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Green Lentil & Bulgur Wheat Salad

P1070411 P1070413A SALAD?! WHAT IS GOING ON?! It shocked me just as much when I decided a salad is what I wanted to eat for dinner. There’s halloumi in it though so its fine. And this isn’t one of your “diet” salads, it fills you right up! Especially if your portion sizes are anything like mine. I was pretty keen to post this recipe for two reasons: 1) I would get to utilise the white table in my room along with the ridiculous amount of natural light I get and b) I made this salad for paying customers at my new job! Well it wasn’t exactly the same as I had access to ALL the ingredients, but it was similar!

P1070391 I don’t think I have told you about this new job. I’ve told you about other jobs I think, but I have another. This job, is the best yet! I managed (not sure how) to get a job in the “prep area” at Counter Cafe in Hackney Wick. This involves baking and making all the cakes, biscuits, brownies, pies, salads, juices and anything else that we sell that isn’t cooked to order. It is a glorious job. I haven only been there about 2 weeks but still, it’s exactly what I want to be doing.P1070411P1070401 I was told that I would get the opportunity to try out my own recipes which I was very excited about. I didn’t think however, that I would be given the chance from day 1 to do my thang. I was asked to make the “special” on my first day which was a salad and having made this salad for myself the previous week I thought it would be safe to give it ago. I think it went down well! Then on my second day I was set free on the cheesecake so I decided to make a Cardamom & Chocolate Cheesecake, the recipe for which I came up myself and shared with y’all on here! I was chuffed to say the least! Since I began writing this post I’ve also made my Apple & Cinnamon Flapjacks, and Blueberry & Walnut Banana Bread (with normal flour).

P1070409The aforementioned salad has one slightly pretentious ingredient and that is bulgur wheat. It’s not the cheapest grain, however, you can swap it for cous cous and this doesn’t make for a very expensive dish. In fact the most expensive ingredient is probably the halloumi. So what else have we got in it? We gots griddled cubanelle peppers (the long thinnish red ones), cherry tomatoes, red onion, rocket and a very simple dressing of olive oil, garlic, chilli and oregano. I don’t think this salad needs a fancy dressing as the elements making up the salad bring enough flavour of their own.

We seem to be a bit light on the photos this week as I am yet to explore photographing savoury food.

Recipe

I came up with this recipe all by myself. The thing with salads is you don’t have to stick to the rules when it comes to weights etc. If you want more tommys add more. If you don’t like rocket, use whatever leaves you fancy!
Note: If you don’t have a griddle pan (like I didn’t because I left it at home in Woodley) then just use a normal, non stick, frying pan.

Serves: 3-4 (if your portions sizes are anything like mine than I’d say 3)
Prep Time: 30mins
Cooking time: < 5 mins
Skill level: E-z bree-z

Equipment
Chopping board
Knife
Non stick frying pan
Griddle pan
Saucepan (you’ll need a few or can reuse the same one to cook lentils/bulgur wheat)

Ingredients
70g bulgur wheat (dry weight)/ cous cous etc
70g green/puy lentils (dry weight)
150g cubanelle pepper (about 2, normal red peppers will do)
80g baby plum tomatoes/cherry tomatoes
1 small onion
1-2tsp extra virgin olive oil
clove garlic (crushed)
seasoning
1tsp oregano
juice of ½ freshly squeezed lemon
225g halloumi (1 block)
50g rocket
optional:
fresh chilli (to taste)

Method

  1. Cook bulgur wheat and lentils according to packet instructions.
  2. Cut peppers in half.
  3. Heat frying pan over medium heat. Add pepper halves, skin side down and cook for about 4mins until they start to blacken slightly in areas. Flip over and cook the other side for another 4mins. Remove from heat.
  4. Quarter tomatoesthinly slice red onion and chop peppers into 1cm thick pieces (once they have cooled slightly).
  5.  Heat extra virgin olive oil in saucepan over a low/medium heat. Add garlic and red onions and cook for 1 min. Add tomatoes and peppers and cook for a further 2mins. Remove from heat (you don’t want to over cook anything, just get the tomatoes a bit soft and infuse the oil with the flavours).
  6. Slice halloumi (you want about 3 slices each)
  7. Heat griddle pan over medium heat and cook halloumi on both sides until golden.
  8. Add bulgur wheat and lentils to saucepan and mix together ingredients. Season with salt, pepper and oregano and pour in lemon juice. Mix well.
  9. To serve, lay a bed of rocket on a plate, spoon on salad mix and top with halloumi.

YOU DON’T MAKE FRIENDS WITH SALAD

It’s no secret that I love funk. I’ve just discovered Thundercat and let me tell you, he is MARVELLOUS!

KB x

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