salad

quick meals – lamb souvlaki
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I am still totally in love with these oversized plates I got for Christmas!

See this plate. It’s good isn’t it?

It functions so well for us. Because in the world of salad we have two types of eaters at our house:

1. greenophiles – that’s everyone actually. We all eat green things.  As long as there is no dressing involved, and
2. redaphobes – 2 out 5 definitely don’t choose red … they might eat some red capsicum under duress.  And tomatoes only if they’ve been cooked.

So this platter is big enough to keep things nice and separate and covers all bases. Hooray.

We’re having souvlakis for dinner. With bread from the A1 Bakery down on Station Street (we all agree that we love A1.  Their pita bread is the BEST … not to mention their nutella donuts …). And home made tzatziki, along with the tomato, parsley and onion salad dressed with salt, pepper and olive oil, and then the green salad (if you’d call two items mixed together a salad) that consists of rocket and cucumber …

And I bought some vacuum sealed butterflied and marinated lamb that I am cooking in the oven for an hour at 200 degrees celcius.  And will rest for 30 minutes.  Sometimes I also cook it on the BBQ …

And that’s it.

To make our dinner authentic (and reduce the dishes) I will wrap our souva’s in aluminium foil … I like to ensure we get that authentic zing if we accidentally forget to peel the foil away properly.

Welcome to Fairfield at 6pm!  Yes, it’s nearly as good as Brunswick Street at 2am … or Stalictites in the city at 4am …. but much more child friendly.

Oh, and here’s how I make tzatziki.

Recipe

1 cup greek yoghurt

1 clove garlic (finely grated)

1 lebanese cucumber (finley grated)

salt and pepper to taste

A fine grater makes the process of making tzatziki super simple.  I saw someone use a grater on one of those SBS food safari shows once.  And I took note of this much more sensible idea (than smashing and chopping I mean).  So I just grate the garlic clove and put it in the yoghurt (if you’re really lazy you don’t even need to peel the clove first.  The process of grating does the job for you!).  Then I grate the cucumber, and squeeze out the juice.  And add the flesh to the yoghurt too.  The green makes it look ‘more than yoghurt’.  Which or course tzatziki is!  And I add a bit of salt and pepper.  And leave it sit for a while so the garlic does it’s thing.  Simple.

chicken and mango salad with feta

When we have a salad at our house it’s always a bit hairy (not the salad thank goodness – how gross – just whether the kids will eat it).

My kids like their vegies separate. And I can understand that. I was the same when I was little.  And I hated raw tomato (so I never make them eat it if they don’t want to).  But that’s another story.

So, I was once again pushing my luck with this meal.  But I thought I might have some success because it contains mango*.  And they all love mango.

This salad has a thai style dressing.  I made it the first time because I had all the ingredients handy.  It is a great summer dish and very easy to make.  It’s one of those meals to save for a night when you only feel like mixing …we’ve had it twice in the last couple of weeks.

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Chicken and Mango Salad with Feta

  • 1 shop roasted chicken, boned and shredded or cut into bite size pieces
  • 2 mangoes, diced or sliced (whatever you prefer)
  • 1 cucumber, finely sliced
  • 1/2-1 iceberg lettuce, chopped
  • 1/2 bunch coriander, shredded or chopped
  • feta, crumbled

Dressing

  • 1/2 lime, juiced
  • 1 teaspoon fresh ginger julienned or minced
  • 1 red chilli chopped
  • 1tsp brown sugar
  • 1tbsp fish sauce

Place the lettuce, cucumber and chicken in the salad bowl. Just use as much lettuce as you like.  Add the coriander.  Mix the lime juice with the other dressing ingredients and drizzle it over the salad.  Crumble the feta on the top at the end (well I do this on individual serves because the kids don’t love feta).  If everyone likes feta you could just put it in at the start.

Mix.  Eat.

* Only Scarlett dug her heels in and refused to eat it.  And she’s the one that likes mango the most … I guess she is 6.