Summery food

It's been so warm and sunny the past few days all I've been craving salady type foods, I made a really yummy salad platter today! A HUGE lunch! Mike didn't think I would manage it all but I did (with only a teeny bit of help from him hehe...didn't want any til he saw it!!). I love a plate of food which has lots of variety on it! This plate had spicy couscous (shop bought), penne vodka (from vcon, homemade minus the vodka), roast veg, mixed seasonal baby leaf salad, and tabouli, everything was homemade except the couscous.


Penne Vodka


Roast veg and baby leaf salad


Spicy couscous


Tabouli (recipe follows)


Tabouli
My tabouli recipe is based on the one my local vegetarian restaurant cooks and doesn't have mint or spring onion as other, perhaps more traditional recipes do but it is really yummy, Mike doesn't like tomatoes and he ate loads hehe
1 cup bulgar wheat
1 cup boiling water
1 scant Tbsp lemon juice
1 small red onion
3 smallish cloves of garlic
3 big vine tomatoes
big bunch of parsley
salt to taste

What you do!
Measure out a cup of bulgar wheat into a large mixing bowl, pour over the boiling water, a teaspoon of salt, crushed garlic and a few drops of lemon juice. Next finely chop your red onion and pour over the rest of the lemon juice, the acidity in the lemon juice will cook off the red onion a little bit and take the edge off. This step is not necessary but I don't like a strong onion flavour so I like to do it this way. Leave the bulgar mixture to soak up the water for about half an hour and the onion to cook down in the lemon juice if you are using this step. When all the water is absorbed and the mixture has cooled add in your chopped up vine tomatoes and parsley, check the seasoning and add more salt and lemon juice if necessary, enjoy!

Mango, Pineapple and Strawberries = yum!


Closeup!


It's competition time at Life, love violin's blog for a yummy bar and peanut butter giveaway so head over to enter and have a read of a fellow musicians blog!