Blow Up Food

Courgette, artichoke and spelt salad

Just a quick post today with a recipe for a nice spelt salad, which is what I just ate for my lunch. Spelt is lovely - chewy, versatile and much faster to cook than barley. I know barley is cheaper, but I resent standing around boiling it for the entire evening. I have some very important telly-watching to do.

Ingredients

4 baby courgettes (trimmed and sliced in half lengthways)
A handful of pinenuts (toasted)
A handful of spelt
A few semi-dried tomatoes
5 artichoke hearts
1/2 lemon
Extra virgin olive oil
A handful of basil leaves
Sea salt and black pepper

Recipe

If you’re using artichoke hearts from a jar, rinse the oil and herbs off first as these can be a bit dull tasting. It’s better to soak them in your own dressing as I think artichokes really work best with a bit of a sharp flavour. In a bowl, mix your artichokes with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, some salt and pepper and the juice of half a lemon (a bit of garlic is good here too). If your hearts are big enough, slice them lengthways into smaller pieces so they’ll go a bit further. Leave them to sit in the dressing whilst you prepare the rest of your salad.

Boil your spelt for about 15-20 minutes then rinse in cold water. Leave to stand in a sieve for a while.

Place your courgettes in a griddle pan with a little oil and heat until you have lovely  stripes across them. Turn them over to cook the skin side then remove from the heat.

When all of your ingredients are cool, in a bowl mix together the spelt, the courgettes, the artichokes (save the dressing though) and the semi-dried tomatoes. 

For the dressing, finely chop your basil and add it to the olive oil and lemon mixture that you had your artichokes in. Season a little more if needed, them mix into the salad. Finally add your toasted pine nuts and mix. 

If you’re having this for tea instead of lunch, serve with some torn up mozzarella and some crusty bread and pretend you’re somewhere sunnier than you are.

(the salad when it was freshly made last night, struggling not to be eaten)