Cabbage, Grapes, Olives Salad in a Red Wine & Poppy Seed Vinaigrette

I had a bit of salad left over from yesterday - the lettuce was wilted, but the rest was fresh. So, I reused the kalamata olives, gherkins, and peppers; and added cabbage and black grapes to the mix. The vinaigrette is made of 1 part red wine vinegar, 2 parts extra virgin olive oil, sprigs of oregano, and a heaping of poppy seeds. I'd bought the poppy seeds ages ago and hadn't even opened the pack till today -  Had seen a salad dressing somewhere with poppy seeds added, so why not?!

Onion, Cinnamon, and Dry Fruit Pilaf

This is a really nice comforting rice dish with caramelized onions, a ton of cinnamon, and made richer with cashews, raisins, and green grapes. I made mine using red rice, which is notorious for having a really long cooking time (40 minutes!).

Apple and Cabbage Salad

A delightfully tart apple and cabbage salad dressed with red wine vinegar and chives, and a sprinkling of black grapes with some leftover peppers.

Apple and Cabbage Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 tart apple (I used Granny Smith)
• 2 cups of shredded cabbage
• 1 cup black grapes
• 1/2 red and green peppers
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon chives

To make:

• Chop your apple and cabbage. I soaked my apples in lime juice so that it doesn't go brown.
• Dress the cabbage with the red wine vinegar.
• Add to the apple, grapes and peppers.
• Finish off with a dash of finely chopped chives.

Lettuce, Grape, Almond and Basil Salad

As far as salads go, this one is a keeper, as far as I am concerned. Real easy to put together (but so are all my salads!) and yummy enough to polish off an entire bowl in one sitting.

Lettuce, Grape, Almond and Basil Salad

Ingredients:

• 3-4 cups of loosely packed iceberg lettuce
• 2 cups green grapes
• 5-7 leaves of basil
• 12-15 almonds
• About a handful of sunflower seeds
• Dash of olive oil

To make:

• Tear up the lettuce and basil.
• Combine all ingredients except the oil and sunflower seeds.
• Drizzle with olive oil.
• Top off with the sunflower seeds.

Zesty Spinach Salad

Portion sizes are a bit of a joke with me – as I end up making way more than required quite often. Let’s just gloss over the fact that I end up throwing the remains of a perfectly good salad to go and buy, not one, but two Subway sandwiches each day over the course of this week. So, today I made a new rule - No buying outside stuff until my salad bowl is empty; after that you can eat what you want to your heart's content. But actually, I have been eating dinner on the go because I have relatives staying over at my place and I’d rather just have my dinner out of their sights, than be subjected to more mock taunts. “Why are you not eating meat?” “Whats wrong with cooking food?” “You are already thin enough, you don’t need to diet!” and “Well if you’re so health conscious, how come you smoke?” – All perfectly legit, but sometimes you just don’t want to have to explain to someone for the nth time.

So, today I made a bit less than usual. But I underestimated the appeal of fruits to spruce up a salad. Normally, my big bowl of salad lasts till about 7 PM, with me portioning it in 2-3 batches. But this salad with spinach, grapes, pine apple and pomegranate with a black pepper dressing was so delightful; I’ve polished off the whole bowl by lunch time.

Fruits are expensive, though – Rs 40 for one pomegranate! BTW, the last pomegranates I bought from the farmers market were organic. This one I bought yesterday was not. You can just tell by all that extra membrane/pith-y yellow stuff inside the pomegranate. My organic one was one giant ruby ball with almost no unnecessary yellow stuff in between that we need to sift through. This one I bought had a ton of it – adding to the weight (and hence the cost), plus the effort required on your part to clean the whole fruit.

Zesty Spinach Salad

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups of spinach
• 20-30 black grapes
• ½ a large pomegranate
• 1 cup of pine apple
• 1 spring onion (onion, plus the entire green stalk)

Dressing:

• Tablespoon of olive oil
• Juice of half a lime (mostly only to ensure my salad would stay good all day - Dont really need it)
• Roughly 15-20 black pepper corns

To make:

Wash the spinach thoroughly and chop it up into bite sized slivers.

Chop the spring onion and pine apple in roughly the same sized portions as the spinach.

Clean and peel the pomegranate to get to the red nuggets inside.

Mix all the salad ingredients.

Make a dressing of olive oil, lime juice and black pepper (ground up).

Pour evenly over the salad. Mix well.