Tag Archives: Food Porn

something you’re proud of in the past few days

So I’m drawing a blank. I threw this brain-blank out to the twitterverse, and two lovely ladies (@belletristNZ and @GondwanaHeels) answered with my recent switch to a salad diet for lunch and dinner. Not vegetarian, just cutting out a few carbs, getting the body healthy and hoping to shed a couple of kilos. The proud part? The fact that I have managed to eat salad for lunch and dinner for four days straight. But how can I fill a post on that? So instead, I will share my salad recipe (if you can call it that).

So here we go; a post on salad.

Now salad can be boring, especially if it’s the main part to your meal, it must be swished up! As in the photo above, strawberries and a bit of cheese (come on, I’m human) can add flavour and protein, no-one can survive on lettuce leaves and celery. So here’s the structure of my ideal salad:

So the basics first; lettuce (I use mesculan, my fave), celery (yick, but I eat it because it burns more calories eating it than you actually absorb from it), red onion (or spring onion), red capsicum and a sprinkle of a fresh herbs; such as parsley or basil.

Secondly, my ideal salad must have avocado, MUST. How do people not like it?! Weirdos. Unfortunately I’m a little premature on salad season and the avocados are still quite pricey, so they have become a luxury this week. They have an amazing flavour and the added (hidden) benefit of bursting with vitamins, plus the minerals magnesium, copper, iron, calcium and potassium – who knew? (the internet does not lie).

Thirdly, protein – a must! Sure, the leafy greens fill you up, but I need the protein to keep me going all day. I’ll either use a bit of shredded chicken, sliced champagne ham, tuna, prawns, stir fry beef, feta cheese, shaved parmesan cheese; sometimes a mixture of these and sometimes just a sprinkle of feta.

My fourth ingredient would have to be something slightly sweet, like tomato. But tomato can get boring and expensive in non-salad season. So I will use strawberries (also expensive), orange or my absolute favourite; grapes. Grapes with feta cheese and onion; to. die. for.

Next, a bit of crunch (apart from the yicky celery) – a small handful of nuts, seeds or even those Asian crispy noodles (not the deep fried ones!!!). Healthy options such as; natural almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pine nuts  and walnuts.

To top the whole thing off you need a really nice dressing! At home we make our own with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and red peppercorns. Any dressing is good, as long as it’s not creamy, ie. egg based.

So, there you go kids, a whole post on salad. It’s about time I got a life huh? Or went on another date? Those entries were far juicier.