Spring Salad Series #5

SPRING SALAD SERIES

Roasted Vegetables and Poached Chicken on a bed of herbs and Kamala Olives

This salad is pretty simple but it incorporates basically all of our favourite foods so we’re pretty excited to share it with you guys! Who doesn’t love garlic-y roasted veggies, tender poached chicken, herbs, avocado, olives and olive oil?! We absolutely love all of these ingredients and make a version of this salad often at home. Grilled salmon or finely sliced lamb backstrap or even a nice eye fillet steak goes wonderfully.

It’s one of our staple dishes so make it with love and enjoy with close friends and family

Ingredients Opt for organic ingredients if possible

– 2 small to medium potatoes

– 1 fennel bulb

– 2 to 4 carrots

– 1 beetroot

– 1 leek

– 3 cups of finely chopped herbs and greens of choice. We used parsley, fennel leaves, rosemary, chives and spinach 

– 10 pitted Kamala Olives

– 2 organic chicken breasts

– Half an avocado

– 2 tbsp of Olive oil (the the dressing and for the roasting)

– 2 tbsp Apple cider vinegar

– 1 teaspoon of cumin

– Himalayan salt

– Pepper

Method

1. Set your oven to about 175 degrees Celsius.

2. Cup on all your root veggies into generous sized chunks. Scatter onto an oven tray and drizzle with olive oil, himalayan salt, pepper and cumin. We also added a few  rosemary sprigs, a few a couple of cloves of garlic (leave the outer skin on) and some thyme from the garden.

3. Once oven is ready, place your veggies in. They will take about half an hour to get nicely roasted and golden. Thats you’re prep for your roasted veggies done, now you can work on your greens. You really can use any herbs that you may have on hand for this salad. We have heaps of parsley, chives, fennel leaves, spinach and rosemary so we roughly cut them all up and scattered them onto two plates.

4. As your veggies are roasting, bring a saucepan of water to the boil. As you are waiting for the water to boil, slice your two chicken breasts into about 2 centimetre pieces. You should be able to cut about 4 to 5 pieces per breast.

5. When the water is boiling, add your chicken. The pieces will be readily poached when they sort of start to float to the top. Around 5 to 10 minutes (its a bit of a guessing game to be honest! so keep checking them – you don’t want to ‘over poach’ them as that will make them dry and chewy!)

6. Your veggies and chicken should be done around the same time. Distribute the veggies evenly onto the two plates (with the already made greens) and top with your nicely poached chicken.

7. Now for the finishing touches. Add around 5 olives to each plate, plus a quarter of an avocado. We like to create an ‘avo slide’ by finely slicing the avocado and melding it into the shape of a ‘slide’ Refer to the photos

8. We keep our salad dressings simple with just olive oil, apple cider vinegar, himalayan salt and pepper.

9. Eat

M + S xx

Spring Salad Series #2

We’re off to Europe in exactly 10 weeks. It’s no secret that we are completely, 100% obsessed with everything to do with the European culture. The fresh food, old buildings, their train systems, cute bakeries, red wine (lots of red wine), the coop (only a few people would understand this), friendly people and most importantly our family in Neuchatel, Switzerland.

Our love for Europe has come to a stage where we are trying to set up camp over there, permanently. This means a lot of research, visas, Italian passports, what do we do with our clothes?! how much money do we need? etc. It has been quite a headache. But so worth it.

Amongst this research, we have been taking our time in the kitchen, cooking and creating beautiful recipes to share with the world. As we have started our Spring Salad Series, this week we had to come up with salad number 2! Feeling a bit sluggish today, we opted for a lighter salad, bringing us back to our European summers.

Hope you enjoy this meal! Make sure to share it with family and close friends, no one likes eating alone.

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Fennel, Celery, Rocket and Sardine Salad with black Sesame

Organic Ingredients

Serves two

Half a fennel

One celery stalk

Two handfuls of rocket

Two small oranges (we picked these from our garden)

One can of sardines in olive oil

One teaspoon of black sesame seeds

Few sprigs of fresh parsley

Two teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil

Himalayan salt (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

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Method

 Quite simple, no need for the stove or any other appliances

– Wash fennel and celery thoroughly

– Roughly (julienne) slice the celery and fennel

– Prepare two plates, and place one handful of rocket on each. Then top with the fennel and celery

-Peel the two oranges, and slice into thin circles (we’re not too sure how to explain this but we’re sure you will understand what we mean..). Place oranges onto the plates

– Divide the can of sardines in half and top onto the salads

– Sprinkle with black sesame, EVOO, pepper and salt. Oh and don’t forget the parsley!

– Serve with fresh dark bread (we had ours with some wholemeal organic spelt crackers)

– Bon Appetit!

Spring Salad Series #1

Sautéed Greens with crispy skin Salmon. 

Spring is all about spending time with family and friends on weekends, cooking and eating in the garden. It’s about frolicking amongst the freshly blossomed flowers and drinking rose in the sunshine. It’s also the perfect time to prep yourself for summer. By this we mean, starting to cook with lighter, fresher and more vibrant foods.

How wonderful is spring?

We definitely love it so we thought what a better way of celebrating then introducing a new spring salad every week to share with you all. Salads make up about 2 to 3 of our meals everyday, so you know, we kind of know how to make a bloody good one. 

