Apple, walnut and celery salad

This is YUMMY SCRUMMY. If you like lettuce, apple, celery, walnuts and lemon juice. Those are the ingredients, you see.

If it had mayonnaise then it would probably be called a Waldorf salad, but I find that mayonnaise clogs things up and lemon juice is much.... zestier.

So throw it all together and enjoy.

I had mine with Dara's fresh brown bread, a huge dollop of cottage cheese, and a large dollop of hummus. YUMMY SCRMMY indeed.

There's no oil on it and the lemon will stop the apple oxidising, so it should keep until lunchtime if made in the morning. Remember: SAFCSN (Stay Away From Chains Selling Non-food.)

Hot Salad

This salad is hot.

Shit hot.

There are actually two:

- Cannellini beans, onion and tomato

- Avocado, red pepper, celery, cashew and sesame seed on lettuce.

The first does what it says on the tin, but there's a secret ingredient. (Whisper it) ... (Sugar).

So, finely slice some an onion, fry for a few mins, add a teaspoon of (preferably dark muscadavo) sugar, then fry it for a furhter five mins or as long as you can wait. This is caramelising the onion and is amazing if you have the patience to wait a long time. Add a can of cannellini beans and diced tomato, cook it up till the tomato's just getting soft. Yummy.

Next salad: roughly chop two stick of celery and a red pepper. Dry fry a handful of cashews and a handful of sesame seeds then add the veg and a bit of olive oil and tamari or soy sauce. Let it sizzle till it's at your preferred ratio of cookedness/crunchiness. Add avocado and mix it in till it's warm. PLEASE make sure it's nicely ripe - an immature avocado should be treated like a 15-year-old. There are no two ways about it, you just have to wait until it's ready.

Erm, meanwhile wash the lettuce and place it on the plates, then sprinkle with lemon juice. The avocado and cashew salad is nice on top of it but do as you like. It's your food.

Dara's Sandwich no. 1

As a lifelong sandwich-lover, I couldn't think of much things worse than a life without a sandwich. It is a stereotype that veggie sandwiches are boring. I find it makes you much more inventive and, in fact, I find plain, old meat sandwiches pretty boring and uninventive now. So I'm going to throw up some photos of my sandwiches. They're a little odd sometimes, and different every time, so most of them I've only had once. I usually just use whatever ingredients I have to hand. Here is number 1.

It consists of chopped celery, sliced tomato, a couple of Linda McCartney sausages (vegan-friendly), all served on toasted wholemeal bread, and topped with some Frank's Red Hot Sauce. This was a delicious cold sandwich to enjoy with a cup of tea. I was surprised at how good it was; the celery gives it crunch, the tomatoes make it juicy, and the sausages and condiments make it tasty. Some houmous would also be nice in there, but I did not have any at the time. Hope this fuels your creative sandwich-making. Feel free to share sandwich ideas. More to come.

- Dara