AVOCADO SALAD: great for beginners needing a template; high fibre; heart healthy, budget friendly.

Bargain priced avocados: a delight for nearly spring...

Avocado Salad: a template for colourful, healthy
multi-textured mix of simple salad ingredients  

When food budgets are tight, we take our pleasures where we can.

Cut-price avocados, which seem to be in abundance in most supermarkets right now, is sure to be one of them.  

A great source of culinary delight, large supermarket avocados can be had for around £2.50 --  half the price of a perfect green grocer specimen. 

And they're are not just for guacamole or the ubiquitous sourdough toast with poached eggs.  They're brilliant in smoothies, soups, pilaffs and vegetable sides.

Since 67 posted How to...the Art of Avocados and everything you need to know in March 2024, supermarkets have jumped on the bandwagon.  Excellent avocadoes in various sizes and stages of ripness are everywhere.  

It's just as easy to find a firm but creamy avo that contrasts beautifully with crisp lettuce as it is to find a soft one for mashing onto avocado toast.  

This post's simple salad for a small household is a real treat, mouthwatering, delicious and satisfying.  

But it also offers a beginer's guide to creating the right proportion of ingredients for a thrilling salad.  It will turn you into a pro.  

Cost: £2-3, depending on the salad drawer

Feeds: 1 or 2

Ingreds:

Salad:

1/3-1/2 small crunchy lettuce like baby gem, or equivalent
2-3 inches/5-7 cm cucumber
1-2 handfuls washed baby tomatoes or 1-2 standard tomatoes
1/2 peeled ripe avocado
a few ounces of cold leftover meat or cooked prawns (opt)
Extras: (opt)
2-3 radishes, sliced thin
1 stick celery, washed, trimmed at top and bottom

lightly toasted pine nuts OR sunflower &/or pumpkin seeds

crumbled crispy bacon 

Dressing for 1, easily multiplied:

2 tbsp good olive oil

1 tbsp vinegar, pref basamic, OR white or red wine vinegar OR lemon or lime juice

1/2 tbsp Dijon, wholegrain or other mild mustard

1/2-1 small clove garlic, finely grated (opt but recommended)

1/8 tsp sugar or a dash of maple syrup (opt but recommended)

salt & pepper

Method:

1. Mix dressing ingredients in a small jar with a tight fitting lid (washed empty herb jars from M&S  are ideal here); shake vigorously until emulsified ( completely blended & thick); keep cool till needed 
2. Just before serving, separate lettuce leaves at the base, remove grotty bits of leaf or core, wash in a solution of 3/4 parts water & 1/4 part white vinegar; pat dry with paper towel.  Slice into 1/2in/2 cm pieces
3. Wash & peel cucumber but leave a space between each strip for a striped appearance; slice thinly at a slant  (see below)
4. Wash & halve baby tomatoes or cut whole tomatoes into small bite-size chunks; spray with olive oil, salt lightly; rest
5. Add the 3 items to the bottom of a good-sized bowl; mix loosely
6. Peel half an avocado (leaving the stone in the remaining half, painting with oil or lemon juice and covering tightly with cling film); vertically cut in 2 the remaining half; cut into med slices OR chop into generous-sized chunks; spread out on a board; sprinkle liberally with lemon juice to prevent discolouring.  Add to bowl.
7. Cut protein, if using, into bite sized chunks; add to bowl
8. Lightly mix with tongs, being careful not to break up the avocado
9. Vigorously shake dressing again; pour over enough to moisten but not overwhelm 
10. Dressing will keep in fridge 3-5 days

Comments:

'I do love a perfectly ripe avocado with a few shards of protein and the usual crisp lettuce, cucumber and fragrant tomatoes.  Bathed in a balsamic vinaigrette, it's first class.  Roll on spring and summer!'  Retired writer

Some ways of preparing salad veg

Tips:

If you liked this avocado recipe, you will also like: 

1. Mixed Salads, Perfectly Pretty: simple appealling salads
2. recipes for cooked avocado (surprisingly wonderful): 
   • Avocado Pilau: ambrosial, for slightly underripe avocado
   • Avocado Vichyssoise: almost carb free; warm or chilled

   
   

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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.

