Colourful courgette BBQ salad recipe

My colourful salad 

I love colourful food so was particularly pleased with how this throw-it-together salad turned out. We had been invited over to friends for a BBQ dinner (well, invited ourselves actually!) and I wanted to take a salad dish as part of our contribution. Said friends have a great leaf-filled veg garden so a green salad was already taken care of and the only useful ingredients I had were a small tin of organic sweetcorn and a crisp apple. I later raided the store cupboard for sultanas too.

Fortunately Morrisons came to the rescue. While Dave looked over the butchery counters I wandered the greengrocery aisles and returned with Special Offer stickered mini organic courgettes (zucchini) and pomegranate seeds. Yellow, red, green and pink. Perfect!

My final salad consisted of:
150g of Green Giant organic sweetcorn
1 cored and diced crisp red apple
1 diced mini organic courgette
About 100g of pomegranate seeds
A good handful of sultanas

I had learned from my previous Frankfurter And Apple Pasta Salad (blogged here) that using mayonnaise in a dressing mutes all the colours so I left it in the fridge this time and, instead, made up a barely there dressing which just coated everything and stopped the apple browning, but allowed all the flavours to remain fresh and unswamped.

My dressing was:
2 tsp Borderfields rapeseed oil
1 tsp Epicure balsamic vinegar
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice.

And that was it done! Quick, easy and delicious!

A weekend in Bristol - the Open-Top Bus Tour and Bocabar

So, yesterday I talked about our afternoon Bristol Harbour

Wallace and Gromit street art 

walk and today's blog will focus on a different method of city exploration - the Bristol Insight open-top bus tour. We were surprised when Gemma and Simon suggested this entertainment as they have lived in Bristol at least a decade and we wondered if they wouldn't already know everything! This turned out not to be the case though as our guide, Jackie, was very knowledgeable and kept up the nuggets of information for ninety minutes as Ian drove us around. Tickets for the tour are £15 for adults, £13 concessions and £8 for children. We thought this good value as it's a long route. We caught the bus by Millennium Square At-Bristol. It drives around some of the harbour before heading out under the suspension bridge, up over the Downs, past Bristol Zoo and into Clifton, down Park Street, out to Cabot Circus and Temple Meads before returning to Millennium Square. I won't spoil the on-bus commentary by telling you what we learned, but there's lots of history and we were given a page of discount vouchers for other attractions too. I think if you went round them all, you might even get your bus fare back!

Prior to the bus, we had popped into the Bristol Old Vic

Bristol Old Vic theatre 

theatre which was hosting a street party to celebrate its 250th anniversary - the oldest continuously running theatre in the country. I'd never been there before. The event turned out to be mostly food stalls, but I was interested to see inside the foyers and public space. Sadly the auditorium was being set up for a later performance so we couldn't be nosey there. However, if you head towards the upstairs toilets, just through the double glass doors there is an uncovered section of wall that's preserved behind glass. It doesn't look anything special, but we learned that it is part of the original front wall of the building from 1776. I loved seeing the large production photographs lining the theatre walls too. There had been a Crucible production on not so long ago!

From the theatre, we strolled a short distance to Bristol

Keith New window at
Bristol Cathedral 

Cathedral, another place we hadn't previously visited. The Cathedral is free to enter with donations towards its upkeep welcomed. We later learned (yes, on the bus!) that Bristol's Cathedral escaped destruction by Henry VIII's men because it swiftly became Protestant. It was damaged during WWII though and the stained glass in the large windows is modern. I particularly liked this window created by Keith New in 1965. I saw it as an abstract dragonfly although it is a representation of the Holy Spirit. Older stained glass windows are preserved in the cloister. The arts seem to be strongly encouraged at the Cathedral and I noticed quite a varied What's On programme on their website. Television programmes Wolf Hall and Sherlock were partly filmed here and events include music recitals and book talks.

By early evening we were all pretty shattered so walked up to the Paintworks which bills itself as Bristol's creative quarter. The renovated industrial zone now has artists workspaces and studios, and offices for creative businesses. It also has Bocabar! This large bar-restaurant serves Brazilian style pizzas and has an extensive cocktail list. Indoors the seating is mostly huge sofas with fairy lights and modern art for sale on the walls. Outside there is a little sun-trap terrace. We were lucky to arrive at a quiet time - apparently Bocabar can get very busy, especially for their Sunday lunches. We had a couple of drinks and staayed to eat. I think Dave enjoyed his pizza and I can recommend the Halloumi Salad!

