veggie | Reidbury's Kitchen

Beans and Greens Salad, Olive Magazine April 2014

For someone who enjoys cooking so much, I tend to be very lazy when it comes to making an effort on side dishes. I don’t really know why, but it’s something I’d like to focus more on. I decided to start this by making a salad I saw in Olive Magazine (April 2014 issue) to serve with the Greek Chicken Flatbreads I posted here. Whilst Beans and Greens Salad doesn’t necessarily sound the most exciting, it really does taste far more interesting than you’d think. It’s very fresh and zingy and works well as a side dish or, I reckon, brilliantly on its own if you added a bit of feta or chicken to bulk it up.

KB rating 8/10. PR rating 8/10

Beans and Greens Salad (serves 4)

Ingredients:

1 x 400g tin kidney beans, rinsed and drained
100g green beans, blanched and cut into 3cm pieces
200g tenderstem broccoli, chopped into small pieces and blanched
1 small avocado, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
½ red onion, finely diced
Good handful of baby watercress
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Olive oil

Method:

Put the first 7 ingredients in a bowl. Whisk the vinegar and mustard together, then whisk in 3 tbsp olive oil and season. (I took the lazy option in making the dressing by adding all the ingredients to a clean jar, and shook it vigorously until everything was combined!). Add to the salad, toss everything together. Serve with crusty bread if preferred.

Katie’s Nemesis

Well, in terms of food in the Reidbury Kitchen, it’s been a pretty boring week. PR has been struck down by flu and I’ve been uninspired to cook anything for myself. Instead I’ve just wanted simple, tasty food – and what is more simple than Boiled Eggs and Soldiers? But I’ve realised something which has greatly upset me. I can’t boil an egg. I’ve tried – THREE TIMES. Each time, I get excited as I get my soldier and go for the first dip, expecting the soft, oozy yolk to blend perfectly with my marmite soldiers. And each time, it’s like trying to dip toast into concrete. You could throw these eggs at the wall and they’d just bounce right off. To rub real salt into the wound though, if I ever want a hardboiled egg, it’s under-cooked. So I can only state, that for a food blogger, I can’t cook an egg. Awkward.

I actually blame Delia on the soft-boiled egg front. I always remember my Mum adding eggs to a pan of cold water and bringing it up to the boil. So I googled this, and Delia does indeed say to add your eggs to a small pan of cold water, with water about quarter of an inch above the eggs. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for 3 mins for a soft boiled egg. This is an outright lie. I’ve tried this multiple times now and even cooking for 2 mins the eggs still are overcooked. I’ve now lost confidence, but the next time I broach boiled eggs I am going for the tried-and-allegedly-tested version of adding eggs to already boiling water.

But for now, I can highly recommend hard-boiled egg sandwiches on marmite toast. I’ve become all too familiar with them…

Image reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiled_egg