Veggie salad for the hot days

With summer such a high commodity in Europe, I prefer as much as I can to spend most of the hot and sunny days outdoors. Either taking short trips, either going out with the baby, my time spent indoors is significantly limited. But we also need to eat, even only once in a while. For such situations, fresh salads are there to feed your hunger.

A couple of weeks ago, I did some creative salad cooking and the result was very healthy and fit for every kind of meals: either company for pasta, or for some chicken or just as an individual healthy meal.

The preparation took around 20 minutes. It serves 3.

Ingredients:

250 brown champignons, finely chopped

250 fresh tomatoes, finely chopped

3 yellow paprika, finely chopped

1 big cucumber, finely chopped

250 gr. corn

200 gr. water creast

salt, on taste

black pepper, on taste

dried oregano, on taste

150 ml. olive oil

Directions:

Mix well all the ingredients together and let to rest in the fridge for half an hour. 

Bon Appetit!

Feta cheese and watermelon

I was requested for a long time to prepare for Shabbes a light good watermelon and (feta) cheese salad. Overwhelmed by some extra work and with the head in the clouds because of the summer, I was more than happy to try something new the last week and I was once again reminded to prepare this combination. At the end of the day, it was for my own good, as it is a relatively simple meal, that does not require too much preparation.  

Instead, as I would found later but too late to change something, it requires a good knowledge of the various types of feta cheese, an information that is apparently missing from my cooking luggage. I bought a quarter of watermelon, looking pinky - meaning that it is not extremely sweet, this feature being associated in my mind with the red-looking watermelon. I did not think too much about the feta though and simply took a sort acceptable in my opinion from the point of view of the ingredients. The last time when I had a feta cheese was years ago and I completely forget that some cheeses can be saltier than others. 

For my combination of feta cheese and watermelon I needed some non-salty creamy sort, that was not necessarily the type I bought. But as the melon was not extremely sweet, the final combination was refreshing. Sometimes, as I remember following my tasting of Norwegian salty-sweet chocolate, the extremes can be attractive and more personality on both sides of the products would have bring more taste into our afternoon treat. The verdict was that the next time I will need to pay more attention to the feta cheese or at least to buy a more interesting watermelon. 

A life of learning is what I am always longing for, especially when it comes to cooking! 

Learning about Pappadamus

Once I've heard that it is extremely mind refreshing to do and learn at least once the day something new. In my opinion, this goes as well when it comes to foods, an experience that I repeated often in the last years. 

As I am passionate about Asian foods and thus, I pick up randomly from the Asian shop a pack of Pappadamus bread. You can prepare them in only a couple of minutes, in a pan with hot oil. It is very crispy and snacky and you need either many sweet sour and chutney sauce, or with cheese - my option, not sure if anyone in India ever eat it like this. You can addd some chopped onions or Mayonnaise.

When I did some research for preparing this post, I discovered that often Pappadamus is served at the end of the meal and not at the beginning, as I did. It can be rolled and arranged in various creative ways. 

It is easy to digest and maybe you can serve it with some fresh beer. Could be good and very cheap for the summer, isn't it?