Bocabar 

Frankfurter and apple pasta salad recipe

Frankfurter and apple pasta salad 

I thought it was a while since I had submitted a Credit Crunch Munch recipe and, checking back through old posts, I saw that it has been three months. The last was my Smoked Salmon Pie recipe back in January! Credit Crunch Munch was devised by Camilla at FabFood4All and Helen at Fuss Free Flavours. It's a great monthly resource for good food on a budget and April's host is Sarah at From Plate To Pen.

This month's Pasta Salad is great for using up part packets and could be infinitely varied to suit whatever you have to hand. I had two frankfurter sausages left from a previous hot dog lunch and a few ounces of French macaroni curves that Dave wasn't keen on, so rummaged in the fridge and cupboards to fill out a whole salad that would provide a couple of lunches me. Dave doesn't DO salad!

Ingredients
100g (ish) macaroni
2 frankfurter sausages
2 Cox apples
Small tin sweetcorn
2 tbsp mayonnaise
A good slug of Mustard flavoured salad dressing

Cook the macaroni according to its packet instructions then drain and rinse under cold water to cool it down.

While the pasta is cooking, cut each frankfurter into four pieces, then each quarter into four lengthwise sticks.

Peel, core and dice the apples.

Drain the sweetcorn.

Put the frankfurters, apples and sweetcorn into a large bowl - remembering it must also be large enough to add the pasta later (yes, oops!). Stir in the mayonnaise and enough salad dressing to taste. We've still got a bottle of a French Bouton d'Or creamy mustard dressing in the fridge at the moment so I used some of that. We've also got pesto which I think could have been nice too.

Stir in the cooked and cooled pasta. Serve either just as it is or with a big handful of fresh green salad leaves.

I did expect this salad to be more colourful - I do love brightly coloured food - but the mayonnaise muted the yellow sweetcorn and pink frankfurters so it does all look at bit magnolia! It tastes good though and I liked the sweetness of the apple against the mustard in the dressing.

Quick Potato Salad recipe

Probably everyone has got their own variation on a potato salad recipe already but I thought I'd share this one which I can get from opening the fridge to serving up in about twenty minutes. It's simple to do and only has a few ingredients. The following amounts served two as an accompaniment to our lunch on Sunday. I had a mini Ploughman's Cheddar and Pickle Tartlet and Dave had a slice of Cumberland Sausage and Bramley Apple Pie - and, no, I didn't make either of those two myself! +Sainsbury's delicatessen counter did the honours.

175g new potatoes
pinch of salt
several fresh mint leaves
2 tsp Mayonnaise
squeeze of lemon juice

Put a saucepan of salted water on to boil while you cut the potatoes into roughly inch-cubed pieces. You can peel them if you want. I usually just wash them as I like the skins left on new potatoes. I cut up 4 good-sized potatoes which turned out to be just about 175g.

When the water comes to the boil, put the potato pieces in with a couple of fresh mint leaves. They'll probably only take about 10 minutes to cook so keep an eye on them and don't let them get too soft.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them immediately and rinse them under cold water until they have completely cooled. I always do this even if I'm not moving straight on to the adding mayonnaise stage. Mum always did too. I can't remember why it's important though. Possibly it stops the potatoes continuing to cook? Maybe it stops them changing colour? Answers in the Comments below if you know!

Put the cooled potato into a bowl with 2 tsp of mayonnaise, a good squeeze of lemon juice and 3-4 fairly finely chopped mint leaves. I've already discarded the soggy ones from the saucepan. Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly but not too enthusiastically. You don't want to break up the potato pieces.

Serve cold.

There's lots of different ingredients you can also add to this salad to make it more impressive. it travels quite well for picnics and packed lunches as long as it can be kept cool. Chopped apple works nicely for a sweeter flavour, or chives and spring onions give a savoury crunch. Most green herbs will work whether fresh or dried. We're lucky because Dave grows fresh mint in our garden, but I've tried parsley, dill, coriander or basil instead to ring the changes. If I don't have half a fresh lemon already sat in the fridge, I will make do with a few drops of lemon juice out of a jar of slices instead of cutting into a new one. We are usually part-way through a jar because I use the slices in my Turkey Tagine recipe. I do like to use a good quality mayonnaise though because I find the cheaper ones can taste too acidic.