Salads for Spring

We’re definitely heading into Spring and the body is demanding something lighter than protein and two veg.  

We want fresh veg, colourful and mouthwatering, multi-textured and multi-flavoured with enough heft to make the perfect transition to toothsome vegetables. 

These gorgeous platters,  healthy and wallet-friendly, easy to prepare and outrageously tasty, are from the 67goingon50 bounteous Archives.  None will break the bank.

MONOCHROMATIC PLATES (both recipes included in this url)

 A pleasure to look at, a delight to eat and easily put together.  Both can be made in large or small quantities; a little less of one thing and a little more of another is not a problem.

Green Goddess Salad with Pistachio Nuts & Green Herb Dressing

 Splendid mix of raw and lightly cooked veg with green herb dip/dressing

Green Goddess Salad with Pistachio Nuts & Green Herb Dressing/Dip

 

 Marvellous Mediterranean Tomatoes

Simple, sensational: stunning flavours

Turns common-all-garden tomatoes into gourmet treats!  Add a slosh of red wine vinegar for a piquant accent.  Works brilliantly with gourmet tomatoes, too

CRUNCHY ASIAN CABBAGE LETTUCE 

Not quite ready for summery lettuces?  Chinese Leaf makes a great wallet-friendly replacement and this combo of raw and cooked veg (cabbage, carrot, green beans) and a peanut lime dressing with crushed peanuts is gorgeous  

St Patrick's Layered Spinach Salad (Triple Duty)

Layers of spinach, raw mushrooms, tomato, beetroot & pumpkin seed provides delightful mouthfuls.  It easily transforms into a vegan, vegetarian, pescatorian or carnivore delight.

Spinach, Bean & Vegetable Salad (Vegan)

A nutrient-filled budget-friendly dish that can cost as little or as much as you like, depending on your fridge or the depth of your pockets.  Very easy to prepare.  

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Fantastic Frugal Salad

It's amazing what you can do with 4 inexpensive ingredients!

Presentation matters; this easy-peasy knock-out salad will have the entire household salivating; serve with a simple vinaigrette or yoghurt mayonnaise dressing (see Salad Dressings)

Beetroot and Orange

Beetroot is always a pleasure when we encounter it unexpectedly. Here, the 
beets glisten prettily with orange vinaigrette, orange zest and delicate chives.  Perfect when you’re after something more than lettuce and tomatoes

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Copyright: These salads have been designed by B M Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises and may only be reproduced in home kitchens.  Not for commercial use.

 

67GOINGON50 Scone Sensations

If you are avoiding sugar during Lent, these wonderful flaky scones are a delicious sugar-free treat with coffee or tea.

Updated 2026; first posted 2015

UNFORGETTABLE BUTTER SCONES
'The flakiest, butteriest, tenderest scones in the world!' Blogger 

Scones are a unique English combination of bread and cake.   Light, fluffy, often a couple of centimetres high, they have a crisp exterior and fluffy, tender, flaky  middles.  They are the perfect vehicle for lashings of cream and jam, washed down with good English tea.  For a delightful change, however, bakers often add fruit or savoury bits like cheese and bacon/pastrami or date and nuts. 

67goingon50’s Classic Scone Recipe is the foundation of the scones in this post.  Master this recipe for a fuss-free preparation, and you’ll have plenty of wonderful  variations to please family and friends. 

The recipe has also been tested for dairy-free using Timor plant butter and plant milk.  There is also an egg-and-butter-free version.  They both taste lovely and are nicely layered but don’t rise as high as with standard ingredients.

Classic English Scones (UPDATED 2026)

These scones are the best 67 has ever had and they've been in the family cookbook in various delicious permutations for years.  They are the flakiest, most tender biscuits in the world. And they have no added sugar.

The recipe is taken straight from Robert Carrier, one of the first celebrity chefs, and 67 makes no apologies. Best known for classical French (!) cooking, Carrier in his later years produced a wonderful cookbook for the home chef ( sadly out of print.)   

The biscuits do have a high fat content; anyone with health issues should proceed with caution. 

To make them healthier, 67 experimented with 100% wholemeal flour. The scones  were still light and delicious but a two parts white flour, one part wholemeal is probably a better mix if you're after lightness with added fibre. 

Portion control is always a good bet for good health: use a smaller scone cutter!

The scones are best on the day but reheat and/or freeze well.

Cost: £3.50 (Feb '26)
Makes: 12-14

Ingred:
12 oz/350gm plain flour (organic gives fantastic flavour)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
5 oz/150 gm cold, cubed dairy or plant butter
2 eggs, well beaten
7 tbsp very cold milk.

