citrus, mushrooms, greens, and beans, with a ginger dressing

These enoki mushrooms are from Japan or Korea, they are mild in flavour and crunchy in texture: they made great salad toppers. Ant and I went to our first care group meeting with our new church friends and we had a lovely pot luck meal together. Our host asked for salads to be brought--I was very happy to oblige!

Vietnamese summer rolls

Rice papers are available at my local grocery store, and at your local Asian shop. They are opaque and rigid when dry and flexible and almost translucent when moist. To use them, fill a bowl with hot water. Then dip each rice paper into the water for about 10 seconds. Place it on a clean tea towel while you dip two or three more. Then place the fillings on each one and fold over one side. Tuck the top and bottom in and roll closed. Place the roll on a plate with the seam side down while you make the rest of the rolls. In the same way glutinous rice is sticky, the rice paper is tacky to touch and rolls up perfectly into tight packets. A collection of Vietnamese rolls make a refreshing summer dinner, served with rice or salad. Or a very impressive appetiser.

Vietnamese-inspired salad with cabbage and chicken

This is not a bread-baking blog. Or a desserts blog. Or even a food reading blog (though you may be forgiven for thinking so at times). Lately I have been thinking about the mission behind this blog and what I really want to share with you. My main desire to to make healthy, plant-based eating more tasty and desirable.

I realised that over the last few months I have been writing a lot about bread--it's been quite a kitchen experiment for me recently, since Ant and I decided that if we wanted to eat healthy bread in a shape we were used to, we would have to make it ourselves. In the sidebar, where the post labels are listed, I noticed that bread posts were now equal in number to salad posts--something I never thought would happen. Salad is the best meal on earth!