Fruit Salads

'Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing that you don't put it in a fruit salad'

Summer means salad and fruit. So it makes sense to combine them and make... FRUIT SALADS!
(That's as in salads that usually have lettuce is them, not, erm, fruit salads).
Apart from being healthy and tasty and so easy to make, another thing I love about salads is how attractive they can look. But I'll just add that I don't usually bother with the presentation as I have for these photos!

Here are four salads featuring fruit (besides the obvious tomatoes or avocado) that I'd recommend:
(To be honest, most of my 'salads featuring fruit' are normal salads with fruit mixed in so I've decided to put some different recipes up)

1. Asparagus with orange and olives

2. Strawberry salad with red lettuce

3. Chicken and mango salad

4. Grilled pear with blue cheese salad

(This may have to go on separate posts!)

1. Asparagus with orange and olives

INGREDIENTS:
- 1 shallot
- 2 oranges
- 1.5 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar
- 0.5 teaspoons of red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 bunches of asparagus
- 20 olives (I know, precise for me ;) )


1. Peel the zest from one orange for future use. Finely slice the shallot and add to a bowl with the vinegars, sugar and juice from the orange. Leave for around one hour. You can then add oil and seasoning to taste

The yellowy shallot is the bit from our allotment: tiny, but powerful!

2. Grill the asparagus for 5-10 minutes. Whilst the asparagus is grilling, chop the olives in half and add to the bowl with the flesh from the other orange and the zest. (Note: this way you end up having A LOT of dressing. It's really nice so if you don't mind a soupy salad that's OK. Otherwise, put the asparagus is a separate bowl with the orange, zest and olives and then drizzle with the dressing)

What is wrong with the photo layout on this blog?!

3. Add the asparagus.

4. Eat, and wonder why this has not been a part of your life before =D

2. Strawberry salad with red lettuce

First impressions to this salad were not overwhelmingly positive (essentially, 'Strawberries..? In a salad..?') However, strawberries and salad dressing make a surprisngly good combination. Try it out.

INGREDIENTS:
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 shallot
- 2 small cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of honey
- 1 1/2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
- 1 red lettuce (I actually used a bag of mixed salad from the supermarket)
- 300g strawberries
- 2 avocados
- 1/2 red onion (or a 1/4 if you've got a ridiculously massive one like we did!)

 1. To make the dressing:
Slice the shallot and garlic finely
Put the olive oil, vinegar, shallot, garlic, honey, mustars and seasoning in a jar and shake (or whatever method you have for making dressings)

2. For the salad:

Wash and tear the lettuce                                       Cut the strawberries into quarters

Google had better reply to my angry rant about how stupid their photo layout is!

Peel and slice the avocado                                 Chop onion

Warning: the next steps require great technical skill!

That was a joke by the way.

Throw everything in a bowl and drizzle with dressing (it makes WAY more than you'd need for one salad). Enjoy!





N.B: the original recipe I got this from puts toasted almonds and feta cheese in the salad. Another I saw used spinach instead of red lettuce. I personally have not tried any of these but they're alternative suggestions

SEE NEXT POST called 'Fruit Salads 2' - probably won't be next post chronologically

Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream

Well, it's summer fruits time! (I appreciate that I'm starting a lot of posts with a comment on the time of year followed by an exclamation mark, sorry...)We've had a glut of strawberries here (though given the definition is 'an excessively abundant supply of something', I suppose I should reword that: because you can't have too many strawberries. We have a lot, I'll just say) so what better way to use them up than in desserts? This is just one way to get through those strawberries... I was determined to find more ice cream recipes that didn't need an ice cream maker, and it seems the magic ingredient is condensed milk. It's so versatile.

Ice cream with a tiny proportion of our strawberry crop

Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream
Prep time: 20 minutes
Serves: 22 

Ingredients  
450g of strawberries (chopped and hulled weight)
1 tbsp of clear runny honey
600ml of double cream (or you could do some cream, some vanilla ice cream like we did: 400ml of    cream and 200 of ice cream)
One 397g can of sweetened condensed milk
2 tsp vanilla extract (or, if you used the ice cream, omit this)

Method

1. Roughly chop your strawberries. Blend to a thick puree and add the honey. Reserve a small bowl of the puree and set aside.
   
   
   
2. Add a 1/4 of the can of condensed milk to the rest and stir.
3. In a seperate, large bowl, whisk the cream/ice cream until it forms soft peaks (not so thick it can't be mixed).
   
