Greek Summer Salad and a Photo Board backdrop for better blog photos

I want to tell you about a salad that I made and also a great product I found that will make taking photos for your blog or Instagram better straight away. But first the salad...

We went to a friend's barbecue yesterday which was lovely - my little girl enjoyed laying on a blanket in the shade and watching everything that was going on and meeting some of my friends for the first time. Here's a little photo of her for no reason other than she's cute!

My friend asked us to bring a salad and I decided to make a sort of Greek salad - it was very simple and doesn't really need a recipe! Simply half some cherry tomatoes, cut some feta cheese into cubes, slice some black olives and remove the stones (I actually used ready sliced ones from a jar) and tear some fresh basil leaves. Toss with a glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper for a simple but tasty salad.

I'm really pleased with this photo which I think is called a flat lay in style (i.e. a birds eye view). It was taken on my kitchen table which is made of glass - so it's a terrible surface for photograph and I usually put a mat or table cloth or something on it when I want to photograph food, but my table cloths always have creases and none of my mats are very big.

I came across a company called Photo Boards that makes backdrops for taking photos against. They use 'texture reproduction technology', whatever that is, so the boards look more three dimensional and not like a photo of a piece of wood - I think they actually look like you are using a piece of wood, rather than a large flat piece of PVC. They are lightweight and wipe clean which is great when you are photographing food, come in two sizes (I bought the 60x60cm one, the larger size) and a variety of designs and shades that look like you are photographing against wood, marble, linen etc. They are not cheap at £30 each so I only bought one, but I already want another!

5 Easy Lunchbox Salads you can take to work for lunch

I've been eating a lot of salads lately, and taking one in to work every day for my lunch. It's cheaper than going out and buying one every day and this way I can put exactly what I want into it. Sometimes I get into a bit of a rut eating the same salads every day and end up looking around the internet for inspiration so I thought I'd share my current top five.

Please excuse the simple presentation - this is literally how I take the salads into work for lunch!
First up is really easy - any types of lettuce that you like, topped with feta cheese and chunks of fresh watermelon. A light vinaigrette dressing goes well with this. I usually eat this salad with a packet of ready cooked chicken pieces for protein and to make it more filling.

This salad is my latest addiction: pear, blue cheese and walnut. Again you can use any type of lettuce as a base, and if you like things like cucumber add it in (I don't). I used gorgonzola - I was going to use Roquefort but couldn't get any, but this worked really well. Top with peeled and sliced pear and a handful of walnuts. This goes well with a blue cheese dressing.

 

A different type of cheese for this salad: goat's cheese with bacon lardons (you need to cook the lardons first then let them go cold before adding to the salad). Use on a bed of your favourite lettuce. This goes well with a wine vinegar and Dijon mustard dressing.

 

 

 

This one takes a little longer to make but is good if you want something more substantial for lunch or to take on a picnic. Cook some pasta and drain; while it's still warm, toss through some green pesto from a jar, add some crayfish or prawns (I used crayfish here) and some pine nuts. You can serve this hot or cold.

Finally a bulgur wheat-based salad. This one does take a bit of preparation but you can make a larger quantity in one go. Put the bulgur wheat in a bowl and cover with water; leave for 15 minutes and then drain. Bring a pan of water to the boil - you need roughly three cups water to one cup bulgur wheat. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for 5 minutes and drain off any excess water.

I used cubes of roasted butternut squash in this salad; sweet potato works really well. If you don't have time to cook, you can buy tubs of roasted sweet potato, butternut squash and carrot to add to salads from Tesco. I've also added feta cheese and some fresh parsley.

 

 

I've certainly got no excuse to have the same thing every day for lunch now!

Butternut Squash Quinoa Risotto

 

My pre-wedding diet has consisted of cutting out sugars, including the hidden sugars in everyday processed foods (like sliced bread) and even the starch in potatoes which converts to glucose when it's digested. The advisor I saw recommended 5 days of no sugar and 2 days allowing myself a small amount of sugar - in other words, not scoffing a bar of Dairy Milk in front of the TV but being allowed to eat carbs with something sweet if I do really want it.

 

So I've been experimenting with all sorts of new recipes and eating a fair bit of quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). The health benefits of quinoa are explained thoroughly on this BBC Good Food site

; it’s full of protein, wheat free, a good source of vitamins and fibre – the list goes on.

 

I decided to make a risotto using quinoa as the base instead of rice. You need to rinse quinoa (unless you buy it as part of a ready-made product), to remove something called saponin which can make the quinoa taste bitter. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this as the seeds were so small they would go through my sieve, so I put the quinoa in bowl, filled it with water and swished it around. I carefully poured the water out of the bowl and found the density of the quinoa meant it stayed at the back of the bowl while I poured the water out so I didn’t lose any – but the water had turned very cloudy! So I did this a couple of times until I was happy the water was clear.

 

To cook quinoa the basic ratio is 1 cup of uncooked quinoa to two cups of liquid, so I used vegetable stock. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed and fluff up with a fork.

 

I roasted some cubes of butternut squash in the oven, to use partly in this and partly in a salad the next day, so added the squash, some sliced spring onion and some fresh herbs on top. Finally I added some cubes of feta cheese. It made a filling, tasty and healthy meal which would also be good served cold as a salad.

 

 

 

I’m sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes

 

And with No croutons required, a challenge for vegetarian soups or salads, hosted this month by Lisa's Kitchen as well as Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

 

 

Cheese-stuffed burgers

I bought my boyfriend a burger cookery book and metal ring to shape burgers for his birthday, even though I knew they would effectively be a present for me! I decided to make something from the book recently and chose cheese-stuffed burgers. They were really easy to make and very tasty.

I didn't add anything to the beef mince other than salt and oregano - no onions, and there was no reason to bulk it out with breadcrumbs or bind it with egg. I used the ring to shape the burger and thought it was really useful.

To make the stuffed burgers, you need to make two thin burgers per person as you will later join them together.

 Place some cheese on two of the burgers - I decided to try this with cheddar and feta.

Place the remaining two burgers on top and press down around the edges to seal.

Fry the burgers on both sides. The cheddar started to seep out of the burger a little as it melted but the feta remained intact.

Here you can see the inside of the feta burger. The feta had a stronger taste than the cheddar and didn't really melt at all, whereas the cheddar did melt.

The cheddar-stuffed burger

My boyfriend wanted an additional slice of cheese as well :-)

These were really good; I am looking forward to trying something different from the burger recipe book soon.

I am entering these in Cheese Please, hosted by Fromage Homage, as the ingredient this month is cheddar.