This recipe is a staple in our diet as we make it on a regular basis. Salmon is one of our favourite foods, and who doesn’t love green veggies?  Oh and cheese is also a winner.

Make this salad and enjoy it with your family outside in the sunshine. We would absolutely love to hear any feedback from you so please don’t be a stranger!

Ingredients 

*Try to opt for organic vegetables if possible. Spring is for detoxing the system so reducing your chemical intake is ideal. 

– 1 broccoli head (and stem)

– 2 handfuls of brussel sprouts

– 1 cup of frozen peas

– 1 leek

– 1 zucchini (ribbons)

– 1/2 an avocado

– 2 Atlantic Salmon fillets with the skin on

– 2 slices of cheddar cheese (optional)

– 1 table spoon of apple cider vinegar

– 1 Lemon

– 1-2 teaspoons of olive oil

– 1 teaspoon of coconut oil

– Pepper and salt to taste

Method

1. Thoroughly wash all vegetables before roughly chopping. Chop all vegetables except the zucchini as you will need to use a peeler to obtain the ‘ribbon effect’.

2. Once vegetables are prepared, heat your coconut oil in a wok and sauté the leek until slightly brown and tender. Meanwhile, squeeze half of your lemon onto the salmon with a pinch of salt and pepper.

3. Once leek is ready, add the remaining vegetables with a dash of water and apple cider vinegar (sauté for a maximum of five minutes as green vegetables should not be cooked for too long as they loose their nutritional value)

4. As your vegetables are cooking, heat up a another pan with some coconut oil for your salmon fillets. Salmon should take about 4 minutes each side depending on how you like it.

5. Once the fish and vegetables are cooked, distribute the greens onto two plates. Top with the salmon, avocado and the cheddar.

6. Finally, a dash of olive oil, some pepper, a tad of apple cider vinegar and parsley (if you have it) will top this dish off perfectly.

Raw Crunchy Green Salad with Poached Chicken

So you know those days when you feel a little sluggish and gross? Those days when you feel like a salad but the usual roast veggie throw together is just too heavy for your poor little belly? Well, we have come up with a simple, refreshing and light green salad to ease away your tummy sorrows.

If wanting to keep it vegetarian (as protein can be a little heavy if you’re having digestive issues) – then omit the chicken….but it really is nicer with chicken – just saying! 

Here is goes..

Ingredients: We try and use organic produce whenever we can, especially for the chicken!

2 small broccoli heads or one large (raw)

Half an avocado

Around six asparagus sticks (raw)

Half a zucchini (raw)

1 + 1/5 medium chicken breasts

Haloumi

Parsley and Mint (we grow our own, definitely recommend growing your own herbs)

1/4 of a Lemon

Olive oil (around a tablespoon per serve)

Pepper and himalayan salt (to taste)

Method:

1) Place some water and salt in a pot and bring to boil

2) In the meantime, cut chicken breast into small cube-like chunks (try and get the pieces the same size so they cook at the same rate).

3) Wash all the vegetables THOROUGHLY.

4) Cut up the vegetables any way you like, we tend to simply break up the broccoli and then cut it into smaller pieces (even the stem). With the zucchini and asparagus we also cut them into small bit sized pieces.

5) When the water is ready place the chicken pieces in for around 4-6 mins. You will have to test a piece to ensure they are not too pink inside. You want the chicken to be soft enough if you wanted to shred it. However we do not tend to shred ours, we prefer leaving them in cubed chunks. But each to their own! 🙂

6) Cut up haloumi into small rectangular pieces. Pan fry until golden on both sides. You can use some coconut oil if you wish, we never do as we don’t see the need to.

7) Dice the avocado

8) Now its time to get your hands dirty and mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl! Add the olive oil, lemon, pepper and himalayan salt. And finally top it off with your herbs!

Very simple – Great detoxifying foods that will leave you feeling refreshed and satisfied!

Prawn and Kale salad

Hey guys,

We came up with this recipe to conquer the 40 degree day that was literally melting everything in our pantry (…our coconut oil is now an actual oil..).

Anyway, this salad can be enjoyed on a hot day, for a light lunch or even a side dish to a dinner. Ohhh it could even be used as an entree, at a dinner party! Now, we’re getting too excited.

This recipe serves two. Obviously as the ingredients compliment each other well, you can add or subtract as much or as little as you want. But here is what we thought matched nicely;

– Prawns (washed and peeled)

– One head of broccoli (keep raw)

– 8 pieces of asparagus (keep raw)

– One pomegranate

– Half an avocado

– 2 teaspoons of sunflower seeds

– 2 tablespoons of organic greek yoghurt (we use five:am brand)

– A leaf of kale

– 1 cup of spinach (or more if desired)

– 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar

– A few mint leaves (we got ours from our organic garden!)

Method;

Combine all ingredients except for the apple cider vinegar, sunflower seeds, pomegranate and yoghurt in a large bowl and mix with your hands (give it a try it’s quite sensual)

Once you’ve mixed all ingredients together and have delicately placed them in a bowl/plate, then you can add the reminder of the ingredients on top (make it look nice guys). As you can see in our photo, the last ingredient we’ve added are the seeds. It just looks better that way for all you instagramers out there…

Simple huh?

M + S xx