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to very hot -- 200c; 400f
2.  Sift dry ingred. into a bowl; rub or process in butter until mixture resembles peas - don't overdo it!
3. (If using cheese, add it after step 2), stirring it into the flour mix until the cheese strands are coated)
4.  Beat eggs and milk.   Make a well in the centre of the flour; pour in eggs & milk; stir lightly with a fork until mixture just holds together.
5.  Turn out onto a lightly floured board and press lightly and quickly into a rectangle about 1/2 inch (1 cm) thick.  Mentally divide the rectangle into three, lengthwise.  Fold the left hand side onto the middle; and the right hand side onto the middle & left sides.  (This method creates layers in the dough, like puff pastry.  I promise you, it is worth it!) Repeat twice, rolling lightly with a rolling pin between each folding, handling dough as little as possible
6.  Roll it out to just over 1inch (2 cm) thick.  Cut, without twisting, into 2.5 inch/6cm (or smaller rounds) with a floured biscuit cutter, reforming leftover dough.  OR cut into  12-14 rectangles or triangles
7.  Bake in the centre of the oven on an ungreased baking sheet 12-15 min until richly golden.
8.  Cream tea scones for a crowd: allow scones to cool completely; halve and spread with clotted cream and jam (if not worried about sugar) or fresh sliced strawberries or other berries on each half.  (Catering portions are half a scone each)

Variations
Flaky cheese biscuits add 3oz/75gr strong grated cheddar (cheddar with chives & onion is a favourite)

    

                                  Chocolate Nut Twists
                                no added sugar, budget friendly



Tips:

• another variation adds a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped mixed herbs
• re-heat in an 180c/350f/Gas Mark 3 oven for 5-10 mins. 

Savoury Salty Cranberry Scones (UPDATED 2025)

Salty bacon/pastrami contrasts with tart crunchy cranberries in feather-light scones

'I ate these plain with a cup of tea and really loved them.  The meat added a flavour entirely of its own.' Taster

Egg & Butter—Free Flaky Vegan Scones (2025)

First made by the blogger years ago for a visitor allergic to eggs, the results were so delicious and flaky, they were as much of a treat as conventional scones

3-Ingredient Scones for Small Households (2025)

Just Double cream, fizzy water & flour (with fresh fruit, in this case peaches)
 produce these quick & easy fresh fruit scones. 

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These recipes have been developed by B M Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises.  It may not be reproduced without the author's written permission. 

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Easy make-at-home dumplings for the Year of the Horse: lower fat & sugar, some advanced preparation;

Simple Chinese dumplings - elegant parcels of translucent Chinese pastry wrapped around meat, fish or vegetarian fillings - are easier than you think to make at home.  And they are relatively wallet-friendly.

True, preparation is definitely helped with a few 'sous chef' helpers but then, making dumplings are a great excuse for a party.  Organise a ‘line’; one person measures out the dough, one adds filling, one pleats the casing, one watches over the cooking.  Much fun will be had by all and the eating will be all the better knowing so many people have contributed to the result. 

Dumplings come in many forms.  One on offer here is classic, one modern, one created by the Blogger with western tastes in mind.  With 67goingon50 modifications, all are healthier than most.

Try glossy pillowy Triple Duty steamed dumplings, crispy low-fat oven-baked vegan rice paper parcels or an adventurous pastry/gluten-free vegetarian dumpling.  Plus one or all stunning sauces.   Though designed for western tastes they have authentic Asian flavours. 

RECIPES

DELICATELY CRISPY VEGAN DUMPLINGS: baked not fried, with sensational low-sugar 67 Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce.  Part prep-ahead.

The pastry is beautifuly crisp though not brown in the usual way,  
and doesn't  shatter into shards down your chest!  

NO-PASTRY TOFU DUMPLING/FRITTERS

vegetarian, pastry/gluten-free, healthier, prep in advance

Great change from the usual with unusual - in a good way - flavours

TRIPLE DUTY JAOTZE 

A blog favourite: common meeting ground for vegans & non-vegans

67 recalibrated a traditional recipe to take account of winter-ish budgets and worries about fat and salt.  Techniques were modified to make prep easier.  

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These recipes hav been developed by B M Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises.  It may not be reproduced without the author's written permission 

 

Chinese Duck a la 67goingon50: lower fat, almost guilt-free; slow roasted and braised, with or without pancakes

Chinese New Year celebrations start on the 17th and continue for two weeks;it’s is a wonderful opportunity to revisit classic dishes.  One of the Blogger’s all-time favourites is Roast Duck

PHOTO TO COME

 DUE TO TECH PROBLEMS

Duck meat  is a classic Chinese New Year treat.  It is immensely flavourful, has sumptuous texture and moisture, it’s tender and succulent and contains high value protein.  And what about the theatrical value of wrapping the meat in pancakes or bearing the duck whole to the table?

