Black bean and halloumi salad with blood orange dressing

This salad was just tonight's quick dinner, which I had planned in my head on my way home from work based on the available ingredients. The slightly special feature in this dish was the blood orange dressing with its citrussy zing. The black beans and halloumi were the filling agents and otherwise I kept the salad simple.

These are the ingredients for this salad that I will also be enjoying tomorrow as lunch:

Ingredients

1 can black beans

3 mini gem lettuce

150 g tomatoes

250 g halloumi

Vegetable oil for frying

Dressing:

1 blood orange

Olive oil to taste

Balsamic vinegar to taste

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

Method

Juice the blood orange and just add the other ingredients slowly to the dressing and keep tasting until it's good.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and fry them in vegetable oil until golden brown. Add them warm on the top of the salad.

Cut the gem lettuce into thin slices and chop the tomatoes.

Combine all ingredients and enjoy!

I got two dinners and two lunches from these ingredients.

Have a good Friday!

Your VegHog

Blood orange and radish salad with coriander

Finally weekend although the weather is pretty gloomy, but maybe this colourful salad can cheer up a bit. I was again reading in The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit and this is another flavour combination recommendation for coriander leaves: oranges, radishes and onion. Instantly when I read about the combination, I wanted to make such a salad. And as it happens I still have blood oranges left, so it was perfect. Is the blood orange season maybe a bit longer this year? I'm not sure, but I was able to get quite a few of them this year, possibly also due to my hoarding. This salad was very vibrant, punchy and healthy and the flavours really did compliment each other very well.

Here's how I made the salad as a light lunch:

3 blood oranges

Handful of radish

¼ sweet onion

Handful of fresh coriander leaves

Slice the blood oranges and radishes.

Chop the onion finely.

Mix everything together and scatter coriander leaves on the top.

Enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's No Croutons Required cooking challenge hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes and co-hosted by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen. I will probably be making more and more salads now when the fresh spring produce properly hits the shops.

Enjoy your weekend!

Your VegHog

Blood orange and gin cocktail

One of my best purchases in Copenhagen was this Mikkeller Botanical Gin. It's a very good quality gin made with Simcoe hops and the finest botanicals. I had a sip of it pure, and it tasted just divine. 

As I needed some cooling yesterday afternoon (well weather wasn't so hot, but I had been doing stuff all morning), so I thought I'd make a refreshing cocktail with this gin. Here are no amounts given, as I just threw everything into the cocktail mixer and enjoyed. I made mine quite mild on the gin side, though. You can keep tasting it while you go along to get the right proportions to your own taste.

This is what I used:

Mikkeller Gin

Sicilian blood orange juice

Lime

Ice cubes

Mix the gin and blood orange juice and press the lime juice into it. Add the ice and shake. Serve cold and enjoy!

Even though it's Sunday today, I just might make a couple of sneaky glasses of this drink. I have decided mainly to relax all day.

Your VegHog

Blood orange and halloumi salad

My weird experiments with blood oranges aren't over yet, as I spotted fresh ones at the supermarket again. Now I just wanted a small salad, but thanks to halloumi it turned out to be quite filling as well. This is my idea of a nice work lunch, my Blood orange and halloumi salad.

You will only need a few ingredients:

250 g halloumi

Vegetable oil for frying

2 blood oranges

1 small shallot

Fresh basil leaves

And you can make it very quickly:

Cut the halloumi into cubes and fry them in vegetable oil until golden brown.

Peel the blood orange and cut it to pieces.

Chop a shallot and basil leaves finely.

Mix it all together and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Blood orange, courgette and mozzarella salad

Please don't think that I'm crazy when you see this dish, as the ingredient combination of fruit, vegetables and cheese might seem strange. And believe me, I got some suspicious glances for this at home, but in the end it was all eaten and more was requested... These flavours went surprisingly well together, even shallot with blood orange was very interesting and it was almost like a promise of the spring. This dish came about when I wanted a fresh starter salad and these were the ingredients I had available. I've been especially happy about the juicy blood oranges that I've been able to get at my local store at the moment, they are so lovely. I certainly think I'll make this sort of dish again!

So here's how I made it. These amounts make small starter salads for two persons.

1 courgette

6-8 cherry tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 blood orange

1 small shallot

Pomegranate seeds

Mozzarella pearls

I roasted the courgette slices and the cherry tomatoes in the oven in olive oil.

The shallot was sliced into thin half rings and the blood orange segments cut out.

Then I just combined all the ingredients on a plate and served.

What do you think? Is the combination too weird for you or are you willing to try?

Your VegHog