Vietnamese Prawn Summer Roll Salad

Summer roll, in a bowl

 Its veggie box day tomorrow and I'm running low on ingredients.

We have some carrot and cucumber but thats about it. 

Lovely weather today, for London.  Its sunny and warm so I dont want to eat anything too heavy.  

I have a rummage in the freezer and discover some prawns that need using.  

I think of Vietnamese Summer Rolls.  Yum - they remind me of my trip to Vietnam in 2005.  

We do have lots of mint in the garden...

I actually have rice paper in the cupboard, for wrapping the ingredients into rolls, but I'm not in the mood for anything time consuming or fiddly so just throw all the ingredients together into a salad.  

Ingredients

• vermicelli noodles
• onion
• prawns 
• mint
• cucumber
• carrot
• peanuts

Dressing

• rice wine vinegar
• honey
• toasted seasame oil
• chilli flakes

Method

1.  Put the noodles in a shallow dish and and soak in boiling water for 5 or so minutes. 

2.  Mix together dressing ingredients.  

3.  Rinse noodles in cold water, drain, toss in the dressing and set aside. 
4.  Cut onion into strips and stir fry with prawns until onion strips are soft and prawns are just pink.  

5.  Remove from heat.  

6.  Set aside to cool.
7.  Cut the carrot and cucumber into thin sticks.  

8.  Chop the mint and peanuts.
9.  Throw all the ingredients together in a bowl instead of messing about with rice paper.  

Enjoy!

Oven Baked Fishcakes with Fennel Coleslaw

Summer comfort food

I had some fish pie mix in the freezer that needed using, but the weather is too warm for a hearty pie.  

Fish Cakes

Ingredients

• Potato 
• Onion
• Fish
• Milk

Method

1.  Finely chop an onion and poach with the fish in 50:50 milk/water. 

2.  Drain, reserving liquid, cool and flake the fish.
3.  Scrub and chop the potatoes and boil until just tender.  

4.  Drain and let the moisture steam off them.  

5.  Mash with a little of the fish milk and let them cool, the dryer and colder the better.

6.  Mix the fish and onion into the cold potato, shape into cakes and place on lightly oiled baking tray.  

7.  Bake at 180 degrees C for about 20 minutes or until the fishcakes have browned.

*********

Coleslaw

Ingredients

• Fennel bulb
• Cabbage
• Onion

Method

1.  Finely chop all ingredients.  

2.  Mix and dress with lemon and garlic infused olive oil.

Beetroot, Quinoa and Parsley Salad

Its salad season!

The weather is finally warm, which means a) I'm craving salads and b) we're eating outside.

When I'm having salad as a main course, I like to ensure it contains all the elements of a balanced meal.  

As the daughter of a diabetic, I had it drummed into me that all meals needed to include protein, carbs and fresh veg. 

For this salad, carbs are provided by the beetroot, protein by the quinoa and feta, and fresh veg by the parsley and beetroot.  

We ate this with a slice of german style grain bread and lashings of butter.

Fertility Focus

Beetroot is full of iron and folate

Parsley has high levels of vitamin K and both iron and vitamin C which helps the body absorb iron

Quinoa is a plant based form of protein, and contains all nine of the essential amino acids needed for cell renewal

Ingredients

• Quinoa
• Beetroot
• Parsley
• Mint
• Feta cheese

Method

1.  Simmer the quinoa for about ten minutes (cook according to package directions).  

2.  Rinse and drain.
3.  Grate the beetroot and finely chop parsley and mint.  

4.  Chop the feta into small cubes.
5.  Mix together all ingredients and toss with olive oil and balsamic dressing.

Enjoy!

Lentil and Parsley Fertility Salad

Packed with fertility goodness

Ever since I read The Fertility Diet I've been trying to increase the amount of raw food in my diet.  

I dont want to go 100% raw, it seems too extreme and directly contradicts some Traditional Chinese Medicine advice from my acupuncturist, but I figure now the weather is finally warming up I can aspire to making my meals at least 50% raw.

The book also recommended parsley as a good herb for fertility, benefiting the kidneys, liver, adrenals and uterus.  

I'm usually a fan of parsley but the pigeons won the war over the parsley in my garden so I only have a small indoor plant.  

We recently discovered the local mediterranean grocer sells enormous bunches of parsley for only 80p and is a nice 20 minute post-prandial walk through the park away, so I've been experimenting with making parsley salads that aren't tabbouleh to keep things fresh.

Fertility focus

Lentils are a good source of folic acid, full of iron and provide a non-meat form of protein.

Parsley has high levels of vitamin K and both iron and vitamin C (which helps the body absorb iron.

Sunflower seeds are rich in zinc, selenium and vitamin E and essential fatty acids.

Ingredients

• Brown lentils
• Parsley
• Spring onion
• Tomato
• Sunflower seeds

Method

1.  Soak sunflower seeds.

2.  Soak, rinse and drain lentils.  

3.  Simmer lentils in fresh water for about 20 minutes, until cooked.  

4.  Rinse with cold water, drain and allow to cool.

5.  Chop parsley, spring onion and tomato.

6.  Drain and rinse sunflower seeds.

7.  Mix it all together and enjoy!

I served the salad with grilled chicken thigh and courgettes sautéed in garlic and olive oil.

Al Fresco dining

The Birds and the Bumble Bees

My overgrown organic veggie garden

This time last year, despite the constant rain, I was reaping the benefits of planting out my veggie garden in April.  

I had planted cucumber, tomato, spring onions, lettuce, spinach, parsnip and leeks in my organic garden.

This April, it was still raining and Mr Duncan and I decided there was no point in planting the garden as we'd have our Australian visa and not be around to harvest any of it.  

Its a bit of a pity as this year we have some amazing rich compost from the past two years of veggie scraps and juicer pulp.  

I'll need to decide what do do with it if we have to get rid of the compost bin when we move out.

It continued to rain and each weekend I thought 'ooh those weeds are getting out of control, I really need to weed next time it isn't wet'.  

We finally had a good weekend and I went outside all ready to tackle the weeds which were above my knees and blooming with little flowers.  

I saw more than half a dozen bumble bees and some normal bees and other insects flying around from blossom to blossom. The bumble bees seemed especially to like the blue flowers from the wild comfrey.

There has been a lot of information in the media lately about the decline of bees and especially bumble bees due to the wet weather, declining habitat and use of pesticides.  

So I've decided that the garden will remain au-natural until we have to return it to some level of respectability when we move out. 

As the weeds have become more wild, I've noticed more birds in our garden too and almost have a respectable morning chorus going on (when its not raining). 

Its nice to see the bees buzzing around each time I go into the garden.

Be happy little bees.

L. x