Light summer meals

This summer has been kind to us so far. After a few days of 40 degree C + weather, storm clouds and aandhis have blown through the city, leaving it much cooler and more bearable. I wish it could be like this all year round. in fact, the weather has not only been conducive to morning and evening walks, but we've managed to go AC free for several nights, with a cool breeze and the fan enough to give us a good night's sleep. Always a pleasure, since I feel I wake up better rested without the AC.

But between my Hashimoto's crazy readings and the general feeling of warmth around, I felt the need to drum up a light dinner yesterday, something that would be fresh and healthy yet filling. And for me in particular, grain free if possible.

Reading through a few food blogs, the idea of bean salad - which fb memories had thrown up - hit my fancy. I decided to add cauliflower rice - which I had previously dismissed as a bit pretentious - to the mix. For the fam, on the side I had an emergency side of dahi chawal in case anyone felt the food was insubstantial. The meal turned out to be delicious and surprisingly filling, so much so that A who'd been the first to turn his nose up and say 'That's all we're having', sated himself with 2 helpings and the dahi chawal remained pristine!

Salad - really it's a matter of whatever your ingenuity suggests and what you have in the fridge

Ingredients:
1/2 cup rajma ( red kidney beans), uncooked
1/2 each of red and yellow capsicum, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
1 onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 teaspoon roast cumin powder
Juice of 1-2 limes ( depends how juicy they are. We're getting dried up ones here)
1/2 cup cooked corn
1 handful coriander leaves, chopped fine
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Rock salt to taste ( we're trying to switch to this as it's supposed to be healthier)

Soak the beans overnight and then pressure cook for 1-2 whistles until done. Or use the quick soak method I learned from Madhur Jaffrey - Soak for 1 hour, cook for 1 whistle in the pressure cooker. Leave to cool for an hour and pressure cook for 1-2 whistles again.

Leave the beans to cool - they should be at room temperature when you put together the salad, so it's best to get them done and out of the way much before your planned meal.
The rest is super simple - just mix all the ingredients together, including the beans and serve with a smile. I can think of endless changes to ring on this - adding radish, spring onions, peas, lettuce or baby spinach...replacing the cumin with chaat masala...one thing I am going to try soon is adding feta cheese to it.

Cauliflower Rice

Ingredients:
1 cauliflower, grated fine
1 tsp oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
Salt to taste
Sprinkle of water

In a cast iron wok, put the oil on to heat. Toss in the cumin seeds and toast lightly. Add the cauliflower and sprinkle lightly with water. Cook, covered with a tightly fitting lid, for a 3-4 minutes and then check if its soft - should be al dente, not mushy. Uncover and cook for a minute and take off the heat. Add salt, if using, and mix gently.

We topped the bean salad with this and added chana masala from Haldirams - a spicy version of roast chana - for extra crunch. Super!

Summer Perfection

I've been doing my usual lunchtime thing of trawling food blogs, and I noticed several entries about heirloom tomatoes. Which brings me to a simple recipe for an amazing salad that I came up with this summer. We were on holiday in Greece, Santorini, to be exact, and staying in an apartment, planning to cook some of our own meals. Santorini is an island that formed from a volcano, and something about the volcanic soil is meant to produce special tomatoes. So we bought a bunch of Santorini tomatoes to go with our meals. One bite and we were hooked - these are the more intense, flavourful, sweet, fruity, tomato-ey tomatoes we'd ever tasted. We wanted a side dish to go with a simple meal of moong dal and rice, and this not only met the requirements but became a staple for the rest of the week.

Ingredients:
Plum tomatoes - count about 6 per head, sliced in half
3-4 cloves garlic
Really good extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste
Basil if you want to be naffy

Put the cut tomatoes into a bowl. Pound the garlic into pulp and add to the bowl and toss. Leave for about half hour. Add salt just before serving, else the tomatoes go all watery, and toss to mix. Drizzle the olive oil generously over the top. If you really want to, tear the basil leaves roughly and scatter on top. ( coriander leaves would taste equally great!)

This tasted great with a relatively bland Indian meal, but would go well with a cheesy pasta (Alfredo?) too. The tomato juices at the bottom of the bowl are lovely for mopping up with a bit of crusty bread.