You know when the nights start to get dark earlier, it’s a bit colder than it was before and people start sneezing (not due to hayfever) that you just want to be on holiday? I have a significant desire to be on a beach from November to February; unfortunately it’s not a practical option. So, to make the best of it I surround myself with fruit. The more tropical and bright the better but there’s only so many pineapples one person can eat. I was delivered some beautiful green clementines with my recent veg box and they deserved to have a bit of a fuss made of them: a lovely bright green clementine fruit salad with a mint and vanilla syrup.
Chicory, Walnut and Pomegranate Salad with Walnut and Clementine Dressing
Ingredients
You will need (for 2 as a light main, for 4 as a side):
2 chicory heads
Small handful walnuts
1/2 pomegranate
2 tbsp walnut oil
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 clementine
Salt and pepper
Method
Chop up the chicory so you have individual leaves. Arrange these on a large plate so everyone can dig in.
Roughly chop the walnuts and toast these in a dry frying pan. Once toasted sprinkle these over the chicory.
Bash the seeds out from the pomegranate (or whatever method you choose) and add these to the salad.
Mix together the walnut and olive oil then squeeze in the juice of the clementine. Stir through some salt and pepper before pouring the dressing over the salad.
Mulled Wine and Orange Jelly
I feel a little left out at the moment. Everyone is having a Christmas party of some sort or other and I have never been to one. I’m not sure how it’s different to any other kind of party other than people adorning some questionably festive earrings and the subtle background music involving an alarming amount of sleigh bells. In order to rectify my festive blues I decided to have my own Christmas party. I say party but really it was just an excuse to make some jelly.
Cranberry, Cointreau and Clementine Sauce
You will need (for the cranberry sauce):
200g cranberries
80g sugar
50ml water and 50ml clementine juice, mixed together
Splash Cointreau
Put all the ingredients into a pan and cook for five minutes until the cranberries start to burst. If it looks a like there’s a little too much moisture (I find cranberries to vary a lot in their water content) then cook for a few minutes more to evaporate some of the water. Put the cranberry sauce into a bowl and leave to cool. I’m not sure it gets much simpler and this sets to a lovely dolloping consistency.