114: Bread and tomato salad, p273

A simple salad jazzed up with the addition of anchovy fillets, olives and red wine vinegar. Not sure if the bread was supposed to be chopped up after baking, as it definitely didn't say in the recipe... I cut the oblong ciabatta into thick rounds so they were c. 2x3inches, mixed them with the salad and dressing, and then placed the bread in the bowls and piled the salad and poured the dressing on top, but I think it might have been better to chop the bread up into more bite-sized crouton pieces so they would soak up more of the juices and be easier to eat (who wants to be trying to cut pieces of crispy bread in a salad?? We used our fingers to eat the bread in the end...). If I did this again I'd also chop the anchovies up and mix them in the dressing and then dress the salad with them, to make the fishy meatiness of the anchovies go that bit further, throughout the whole salad.

94: Cannellini beans with coppa, spinach and mustard, p257

Yummy yummy, another spicy, meaty salad - with butter beans substituted for the cannellini (oops, thought the tin on the shelf was cannellini beans but it wasn't when I went to get them...), and pancetta instead of coppa (well, the recipe does say 'thinly sliced coppa or other cured meat').  As ever the mustard gave a heck of a kick, and the beans gave a nice simple background to the strength of the dressing, pancetta and spinach.

83: A radish, mint and feta salad, p195

Nope, didn't like this. Glad I only made a quarter of the recipe. Blurgh. Don't like radishes. Wish I did, they are one of the few things I can grow in the garden without fail, everytime, but they aren't for me. T turned his nose up at proferred bowl of salad, declaring that there was nothing of interest to him there... Me neither, even with the use of very cute British 'purple' radishes. So pretty. So radishy. Ick.

66: Chickpeas with harissa, basil and ham, p153

Mmmmm, another scrummy salad of sorts - again, no leaves! Except the basil, which again, damn, I forgot :( I also only used one tin of chickpeas - the tomatoes and aubergine roasted down to a really small volume and two tins would have made the dish mostly chickpea (one can definitely have an excess of chickpeas...), so took the executive decision to use just the one.

Tasty tasty roasted tomatoes and aubergine, with lovely oily cuminy juices. I think a little more chilli would have been a good idea, maybe roasted with the vegetables, or maybe my pot of harissa paste isn't a very strong one? Definitely too much oil for the amount of vegetables, at least twice as much, but the crispy prosciutto on top - mmmmm!! Lovely jubbly. And enough for lunch tomorrow!

7: Chicken salad with watercress, almonds and orange, p85, and 8: Bulghur wheat with aubergines and mint, p19

Dinner tonight is going to finish off the roast chicken in a meaty, wintery salad, with one of the veggie recipes as an accompaniment, as T's going to be home from work late, with lots of snow still around and bulghur wheat and aubergine alone wouldn't exactly be likely to enthrall :) I'm off to pilates beforehand so looking forward to something a bit lighter and refreshing for dinner.

Why is Nigel Slater not fat??? Leaving aside the number of cake recipes in the book, the quantities, the quantities!!! Both recipes today are down as serving two (albeit with seconds for the bulghur wheat with aubergines...) - you'd have to eat huge portions to eat either of these in one sitting, but hey! They went together well, as T said, although the almonds in the salad seemed a bit pointless (and enormous) what with pumpkin seeds in there already adding crunch.

The bulghur wheat recipe will make a good lunchbox meal in the future, and the salad will definitely be one to make again in the summer with leftover roast chicken...