My Ta Ta Thai Salad

This is not just an explosion of flavours and smells, but has heaps of ingredients that have many health benefits as well. For example lemongrass which is great for digestion and possess anti-cancer properties as well... Garlic which helps in fighting against the common cold and also helps reducing cholesterol levels. Thai Basil!!!! OMG my favourite ingredient, I could crush the leaves and smell them all day, that is how much I love them. :) Thai basil is a natural anti-imflammatory and also has anti bacterial properties. So this meal is a power packed meal with heaps of flavour and healthy stuff too. :) double bonus!!!! 

The reason I made this salad was because I was seriously craving thai food (and no I am not pregnant :) ) and I just didn't have the energy to make a normal thai curry but something interesting.... SO ofcourse I took to the internet in search of a really nice and simple thai salad so I came across this recipe which I have modified slightly, all credit to the author who created this as it is amazing!!!!!! 

What you will need is the following: - 

(Serves 3) 

For the Salad: - 

1 Cup of edamame boiled, shelled and crushed into a paste (almost looks like avocado in the pic above) 

1 handful of kale finely chopped

1/4 chinese cabbage finely chopped

1 Large carrot grated using a Julienne grater

1 Green Pepper finely sliced

1/2 onion finely chopped

1 stalk of green onion finely chopped

1 handful of thai basil finely chopped

As many as you like of the roasted sweet chilli cashews (purchase from any supermarket) I usually take a ziploc bag and use a rolling pin to crush them ever so slightly as you still want to have some sort of crunch and texture in the salad 

1 handful of coriander just picked of the stalk (To garnish) 

For the Dressing: - 

1 Garlic Clove 

1 1/2 TBLS Soy sauce preferably gluten free and salt reduced

1 TBLS Water

2 TBLS Sunflower Oil

1 TBLS Vinegar

1 TBLS Manuka Honey

1/2 TBLS Sesame Oil

1/2 TBLS Lemongrass paste (simply chop the lemongrass up really finely and crush using a mortar and pestle, this will require some elbow grease :) and also add alittle water to help crush and create a paste) or if you can buy a ready made paste feel free to do so 

Method: - 

EASY AS PIE!!!! Toss all the salad stuff together, I would leave the edamame and cashews for just before you want to serve otherwise the salad will become really soggy and cashews will end up being soft. To make the dressing simply puree all the ingredients together and refrigerate until you are ready to serve. When you are about to serve this to your guests mix the edamame and salad dressing together and toss through the salad so everything gets coated. Once you are satifised that everything is mixed through add the cashews and garnish with coriander. 

ENJOY and let me know what you think, I personally think you are all going to love this. Much love CC :) 

Treats to share with the Family

Hey guys, I haven't posted for a while and I know many of you are wondering what on earth am I doing!!!!! Seeing that I haven't posted since Christmas I will share some of the stuff that I have been creating and recreating up till today.  

This was something I ofcourse decided to give a go for Christmas, yes my amazing gingerbread house which I was extremely excited about, because it was the first time I made one and it tasted and looked like a million dollars. 

I simply used a template for a gingerbread house that I found online and followed a simple recipe I found online as well. If you would like more information and advice on the gingerbread house, please leave me a message in the box below and I would be more then happy to share this with you. :) 

Another treat that I made for the family was this dessert tower, which was the dessert for our Christmas Day lunch. 

All you need is :-  

Styrofoam cone

baking paper

Cake board

Glue, something like nutella or buttercream to stick the cone to the board. I used nutella for this recipe. 

Toothpicks

Any fruit that you like I used strawberries and cherries

Ferreo Rocher 

I made macarons from scratch, which are really tricky but you could also use Adriano Zumbo ready to bake macarons which tastes amazing and are really easy to make. 

Method: - 

Use the baking paper to cover the cone. You want to make sure that you stick the cone to your cake board before you start to add the fruit. Depending on what fruit and chocolate you are using start to skewer them using the toothpicks. What you want to do is start at the bottom of the cone and work your way up. As you start at the bottom you will see some gaps that form, but dont worry this is something you can fill in later with extra fruit. 

Once you have completed covering your cone, you can stick the extra chocolate you have around on the cake board. Also add the macarons or any other biscuits that you like to give more texture and structure to your amazing dessert tour. I served this with extra nutella as a dipping sauce for the fruit. All you have to do is just heat the nutella up slightly to make it more like a sauce. This really is what entertaining is about. Having everyone sit around and dunk into their own dipping bowls of nutella. Enjoy these special moments with family and friends. :) Ciao Ciao and much love CC :)