How to put 4 different salads in the same bowl

We were having falafels last night, which are great but haven’t got the cheeriest of colours shining up from your plate to welcome you home from your working day.  Having ‘just a bit of salad’ with them and sauces to go on them wouldn’t therefore do.  When it’s raining outside you kinda want some zing and I don’t hold with putting things in pitta bread unless one is out and has no option but to eat while walking.  I first decided I wanted to dish up 4 different things in one of those compartmentalised dishes, then I remembered we don’t own one so I worked out a way to get 4 things tidily into the same bowl.  To recreate the culinary wonder you see before you, you have to *shock horror* not mind tinfoil briefly touching your food.

You will need:

  • A bowl
  • Pair of chopsticks
  • Tinfoil, one side of which at least is spotlessly clean
  • Something to scrunch up inside the tinfoil to make it take up more space
  • 4 salads or other things to put in the bowl
    1. Place chopsticks across each other over the top of the bowl making 4 spaces
    2. Make 3 balls from tinfoil and whatever you’re putting inside (I used recycled kitchen roll) and place these in 3 of the spaces
    3. Starting with your most solid salad, place salads into the spaces, removing one tinfoil ball at a time
    4. You can add a sauce or something semi-liquid like houmous or a thick dip into the final space
    5. Remove the chopsticks and stick something pretty in the middle like parsley, olives or one of those tomatoes that has been carved to look like a… *fails to describe*
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Looks a lot better when well-lit and photographed with a better camera.

4 salads

Salads clockwise from bottom left: grated carrot (including the lesser-known yellow carrots, for in fact carrots do come in many colours – and look like they might just be fizzy), houmous (low fat varieties taste nicer = discovery of the month), tomatoes and cucumber, baked beetroot/beets with satsuma and flat leaf parsley.  In the middle are some olives because I can’t carve tomatoes to look good and had already used parsley.

How to survive preparing Globe Artichoke

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Globe artichoke, not to be confused with Jerusalem or any other type of artichoke, is a small, alien being that will fight you every step of the way as you attempt to dismember it.  At the end of this grueling and painful process, once you are covered in plasters and committed to never ever bothering again, you are rewarded with dinner that tastes like heaven and you may do a quick about-turn, decide the preparation wasn’t so bad after all and then wonder how soon you can go out to buy another one.

Knowing what to do and in what order can help a lot when tackling one of these beings.  I hope the explanation below will be of assistance.

IMG_0156 Holding the artichoke by the stalk, use the scissors to chop the spiky ends off the leaves leaving them cut flat across – imagine you’re cutting toenails.  When the leaves get smaller near the top of the artichoke, ignore those because you’re going to cut the pointy end off anyway.
IMG_0157 Chop the pointed end off completely; this should reveal a centre with purple leaves.  You’ll need to pull all of these leaves out, which is tricky because they’re stuck in with superglue and have spikes that want to hurt your fingers.  Maybe bet someone they can’t get them out in under a minute … “Your minute’s not up yet…. no, not now either, keep going!”
IMG_0159 Your next challenge, hiding underneath the purple leaves is a load of spiky hair, which you can dig out by being vigorous with a metal spoon.  Remember to scrape it all off – it’s not edible.
IMG_0160 Stop digging when you hit hard ground – you have reached the heart of the artichoke.  It gets a lot easier from here.
IMG_0161 Place artichoke into a large pan of boiling water with a squeeze of lemon.  If you’re looking to save water, boil it in the same water you used to prevent it from browning.  Boil for about 35 minutes.  When you’re done, the water will have turned dark green – no need to be alarmed.

Drain upside down and serve drizzled with oil or with vegan spread / butter or margarine equivalent.
Eat by peeling off outer leaves, dipping into whatever you’ve put in the centre and then stripping the leaves with your teeth.  You can eat the heart as well – if you’ve prepared and  cooked it, you deserve the best bit.

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