The Blogger loves it but was initially put off duck as a home cooked dish because it has a thick layer of fat under the skin. The fat is unsaturated however and healthier than most; in fact, without skin, duck has lower levels of fat than a roast chicken breast.  Duck fat though is still high in calories and recommended only as an occasional treat for anyone worried about  cholesterol.  

67goingon50’s found two solutions.  Slow roasting, an easy peasy method which melts the fat, crisping up the skin without drying the meat, OR braising and cooling the duck which allows the fat to solidify and be easily removed.

The duck can be carved and wrapped in pancakes (from Chinese supermarkets) or , for the diet conscious, crisp lettuce leaves.  Or it can form part of a meal with plenty of vegetable sides.  

SLOW ROASTED DUCK

Cooking duck is a doddle using this easy method from Gordon Ramsay.  A short prep time leave cook’s hands free to prep sides and dessert or relax.  

For the frugal, duck legs are much more wallet-friendly but require a different ingredients and method of cooking, as below.

Slow Roast Duck Ingredients:

1 whole duck

3 tbsp 5-spice powder

1 tbsp powdered cinnamon

4 star anise

4cm peeled & sliced fresh ginger

4 spring onions

Lemon grass, bashed ((opt)

Method:(once defrosted, start a day before needed)

1.  Preheat oven to 160C/320F

2.  Pat skin with paper towels to remove moisture

2.  Prick skin all over with tines of a fork, especially around the legs

3.  Dry cavity of duck

4.  Press 5 spice power all over the duck rubbing it well into all the skin, including the cavity

5.  Stuff cavity with star anise, ginger, spring onions & lemon grass if using 

6.  Place on a rack in a deep’ish dish, bake 1 hour; reduce heat to 140c/284f for a further 2-3 hours until flesh is very tender and skin is crisp (The Blogger found 2-2.5 hours was fine)

Comments:

‘I tried the kosher duck, gasping a little at the price, but it was utterly fantastic.   The meat was tender and rich, enhanced by a good red wine.  Sadly, the 5-spice powder coating gave the duck a very dark almost burnt appearance but didn’t affect the flavour overall.  Highly recommended for a  special occasion.’  Semi-retired writer 

NOTES: 

 

The texture and flavour of duck is is a little like chicken but with a buttery game-like flavour. It’s an excellent source of protein and micronutrients and better still, has no carbs.

Depending on where you shop, a whole duck costs about £8 (Tesco)  and the well-known Greshingham branded ducks are sold for £12 (Waitrose).   Kosher ducks are increasingly available in Hendon.  (67 tested one from Menachems — they’re pricy at £31 and best saved for a special occasion but was gloriously wonderfully tender and flavourful.  Be warned: unless you’re in the shop when the ducks arrive they are frozen and take at least a day to defrost. 

BRAISED DUCK LEGS 

Ingredients

4-6 duck legs:

Marinade:
   1 star anise
   two-third tsp 5-spice powder
   4 spring onions (greens only and double the amount if worried about fodmaps)
   1 large knob ginger
   4 tbsp dry Sherry or Chinese Rice Wine
   3 tbsp honey or maple syrup
   3 tbsp reduced salt soy sauce
   3 cups chicken or other stock (granules & cubes are fine) 
   2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar

1. At least 1 day ahead, pour boiling water over both sides of the duck legs, rest & pat dry; whisk marinade ingredients; pour into a flat oven-proof dish that takes duck legs in one layer; refrigerate overnight
2. On serving day, place legs & braising liquid in a SLOW COOKER.  Cook on low 4 hours or until meat is tender and easily shredded OR
3. STOVE TOP: in a large pot,  bring liquid & legs to boil, reduce heat;  simmer 1.5  hours until tender and easily shredded
4. Remove legs from liquid with tongs
5. If using immediately place on a rack in a baking tray under a hot grill until skin goes crispy (watch carefully) (if calories and fat are a worry, discard skin); shred meat using two forks
6. Otherwise refrigerate legs up to 24 hours and grill until skin goes crispy; (if calories and fat are a worry, discard skin); shred meat using two forks
7. Serve with shredded green onions & fine cucumber sticks, hoisin or oyster sauce and pancakes.

Tip: 

Strain stock through a sieve lined with muslin or a clean unused j-cloth; discard bits left behind; refrigerate when cool. Remove fat. Pour stock into ice cube trays; freeze; decant into a freezer bag; use for stir-fried dishes or to intensify flavours in noodle soups & 'ramen'

Comments:

'Tastes like what I'd get in a nice Chinese restaurant.  The meat is tender and full of flavour.  The skin definitely has a nice texture.  I've sent this recipe to my mum.'  20-something Fijian-Chinese-Australian'

'Yum! This is amazing.The duck and trimmings are wonderful with the meat being just crispy enough.'  Middle-aged political agent who reposted on Twitter & Facebook  

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These recipe has been developed by B M Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises.  It may not be reproduced without the author's written permission.