4. Stir in the rest of the condensed milk.
   
5. Add the strawberry puree mixture and mix in.
   
6. Pour the ice cream into a large, 2kg loaf tin. 
   
7. Swirl over the reserved puree and mix lightly to form a swirled pattern on top.
   
8. Freeze for at least 12 hours before serving.
   

Even the scoops are pretty! Serve with chopped fresh strawberries.

Gooey Chocolate Cherry Cookies

It's almost cherry season! I can't wait to pick them. Technically, this recipe doesn't use fresh cherries, but it's as good excuse as any to make them. These are quite similar to the popular chocolate chip cookies, made the American-style way and studded with chewy cherries and chocolate. The batter can be frozen and kept for whenever you may need some cookies on demand.

Gooey chocolate cherry cookies
Prep time: 30 minutes
Serves: 20
Cooking temp:Gas 5, 190C

Cooking time: 12-14 minutes

Ingredients
200g unsalted butter or magerine, softened
85g light muscovado sugar
85g golden caster sugar
1 large egg
225g self-raising flour
50g dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids
50g white chocolate
85g sour cherries or glace cherries

Method

1. Preheat the oven.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter with the two sugars. Mix in the egg with a large wooden spoon until smooth.
   
3. Chop the chocolate roughly, and the cherries too if they're large. Add the flour, chocolate and cherries to the bowl and stir into to form a cookie dough. This can be frozen.
   
4. Spoon onto a large baking sheets (you'll probably need two) that are lined with baking parchment. You'll be able to make 20 blobs. Make sure they are spaced as they will spread.
5. Bake for 12-14 minutes (or five minutes more from frozen), until they are cooked but still soft in the middle and pale.
   
6. Leave for a few minutes to cool, then lift off with  a fish slice and leave to go cold completely (though you'll probably find they don't all survive the cooling rack...)
   

Ginger and cinnamon spice cookies

Do you remember me saying I had over 50 recipes to put on the blog? Ho ho. Those were the young, naive days. That number has increased to over 100. Hmm... we'll see if I can get around to all that. ANYHOO, this was one of those recipes (1 down, 99+ to go!). We got this cookie press from our lovely aunty in Australia (thank you, Helen!) and I personally have never seen one in the UK. (Maybe I haven't been looking hard enough. Not the sort of thing that crosses your mind on your daily shop). One of the many reasons it's fantastic is the fact that it makes so many (48+) so it's great for cake sales, or street parties like I made them for. Probably a few too many to just eat at home... though you'll be surprised: over half will be gone before they're even cooled....

Spice cookies
Prep time: 15 minutes
Serves: 48
Cooking temp: Gas 3, 170C
Cooking time: 12 minutes

Ingredients
230g butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown granulated sugar
1 egg
1.5 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2.5 cups of plain white flour
1 tbsp water

Method

1. Preheat the oven.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.
   
3. Add the egg, spices and water and mix well. Fold in the flour with a wooden spoon.
   
4. W/cookie press: pack into the press and stamp out onto a cold, ungreased baking sheet, spacing the cookies 2cm apart. You made need to make more than one batch.
   
5. Without (admittedly, most people): cut cookie shapes that are about 2 mm thick and 5cm long. Or, make them thicker and cook for longer.
6. Bake for 12 minutes. Slide the cookies off with a palette knife and decorate if desired (using your press, handily!) Here are just some of the designs my press can make:
   
   
   
   

Summer fruit cake

Yes, it's summer! In case you hadn't realised. Well, technically it's not summer everywhere (i.e., the southern hemisphere) but here we've finally got sun, which means a celebration! Woo!

Summer fruit cake
Prep time: 1hr 30 minutes
Serves: 12
Cooking temp: Gas 4, 180C
Cooking time: 1 hour

Ingredients
175g soft butter or margarine
175g golden caster sugar
250g self-raising flour
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
200g (stoned and chopped weight) summer fruits -e.g., strawberries, raspberries, blueberries
100g granulated sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Preheat the oven.
2. Grease a 1kg loaf tin and line it with baking parchment.
   
3. In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar (caster), flour, eggs and vanilla extract, beating until it is pale and thick.
   
4. Spread a third in the base of the tin, and scatter over 50g of the fruit.
   
5. Add another third and repeat with another 50g fruit layer.
6. Spread over the rest of the cake mixture and smooth with a spoon. Bake for an hour, until it passes the skewer test.
   
7. Poke the cake with the skewer. Put the remaining fruit in a bowl with the sugar and stir in the citrus juice, mashing the fruit up a bit.
   
   You might need to add a tbsp more juice to make the mixture more runny.
8. Spoon over the cake and leave to cool until the topping is crisp.
   
   Add more fresh fruit, if desired.