My palate has never grown-up sufficiently to enjoy bitter leaves; no matter how gorgeous raddichio may be, it just doesn’t work for my poor tastebuds who invariably accuse me of trying to kill them each time I eat it.  However, I adore any sort of grain or pulse based salad.

Thankfully the Ottolenghi cookbook more or less specialises in my sort of greedily abundant, slightly sweet and carbohydrate rich salads.  If you thought the butternut squash and couscous affair was good, this butterbean and sweet chilli salad will knock your socks off.

You’ll need a little advance planning to make this fresh and zingy salad, but remembering to soak some butterbeans overnight isn’t hard, is it?  Freshly cooked butterbeans are way better than the canned ones for this salad—adding the still-warm beans to the rest of the salad ingredients allows all the flavours to start mingling and get into the silky beans. You can vary the heat of the salad by using different brands of sweet chilli sauce—I find they vary from ‘a chilli was briefly shown to a bottle of sauce’ to ‘blow your head off hot’, so choose your favourite one!

The salad tastes lovely warm, but in my opinion is far better after sitting in the fridge for a few hours to allow all the flavours to mature further.  If for some crazy reason there’s enough left to last overnight, then I brighten it up again with some extra herbs, scattered over just before serving.

This is perfect for lunches and as a side dish with some juicy grilled lamb chops.  With some crusty bread to mop up all the juices, it makes a fabulous light meal.

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For some unknown reason, Yotan Ottolenghi and his eponymously named restaurant/deli/takeaway/shop of delights have managed to sail blissfully below my foodie radar for months.  Clearly I’m not as tuned in to current food trends as I thought!  Jeanne, of Cook Sister! fame, was the my introduction to Ottolenghi and how could anyone forget her ‘Dear John’ letter to Nigel Slater combined with a declaration of love for Yotan Ottolenghi?  That’s the sort of thing that makes a girl sit up and take notice!

A few moments with Google revealed a most amazing group of shops, some more restaurantish than others, and all blessed with the most amazing-looking foods.  So when I was indulging in retail therapy a few weeks ago, I positively pounced on Ottolenghi: The Cookboook.  A quick flick through the pages was enough to confirm to me that I needed this cookbook.

I love the pictures in this cookbook.  Heaping platters of bold, bright salads, mounds of the biggest, fluffiest meringues you’ve ever seen, beautiful cupcakes… all showcased against brilliant white walls like modern art.  Which is exactly what Ottolenghi’s food is.  Modern, edible art.  And delicious, too, if the recipes I’ve tried are representative of them as a whole.

My copy is bristling with bright pink Post-Its marking recipes that I’m dying to make.  Which are, well… rather a lot.  So far I’ve made five recipes from the book, which have all been astoundingly good and enjoyed by everyone I’ve foisted them on to.  But my favourite, by a long shot, is their couscous with dried apricots and butternut squash.  I’ve already repeated this glorious salad, which is perfect for lunches and picnics, and the only thing I’ve changed is to use the zest of a whole lemon rather than half as I just adore the extra zing.

This couscous salad may seem fairly ordinary on first glance–roasted butternut squash and apricots are turning into a bit of a modern classic–but the lashings of fresh herbs, lemon zest and cinnamon elevate it to something truly special.   I should mention that this is totally toddler-approved.  Lucas had his own bowl of couscous, which he duly demolished and then proceeded to eat half of mine! And as for me… it was so good that I opted to have it as an evening snack instead of a bowl of sorbet.  That’s how good it is.

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It is hot. Too damn hot. So, in response to the unseasonably hot weather we’re suffering through just now, tonights dinner was a salad. I think this is probably the first time I’ve made a warm salad for dinner, and I’ll certainly be doing this one again; particularly if this weather carries on…

Going on my pet theory that chillis will cool you down in hot weather, I picked Nigella’s “Gingery-Hot Duck Salad” from “Nigella Bites” as it looked both simple and also yummy. The recipe can be found on her Channel 4 microsite, here. This is a surprisingly healthy recipe for Nigella, however, plenty of flavour is packed in. I’d certainly eat this if I was in a dieting mood!

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This fresh tasting salad was today’s lunch, and very nice it was too. The recipe comes from “Lunchbox – Bright Ideas for Movable Feasts”, by Amanda Grant (unfortunately, now out of print). This isn’t a book of kiddies lunchbox ideas, although some of the recipes will certainly interest kids, its crammed full of grown-up flavour combinations and textures. For example, “Pear, Pecan, Pepper and Pecorino Salad”, “Humus with Roasted Aubergine, Lemon and Roasted Peppers in Pita”, or “Roquefort, French bean and Hazelnut Salad”. Don’t they sound yummy?

This salad is perfect for me. I adore caramelised onions and chickpeas and I’m quite fond of Feta too. The only thing I was uncertain of was the mint – I’m still not sure that I approve of mint in savoury stuff, but this was really refreshing and seemed to tie the sweet onions, nutty chickpeas and salty feta together. The addition of red chilli was fantastic; it added a nice kick which was tempered by the feta. Especially nice when the chilli clumped together to give a searingly hot mouthful! A very, very yummy salad. So yummy that I ate half in one sitting. Whoops!

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