Thrown Together

A quick fix for days when I don't feel like doing any cooking is salad. I generally have pre-packed salad leaves stocked in the fridge, so whipping something quick with it is a no hassle job. It's also nice to have something that's decadent to munch on without too much hassle. Sounds oxymoron-ish but its really quite possible. Here are my quick fixes from the week.

Crunchy Green Salad with Fresh Strawberries

1 pkt green salad leaves (I like to use the ones which has a variety of colours)

3-4 cherry tomatoes, halved

4-5 fresh strawberries or any other seasonal fruit chopped (apple, plum, oranges, or pears)

4-5 olives (I had only the green ones but the black ones would be excellent as well)

2 chicken sausages (chopped into bite size pieces)

2 Tbsp creamy salad dressing (you can make your own or use smthg from a bottle - I used Ceasar dressing)

salt & pepper


Note: For a veggie version, leave out the sausages and add some lightly stir-fried tofu cubes!

Heat the chicken sausages in the microwave on high for about half a minute. You can avoid this if you like your sausages untouched.

In a bowl, add all the salad ingredients and the sausage.

Toss them together before drizzling over the Ceasar dressing.

Add salt and freshly ground pepper.

Dig in!

You can also add some burnt garlic butter to the salad for an extra kick. To make this, heat a teaspoon of butter in a skillet on high and add finely chopped or pressed garlic to it. Make sure the flame is on high and the butter's really hot so that the garlic starts browning almost immediately. Stir it around with a wooden spoon so that it doesn't char. Remember the garlic should be just burnt (deep brown) but not charred (black). I didn't bother with this though.

Jam-Sandwich Cookies

(makes about 10-12 medium sized cookies)

1 cup plain flour

1 pinch salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter @ room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 tbsp castor sugar

5-6 tbsp of your favourite jam (I used blackberry jam)

In a bowl, beat the butter until smooth.

Fold in the sugar and combine till well blended

Add the vanilla and mix well.

Slowly add the flour till just incorporated into a soft crumbly dough. You can chill the dough wrapped in cling film for an hour at this point for easy handling but I braved on directly.

Lay out a sheet of cling film and place the dough on it. Place another sheet of cling film on top before rolling the dough to 1/4 inch thickness.

Use cookie cutters to carve out fun shapes for your cookies. I used a flower-shaped mould.

When you've got one batch of cookies cut out, lay them out on your baking tray lined with wax paper or alum foil and re-roll the dough out between your sheets of cling film to avoid cracking. Continue cutting out cookie shaped till you've used up all your dough.

Remember to make even number of cookies for the sandwich tops and bottoms.

Use a smaller cookie cutter or the tip of a nice sharp knife to cut out windows in half the cookies. This will be where the jam will peep out of the sandwiches once assembled. I used my knife to cut out little triangle windows.

Preheat the oven to 180 C and place the rack in the middle.

Put the cut out shapes into the fridge for 10 minutes so that they retain their shape while baking.

Bake for 10 minutes or till the cookies turn brown. Cool on wire rack.

To Assemble:

Dust the tops of the cookies with the window with castor sugar. These will be the sandwich tops.

Flip the full cookies and add a dollop of jam to the underside of the cookie.

Place the prepared top cookie on top and press gently to form your sandwich.

Store in air tight container for upto a week - they won't last that long though!

Note: if you want to have them crisp, assemble just before serving.

I've finally joined the British Council Library here and now have a decent stock of English (!) books to read. Bram Stoker's Dracula accompanied by a crunchy salad & hot lemon tea, followed by crisp jam-sandwich cookies - a fun mix! :)