Dressing salads differently

Even if you live in an apartment with a balcony or only have a small garden you can plant a bucketful of potting mix with salad greens.  Sprinkling a few seeds at weekly intervals will give you salads all summer.  Another bucket or two can be planted in herbs so that you can enhance your salads.  Dressing the salad though is what gives it that zing. 

Most people don’t grow as many citrus bushes as we do, but one lemon and one grapefruit would keep a family in fruit (we have 41 bushes, long story there, but it will keep for another day).   We spent the afternoon weeding in the citrus grove and trimming off the water shoots – the nasty prickly shoots from below the graft.  Our last winter was very odd and much of the fruit has not (yet) ripened.  I picked a couple of grapefruit, initially thinking I would have them for breakfast, but had raspberries instead (yum yum yum).  Waste not want not as the saying goes, so I decided to ring the changes in dressing the salad.  Much of the time we squeeze a lemon over the salad and then drizzle over good quality olive oil (usually from one of our neighbours’ grove).  On other occasions  we mix equal quantities of olive oil and boysenberry vinegar (really quick and easy but so delicious).  However, I had two grapefruit so experimented.   

Grapefruit vinaigrette

3T grapefruit juice

2T Boysenberry vinegar (or some other fruity vinegar)

1t good quality mustard (Dijon is good)

½ cup olive oil

Salt, freshly ground black pepper and sugar to taste.

Whisk the juice, vinegar and mustard and then slowly add the oil, whisking as you do so.  Add salt, freshly ground black pepper and sugar to taste.

Grapefruit and yoghurt dressing

2T grapefruit juice

1T balsamic vinegar

1 clove of garlic, crushed (use elephant garlic if you want a milder taste)

1t wholegrain mustard

1 cup of natural (unsweetened) yoghurt

A small handful of chopped fresh herbs

Mix all the ingredients together – simple as that!