Summer Salads

After spending a whole weekend playing lawn bowls in blazing sun and hectic heat the last thing I felt like was standing in the kitchen preparing food. So salads to the rescue. Two simple salads which I was going to use to accompany some pan fried prawns done in lime and coriander with a hint of peri peri, but we decided that the salads were sufficient as it was just @fempower and myself for dinner

Mango, Cucumber and Tomato salad

For the dressing I used two tablespoons sesame oil, one clove garlic minced and 1 cm fresh ginger finely grated in a bowl to which I added the juice of three small limes.

The body of the salad is two medium tomatos, half an english cucmber (peeled) and one ripe fresh mango. Each of these were chopped into roughly one centimetre pieces.

Chop a whole green chilli into fine pieces and add to the dressing then toss the ingredients gently to coat and add fresh mint and fresh coriander leaves, season with freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste.

Alas, with the drought our mint plant only had about twelve leaves so I only added four chopped leaves

Baby Spinach, Beetroot and Brie Salad

This very simple salad is delicious. Break baby spinach leaves into bite sized pieces and place in a salad bowl.

Peel and grate or slice thinly a fresh beetroot, slice a sweet red pepper into thin strips, and take a Brie cheese and slice into thin slices.

Drizzle the spinach leaves with olive oil, grind some himalayan salt fairly generously over the leaves. Layer all the other ingredients on top of the spinach and chill in fridge.

Crushed roasted peanuts sprinkled over the mango salad just before serving works very well, as does roast pumpkin seeds with the Baby Spinach salad. If the weather is hot where you are .... try these they work a treat