When you’re the only one who eats salad, it’s very difficult to make a small enough quantity with enough variety to make it interesting. If you are also someone who really abhors wasting anything, then when you have a too big salad, and some of it is left over, then you feel obliges to eat more of it next meal time. I actually quite like leftovers, I don’t even necessarily heat up whatever it is, and left over salad? Well I quite like that too. Now, when I make a salad, I do make more than I can eat for a meal, vegetables including those you might normally cook such as sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, fruit, leaves, beans, nuts, cubes of cheese, small cubes of bread, seeds – whatever there is, and dressed with olive oil. Vinegar for some reason makes me cough, so I don’t bother with it but do sometimes add a swirl of pomegranate syrup.
I’m not a scientist, but there must be some chemical thing going on when vegetables and fruit are cut, I don’t just mean they begin to deteriorate (that doesn’t sound very appetising) but as the juice begins to seep out it seems to react with the different items, and it softens and changes its texture. It doesn’t exactly go soggy, it becomes tender, not mushy but tenderized. Maybe not everyone would like that, but I actually do. To add texture, add more crunchy things – new seeds and nuts, to soak up some of the juice, more bits of bread or torn pitta, or naan bread. I’ve mentioned before I have a pepper grinder which I fill with spices so I get freshly ground mixed spice – and that really enhances the flavourful of my day old salads – and every time I make one it tastes different not only because of the variety of ingredients but because of my really mixed spice. Because it’s winter and our kitchen is very cold, I don’t put it in the fridge, but I guess in warmer times it might be better to. I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow, I have a variety of leaves, I have sprouts and broccoli, I have some small sweet peppers, celery, carrot, baby tomatoes, grapes, raspberries, cashews, sunflower seeds, I also have some tangerines, they’d be rather nice and also colourful… yes, I think I’ll enjoy tomorrow’s salad, and I think I’ll enjoy it even more the day after!!
Lois Elsden 