Salad, in the words of some Australians, shits me to tears*.

It’s quite obvious that I am a bit of a salad dodger, while I’m not fat, I’m definitely built more for comfort than speed. So I don’t eat a lot of salads and possibly too many muffins. This is a state of affairs that are changing and I’m experimenting further with some tasty, filling and more exciting salad options.

This was a rather tasty effort. Chargrilled tuna steaks (not rare because apparently that’s not the done thing with Niçoise) So we did them properly. The eggs were perfect though. I know there should have been anchovies, black olives and new potatoes for a proper Niçoise) but quite frankly, I couldn’t be bothered. I had it with a simple vinaigrette made of olive oil, vinegar, mustard and sugar.

And look, I even managed to have salad on the side of this fried polenta with creamy mushroom & mange tout sauce. I’m quite proud of that. Also, polenta is awesome and I can’t believe it’s the same thing as ‘mielie pap’ which is part of the staple diet of many Southern Africans.

And then, I made a rather nice chilli tonight and totally failed to have any salad with it. Do roasted vegetables count as salad? Interestingly, with this chilli I added some chopped coriander and a healthy squeeze of lime juice just before serving and it really was lovely. Totally lifts and lightens the flavour (don’t worry, I added cheese to oppose this 😉 )

*Australasian for ’causes me great displeasure’