Felicity Banks

Making Friends With Salad

November 15, 2009 at 6:47 am (general life)

Those who know me best will find the following entry particularly disturbing, but it’s true: Lately I’ve been finding myself irresistably and obsessively drawn to salad. Bingeing, in fact.

Here’s roughly how it goes (my recommendations are in italics):

1. Mix sesame oil, lemon juice, rosemary and sage in a bowl (about 1tsp of each substance per person)

2. Add 1 or more of: chicken roasted and chopped (or fried with garlic)

                                           peanuts

                                          ham (chopped)

                                          bacon (cooked and chopped)

                                          tofu (preferably honey soy)

3. Add peeled, sliced, herb-sprinkled and roasted sweet potato. [Keep in mind it doesn’t have to be hot or even warm, and nor does the meat.] Roast for ten minutes at 200 degrees Celsius, flipping halfway through (It cooks a lot faster than potato, and tastes good cold.)

Or, serve with plain buttered bread.

4. Add any two of: green capsicum

                                       snow peas

                                      raw peas from the pod

                                      baby spinach leaves

                                      lettuce

                                     celery

                                     green beans

5. Add either red capsicum or baby roma tomatoes (chopped) or both.

6. Optional: add mushrooms and/or shallots (possibly fried) – chopped.

7. Pick 1: half an apple per person – chopped (if you’re making a 1-person serve, eat the other half an apple for dessert, and/or grate it and sprinkle with sugar).

                        some grapes (sliced in half)

8. Add about 30 grams fetta per person.

9. Mix and eat.

*Cheapest Version:

Mix any kind of oil with any herb and lemon juice.

Add roasted, cooled chicken drumsticks (chopped) – this is also the most delicious option, in my opinion.

Add green beans, lettuce, and tomato (chopped).

Add a chopped apple.

Add grated cheese (any cheese is delicious – and cheaper – when you grate it yourself.

Mix and eat with bread and margarine.

*The most low-labour version (no chopping or cooking, and the smallest possible number of ingredients):

1. Sesame oil and any herb/mixed herbs stirred together in the serving bowl with peanuts, baby spinach*, baby mushrooms*, baby tomatoes* and fetta (the crumbly kind, so mere stirring breaks it up). Ignore starch; you’ve probably had too much today anyway.

If you mix and eat it with the same dessert spoon, there’s precisely two items to wash up (three, assuming you have a drink).

*Yes, I like eating babies. Don’t you?

Mmm. . . crunchy.