Two Salads for one Yoghurt Dressing

We eat salads year round here. In Winter, warm salads made with baked and nourishing veggies and in Summer, as it is here now, fresh and simple salads are a staple. With our Summer salads, I like dressings that are light and tangy. My favourite is a very simple yoghurt dressing that I use as an alternative to mayonnaise.

Light & tangy yoghurt dressing.

This dressing works really well with homemade potato salad and coleslaw too.  It takes just a few minutes to whip up. All you need for a small salad is 1/3 cup natural unsweetened yoghurt, 1 teaspoon of seeded mustard and 1/2 to a full teaspoon of raw honey. Salt and pepper too if you wish.  

Homemade coleslaw with yoghurt dressing.

Homemade Coleslaw:  Wash and finely shred cabbage. Chop spring onion, capsicum and celery. Grate carrot. Mix together with yoghurt dressing and chill.

Homemade potato salad with the same yoghurt dressing.

Simple Potato Salad:  Wash, chop and steam potatoes until tender but not too soft. (Leave the skin on for extra nutrition and fibre.) Rinse under cold water and drain. Mix through yoghurt dressing. Add some chipped spring onion or chopped chives if you have some. Chill until ready to serve. 

On warm Summer evenings, homemade salads made with a tangy and refreshing dressing like this one are perfect  for lazy dinners and barbecues. What's your favourite Summer salad or dressing?

Meg

Unfinished Blue Birds & Other Old Linens

In a wicker basket, just inside the entrance of a little antique shop, a flash of beautiful blue caught my eye. Folded neatly and unfinished, a pair of bluebirds forming on soft and creamy  linen. Oh, my!  For just a few dollars I brought it home along with a few other finds...

Beautiful, unfinished bluebirds & two cross-stitched doilies.

I would love to find matching threads and finish these beautiful blue birds. Originally part of a Semco traced-linen embroidery kit, the creamy vintage linen is so soft and light. It's gorgeous! Once I've finished the stitching, I'd like to turn what would've been an afternoon tea cloth into something special. Something where these beautiful bluebirds take flight. Any ideas?

Light flowery fabric with that creamy bluebirds linen.

The tied bundle of floaty and flowery fabric cost me just $2 and is perfect for sewing into a Strata top of my own for Autumn. I think it will drape beautifully! (My copy of the Strata top pattern by Meg McElwee came in the special "Make" edition of Taproot magazine that I treated myself to for Christmas. So much handmade goodness inside!) *I am not sponsored to say that, I just love leafing through the pages and finding so much inspiration.*

Lovely linen tea towels.

At a little op-shop, just a short stroll from the antique shop, I found these three soft and stripy linen tea towels. I love their colours! Together with the cross-stitched doilies in the first photo, I plan on using them in little sewing projects. I want to make cushion covers out of the two matching tea towels. (This is the tutorial I'll be following.) The other tea towel and a doily will be lovely sewn up into a pretty drawstring bag like the ones that Jude Van Heel makes and shared the instructions for in a recent edition of Grassroots magazine (No. 244 Dec/Jan 2017/18).  You can see one of her pretty bags here on one of her Fairy Wren Cottage Pinterest boards. The other little doily will look very sweet decorating a drawstring bags, like this one, that I like to make from repurposed  flour bags. It seems I have some making to do! 

I love how little serendipitous finds, like these old linens and fabrics, can spark a desire to create new and purposeful things from something old or worn or discarded. I'm sure I can find some time, over this upcoming long weekend, to get started on my little projects. I hope you have something lovely planned for your weekend too.

Meg

Summery Bean Salad

We are currently harvesting crispy young beans by the handful from our garden. They are so fresh and crunchy! I always aim to use something from our garden in the meals I make so I thought a light and Summery bean salad would be a beautiful way to eat our homegrown beans.

Beautiful fresh beans from our garden.

The recipe I was inspired by, for Green Bean & Almond Salad, comes from Georgia Harding who develops nutritious and delicious recipes over on her blog, Well Nourished.  I decided my buttery yellow beans would be just as lovely as green beans and that the haloumi cheese I did have would be just a nice as the feta I didn't have.  This salad was so good! Just the thing for homegrown beans picked on a Summer morning.

For exact quantities of ingredients, you can click on the link above to Georgia's recipe. I just added amounts I felt worked with the handfuls of beans I had.  After all, I don't think there's such a thing as too much haloumi (not if you love cheese like I do!) 😉

Summery Bean Salad

Top & tail your fresh beans. Steam them lightly so they remain crisp.
(Plunge into icy water to stop them cooking!)

Toast slivered almonds in a dry fry pan.

Fry some little cubes of haloumi cheese until golden.

Mix ingredients together in a bowl with handfuls of dark green baby spinach.

Pour over dressing before serving & toss until evenly coated.

For the dressing:  Whisk together 2Tablespoons olive oil, 1Tablespoon lemon juice, 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar, sea salt and pepper. 

Beans are one of my favourites in the veggie patch. I love snacking on them just as they are (many don't make it upstairs to the kitchen) but this salad is so delicious that I'll need to make sure I leave enough beans to make it at least once more before our Summer ends.

Meg