Pensioner's Delight: Potluck/Party Muffletta lower-fat multi-layered Italian sarnie, dairy-free opt, vegetarian opt

67goingon50's Pensioners' Muffletta, a multi-layered Italian-style sandwich for the dentally challenged (including toddlers) using soft bread & delcately textured lively fillings ...

It may look like a load of standard fillings but nearly every one has a taste twist that provides stunning flavours

Normal mufflettas use crispy topped panini or ciabatta with chewy interiors and layers of cold Italian charcuterie, olives and salad.  They are, to be sure, fabulous.

But this one was a special treat for 4 delightful senior ladies at a picnic during the intermission of Macbeth at Keats House.  With champers!

Readers, they were thrilled with it!

A small challah loaf big enough for 8, soft but sturdy*, was filled with 6 layers of classic soft fillings but with unexpected twists. 

The muffletta isn't frugul but nor is it extravagant, especially since the portions are loaded and 8 portions is not a small number.

The recipe may seem daunting but as long as you get everything ready (perhaps the previous day?) before you prepare and fill the bread, you will be fine.

Cost: £10'ish depending on fridge contents (6/23)

Feeds: 8 hungry people

Ingredients:

1 medium cholla or soft wholemeal loaf, plain or seeded (enough for 8 regular portions)

5-6 tbsp very soft dairy or plant butter OR for those worried about fat, soft lettuce leaves washed & throughly dried OR both

at least 8 lettuce leaves, washed and thoroughtly dried

Filling 1

dairy or plant butter and well-dried lettuce leaves

Filling 2

1/2 cup thinly sliced chicken breast

Dressing: 1 tbsp mayo

               2 tbsp thick plain dairy or plant yoghurt

               1.5 tbsp cranberry sauce or piccalilly

Filling 3

Dairy or plant brie, thinly sliced (no need to remove rind)

Filling 4

2 large thin slices ham or pastrami or spiced beef

smear of Dijon mustard

Filling 5

single layer lettuce leaves covering the meat & half way up sides

Filling 6

1 tin tuna steak (or very good quality flakes, drained & coarsely broken up)

grated zest of lemon

juice of half a lemon

2 sping onions, green & white, both finely sliced 

lots of coarsely grated black pepper

Dressing: 1.5tb olive oil; 1 tsp balsamic vinegar; half clove grated garlic (opt but adds punch); 1/2 tsp mustard (wholegrain or Dijon); salt; pinch of sugar

Filling 7

layer of thinly sliced cucumber (opt)

Filling 8

egg mayo (supermarket OR your own: eggs, hardboiled, coarsely grated & moistened with just enough yoghurt mayo to hold together OR Chinese Egg Salad

1/3 recipe supermarket or make-your-own sunblush tomato bombs, finely chopped

 

Filling 9

half a tub supermarket hummous or 67's singletons's easy skinny hummous

handful toasted sunflower seeds (opt)

Filling 10

single layer soft butter lettuce

Method:

Equipment needed: 2 small trays, a small heavy book

1. Prepare ingredient fillings the night before; cover; refrigerate till needed
2. At least 2 hours before serving:
3. Slice the top off the cholla bread about 1 inch/2cm in depth
4. About 1.5 inches from the edges and the bottom, cut an inner ring of soft bread; remove all but 1 inch/2cnm off the side and 1.5 inches/3m off the  bottom (there should be a circular flat base in the bottom of the loaf-see photo above)
5. lightly butter bottom and sides of loaf
6. Thoroughly dry lettuce leaves; line the base and half way up the sides with 2-3 pieces of lettuce, folding or tearing to fit
7. Separate chicken pieces to prevent clumping; add only enough dressing to hold the contents together generously but not wet
8. Cover with thinly sliced brie, leaving spaces if necessary to reach the edges 
9. Cover the brie layer entirely with slices of ham/pastrami; smear lightly with Dijon mustard
10. