Raw Carrot, Cucumber & Tomato Salad

As promised our previous blogpost, here is the recipe for the salad that we served with our Turkey & Cumin Burgers. It is very quick to prepare...just some dicing to do. :) Amanda came up with the idea of a salad with our burgers and this salad is basically the tasty result of what we had in our fridge. I used Spanish paprika and Mexican oregano but if not available you can use normal sweet paprika and regular dried oregano. It is a completely vegan & vegetarian salad and can be served with anything,..as a side dish, as a quick lunch or even as a tasty and refreshing sandwich filler. Also, the small the diced vegetables the better in our opinion. For 2-3 servings you will need...

• 1 carrot, grated
• ½ cucumber, deseeded & diced
• 2 tomatoes, deseeded & diced
• 1 spring onion, finely chopped
• 1-2 small gherkins, finely chopped
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• ½ tsp Spanish sweet paprika (use sweet paprika if not available)
• Pinch dried tarragon
• ½ tsp dried dried chives
• Pinch Mexican oregano (use regular oregano if not available)
• Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

How to...

1. In a medium sized bowl mix all the ingredients with a spoon. Transfer the salad into a fine sieve and let it rest on top of the bowl for a couple of minutes. This will get the excess moisture out of the salad. 
2. After a couple of minutes, discard the drained liquid and serve.

Enjoy!!

R&A

Spinach, Carrot & Ricotta Timbales

I created these as a light lunch with some ingredients that we had left over in the fridge and pantry. They turned out so tasty and we could've eaten at least two more each. They are not that hard to prepare. The only tricky bit is rolling the bread slices and layering the ramekins, so not really rocket science. We do love a kick in our dishes so I put some Scotch Bonnet hot sauce in there but this is optional. You can even add a milder hot sauce maybe like Tabasco. Completely vegetarian, you can serve them as a starter, light lunch or even party food to impress family and friends. For four ramekins you will need...

• 125g ricotta
• Grated half carrot
• 60g cooked spinach
• Salt & pepper
• Hot sauce
• ¼ tsp paprika
• Pinch garlic granules
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 10g salted butter
• Oil spray or butter, for greasing
• 4 slices of white sandwich bread
  
  

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Using a sieve, squeeze out all the moisture out of the spinach. In a bowl add all the ingredients except the butter, bread & oregano. Mix them well until well blended. Set the mixture aside.
3. Grease well 4 ramekins, we used oil spray.
4. Remove the crusts from the bread slices and flatten each slice with a rolling pin, make sure it’s very thin. Using a glass or cookie cutter cut a circle disc off the centre of each of the flattened bread slices and place the disc at the bottom of the ramekin. With the remaining pieces of bread, line up the ramekins’ sides tightly and fill each ramekin with about a tablespoon of the mixture, divide the mixture between the 4 ramekins.
5. Divide the butter into 4 equal pieces and put a piece of butter on top of the filling in each ramekin. Now chop the crusts finely and sprinkle on the ramekins. Gently press down with your hand to create a seal. Sprinkle some dried oregano on top.
6. Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until top is golden.
7. Take out of the oven and leave to set for 10 minutes. Now either serve warm in the ramekin or invert on a baking sheet and bake for a further 10 minutes to get a crispy crust all around.

Enjoy!!

R&A