroot) and my homemade pink coleslaw (more about that later - very easy, and pretty too!). I have boxed up a bit of each 'component' of my salad for lunch tomorrow and the day after, and I still have a decent-sized portion of the cous cous salad left (perhaps to have with dinner one day, or if I make up some more mixed salad, it'll do me for another day's packed lunch). So you can see, this is a great way of taking the hard work out of preparing a packed lunch. I should really have timed myself better, but I would say that altogether this took me under half an hour to prepare.

It was absolutely delicious - the sultanas gave a nice juicy burst of flavour and the toasted almonds gave  a nice crunch. And I just love the taste of roasted mushrooms in any dish. It was also good in that it filled me up nicely but not so much that I felt stuffed, so you won't require a siesta after this one! I would also happily have this as an accompaniment to a larger dinner, so it really is versatile. All in all, a winner!

Ingredients:

1 medium leek

1 medium courgette

80g baby button mushrooms

1/2 yellow pepper

3 tsp olive oil

1 tsp lemon juice

black pepper, to taste

200g cous cous

70g sultanas

250ml vegetable stock

30g almond slivers

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC. Finely chop the leek, courgette, mushrooms (I quarter these) and pepper; place these in a roasting tin. Mix the olive oil and lemon juice, and add a little black pepper - sprinkle over the vegetables. Mix well and put in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, put the cous cous and sultanas in a heat-proof bowl and pour the stock over. Leave for the cous cous to absorb all of the stock. Now, gently toast the almonds by dry frying them (i.e. don't use any oil in the pan). Once the vegetables are cooked and the cous cous has absorbed all of the stock, mix the vegetables and almonds into the cous cous mixture. The cous cous salad is now ready to serve, or if preferred, you can leave to chill before serving - both will be delicious.

Two lunch boxes full of delicious salad

 And as for that pink coleslaw? Yes, that's the little bit of pink you can see in the pictures above (but I've put a better picture below, too). Well, it's really simple - I just grated half a carrot and half a cooked beetroot into a bowl and added a couple of tablespoons of light mayonnaise. Mix together, and you have pink coleslaw! Because there's no cabbage in this coleslaw, it isn't tangy like real coleslaw - in fact, it has a lovely smooth taste - but the carrot still gives it a bit of bite.

 Let me know what your verdict is, if you make my cous cous salad or pink coleslaw. I'd also love to hear any other great packed lunch ideas, if you have some?