The Knobbly Plate

A veggie, foodie, photography site

Archives for July 19, 2017

Chargrilled Halloumi & Summer Vegetable Salad

by

Iv’e said this before but there is no harm in saying it again. “I love creating salads” It’s such a summery pastime for me and I shall be sad when the growing season for salads has moved on to more in the way of root vegetables. For now however I shall just keep on indulging myself. This chargrilled summer vegetable & halloumi salad I feel is one of my better creations and very substantial to boot.

I haven’t really been using alot of halloumi in my cooking until recently. I don’t know why that is because I have grown to absolutely love this “squeeky” cheese. For those of you that love your meat from a bbq this makes a brilliant substitute.  Halloumi cheese originated in Cyprus, and has been traditionally prepared with cow, goat or sheep milk. This cheese is very versatile and has the unusual feature of not melting when heated. For this reason, it can be grilled or fried, in addition to being eaten fresh with fruits or vegetables, or grated on pasta. I have used it in so many dishes from salads to kebabs to part of a stack for vegetarian burgers.


Once again when constructing this salad I have paid particular attention to The Knobbly Plates ethos of affordable healthy vegetarian dishes. So when breaking the cost of this salad down it came to a total of £3.80 for 4 people which works out at an amazing price of just 95p a portion. We had it for dinner and it was quite substantial with plenty left over for lunch for the two of us the very next day.

There were a few nuts and seeds included in the salad to help with proteins but also to add the extra textures to the dish as well. I think when you make this salad you will agree that it made for a very satisfying meal indeed.


Save Print
CHARGRILLED SUMMER VEGETABLE & HALLOUMI SALAD
Author: 
Recipe type: Salad
Cuisine: Main course
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 4 Persons
 
Ingredients
  • 2 Handfuls of Baby Spinach
  • 50g Cooked Cous Cous
  • 100g Halloumi Sliced Lengthways
  • 2 Tomatoes Chopped
  • ½ Cucumber Chopped
  • 50g Pumpkin Seeds
  • 50g Pistachio Nuts
  • 50g Walnut pieces
  • 1 Orange Segmented
  • 1 Red Pepper Sliced Thickly
  • 1 Courgette Sliced
Instructions
  1. On a chargrill cook the peppers, courgette and halloumi
  2. Meanwhile in a salad bowl mix together all the other ingredients and season with salt and pepper.
  3. top with the chargrilled vegetables and halloumi and dress with your favourite dressing.

 

Quinoa Salad with Beans, Peaches & Tofu

by

I came across this recipe when I was looking through Food Gawker. It’s an amazing resource for deciding what to cook each day by just searching with the ingredient you have. That is if I haven’t got an idea of my own to use which can be surprisingly often. The recipe I found was  Super Grains Salad with Peaches, Tofu and a Fresh Mint Vinaigrette from Petit World Citizen and with a few tweaks I managed to turn it into a Knobbly Plate idea.

Now being a man as you know when it comes to salads I like mine to be quite substantial so adding bits on top for me has always been a good idea. In this case as I had some green beans I decided to blanche and add them to the salad. I also added some of my own cherry tomatoes from the garden but I will price those up as if I bought them for the final reckoning. To make it as affordable as possible I also switched the mint vinaigrette for a splash of French dressing that came out of a bottle that was lurking in my fridge. I know fresh tastes better but like you I absolutely have to watch the pennies and every penny saved is a blessing.

For the grains I used a mix that I bought from Tesco’s of red and white quinoa with bulgur wheat thrown in and it seemed to work very well. So what did the dish cost me to make? Well all in all and buying tinned peaches instead of fresh ones I managed to make this dish for a total of £4.59 which is a bit expensive by Knobbly plate standards but it will feed 4 people so that’s £1.14 per person. I think this dish illustrates very well the fact that if you eat seasonal produce then you can keep the price down. Salad vegetables are on the way out now and so they are starting to rise in price. As autumn approaches we are coming into the roots season so I shall need to be thinking more about what I can make with them. It was nice however to have just one more salad. Thank you summer for a wonderful season.

Save Print
QUINOA SALAD WITH PEACHES, BEANS & TOFU
Author: 
Recipe type: Salad
Cuisine: Main course
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
  • 100g Quinoa Cooked According to Instructions
  • 200g Marinated Tofu Sliced
  • Handful of Green Beans Blanched
  • 1 Red Onion Finely Sliced
  • Handful of Seasonal Salad Leaves
  • 480g Tin Sliced Peaches
  • 12 Cherry Tomatoes
  • ½ Cucumber Sliced
  • 4 tbs French Dressing
Instructions
  1. Mix all the ingredients together and drizzle over the salad dressing.
  2. Season with salt and pepper.

 

Lazy Days Beetroot & Raisin Tea Bread

by

Well the weekend seems to have flown by and on these lovely hot sunny days what could be nicer than a nice refreshing cup of tea and some freshly baked beetroot and raisin tea bread.

The beetroot season has just started and it is a vegetable that I feel is particularly unused. Mostly bought in jars pickled in vinegar but it is so much more versatile and good for you too. Beetroot is a good source of iron and folate (naturally occurring folic acid). It also contains nitrates, betaine, magnesium and other antioxidants (notably betacyanin). More recent health claims suggest beetroot can help lower blood pressure, boost exercise performance and prevent dementia.

There that’s the science out of the way which I have to confess I copied from the internet to save you all the bother of going to look it up for yourselves. This weekend was a true lazy weekend for me as I didn’t really do anything at all except a bit of baking and lounging around in the sun eating the fruits of my endevours. There is a new micro pub opening up in my high street in the coming weeks so I will be sampling some real ales before too long and hope to write a review here in this blog about all my “hard” work in sampling said beers.


Save Print
Lazy Days Beetroot & Raisin Tea Bread
Author: 
Recipe type: Bread
Cuisine: Baking
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 6 persons
 
Ingredients
  • 200g Light Muscova Sugar
  • 4 Large Eggs, Separated
  • 200g Finely grated beetroot
  • Zest and Juice of a Lemon
  • 100g Raisins
  • 100g Ground Almonds
  • 200g Self Raising Flour
  • 1 tsp Cinnamon
  • 1 tsp Grated Nutmeg
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3 and lightly grease a loaf tin. Then line with baking parchment.
  2. Using a whisk beat together the egg yolks and sugar until soft and fluffy.
  3. Stir in the beetroot, ground almonds,lemon zest and juice and the raisins.
  4. Sift in the flours and spices and fold in gently.
  5. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and slowly fold into the cake mixture.
  6. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for around an hour until you can insert a skewer and it comes out clean.
  7. Allow to rest for 10 mins in tin before removing to cool.