Gourmet Salad with Mango

This is my first salad creation of the summer, and a follow-up on my post about the 5 rules for making a full meal of your salad!

My salad consists of some lettuce from my very own roof-top veggie garden, and the usual culprits: ripe tomatoes and carrots. But the extra protein and fruit I added are what really made it special!


Color:
The bright summer colors did a lot to make this salad visually appealing and beautiful!


Protein:
I added a mix of walnuts and almonds as my protein #1, and cubes of feta cheese as protein #2.

Fruit:
I added juicy, ripe mango as my fruit -- it added an unexpected sweetness to this savory salad and balanced out the salty feta cheese really well!

Texture:
Crispy fresh lettuce, juicy soft mango, the crunch of the nuts and the dry crumbliness of the feta made for a great variety of textures that kept this salad interesting and exciting!

Homemade Dressing:
I made a simple oil and vinegar dressing for this salad, but the key was using balsamic vinegar. This type of vinegar has a natural sweetness that went really well with the mango flavors and really enriched the salad!

This colorful salad had enough variety to make for a full meal, and the protein kept me sated even though it was all relatively light.

Let me know if you have experimented with any delicious salad combos of your own! Post comments and recipe suggestions in below and I will be sure to follow up. Happy eating!

Luscious Labneh (aka Yogurt Cheese)

Labneh is one of my favorite things in the world. The addiction started at the end of high school, when I dated a Lebanese boy whose family always had this at home. When I headed to college, our relationship ended but Labneh has stayed with me.

I like mine with some ground black pepper and drizzled with olive oil!

My labneh has been a huge hit at parties and events as a dip, served with good bread and crackers, drizzled with olive oil. If you are feeling ambitious, you can pretty it up with olives, dried fruit, nuts and fresh herbs.

This delicious and easy to make "cheese" is really just plain yoghurt that has been strained of its watery part to make it thicker. How long you strain for determines the consistency, and it is totally up to you how solid you want it.

Obviously then, the first challenge is obtaining good plain yoghurt. If you live in the US this is easy since there are billions of brands to choose from, depending on your price range and preference for free range, organic, etc. cows. If you live in China you might be better off making your own yoghurt like I do (refer to earlier post for how to do this!)

Instructions:

Mix about 1 teaspoon of salt into 1 liter (around 4 cups or 32 fluid ounces) of plain yoghurt (this is optional and I often skip it and just add some salt when I want to eat the cheese. If you just want a thicker consistency, e.g. Greek Yoghurt, you won't want to add salt!)

Take a large colander and cover it in a cheese cloth or other appropriate cotton cloth. My Lebanese friends taught me that you don't really need to buy "cheese cloth" per say; as long as the cotton is clean and not too loosely woven, even a pillowcase will do!

Colander

Colander covered in cotton cloth, in large bowl.

Place the covered colander inside a large bowl, where the watery part of the yoghurt can drain into. Try to make the cloth a little taut, so it is not sagging into the colander. This will help the yoghurt to drain. You can do this by tying a string or elastic band around the cloth and colander.

Pour your yoghurt into the cloth, and cover. You can improvise with a lid like I did, or just use plastic wrap.

Yoghurt in cloth, before draining

I have a little saucepan whose lid works well for this!

Place it in the fridge and allow the yoghurt to drain for a few hours. I usually leave mine overnight for around 10-12 hours, which makes it about as thick as cream cheese, though much lighter and easier to spread.

If you leave it for just a few hours, maybe 2-4, you will have a thick (Greek-style) yoghurt that you can use in dips, etc.

If you need to keep it longer than 4-5 days, let it drain longer (around 24 hours) so it is thick enough to be rolled up into little balls. Then you can put those in a jar and cover in olive oil. (I never do this since I go through mine way too fast!)

My labneh, ready to enjoy!

(Homemade) Pizza Night Failure

My hubby loves pizza and a few months ago, we "made our own" pizza so to speak, at a restaurant we went to in Mo Gan Shan, near Hangzhou. But really, it wasn't making your own pizza because the dough was made and ready, as was the tomato sauce, and all the ingredients were chopped and ready. It was really just a matter of playing with the dough, combining things to taste and sticking it in the nice wood-fired oven they had.

Homemade Pizza! Looks good but...

Making my own pizza at home was a slightly different story...

So first I went on an internet quest for yeast-free pizza dough recipes, because I don't have yeast and am not sure where to get it in Shanghai (tips, anyone??)

The recipes that showed up were all pretty similar, so I kind of averaged them out and chose one I thought I could work with:

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cups water
1/4 cup vegetable oil

I sifted and mixed the dry ingredients and then slowly added the water and oil. It was pretty straightforward, and the dough looked normal enough to my untrained eyes...

I rolled the dough out onto a baking tray, since I don't have a pizza stone. Before adding the toppings, I used my fingers to spread about 1 teaspoon of olive oil onto the surface of the dough, since some websites suggested this would stop it from becoming soggy from the tomato sauce.

Looked like it was going to work!

For topping I used some of my own homemade tomato sauce, grated mozzarella cheese, Italian pepperoni and olives. Seemed like a classic enough pizza, and one that my meat-eating husband would appreciate...

It baked in a hot hot oven (about 220 degrees Celsius, or 425 degrees Fahrenheit) for about 20 min.

Ready for the oven...

The Verdict:

This pizza, pretty as it looks, was barely edible! The crust was way too salty and, combined with the salty toppings, made this pizza really intense on the palate. The real killer though was the crust. It was SO HARD! It was impossible to cut a slice of this pizza and get it off the pan without a struggle that lost you most of your topping, but this would be tolerable it is was at least crispy and light (it wasn't). Eating it was kind of like chewing baked cardboard.

Honestly, as someone who has been living in China for almost 5 years, I have had some pretty mediocre pizza. And my hubby and I can can usually polish off just about anything. But not this pizza! We ended up leaving the better half of it, and it wasn't even that big! Ended up scraping up a salad from some leftover veggies because we were both still hungry!

BOO!

Any tips on homemade pizza dough? Any recipes anyone would like to share? Help/comments would be much appreciated!

Quick Sandwich!

Feeling uninspired to prepare a real lunch, I decided to go with a quick sandwich!

Sorry, I totally forgot to take a picture until after I bit into it!

I mixed some of the pesto I had made with a generous spoonful of plain yoghurt and got a delicious spread I used to flavor the bread.

The bread is a new experiment of sorts, bought at a new bakery I decided to try (more on this in a future post!) and it wasn't quite as delicious as the German bread I usually buy at City Shop... oh well!

It was a simple affair, lettuce, tomato, and cheese. A light, simple lunch!

Gourmet, Spinach & Roasted Veggie Sandwich

This is a perfect lunch sandwich to take to work!

I spread some dijonaise mustard and light mayo on German-style bread:

Then I added some of the veggies I had roasted, namely zucchini and red bell pepper. I also added some of the garlicky spinach I had sautéed.

I sliced some soft cheese and, voila, tomorrow's lunch is ready to take to the office!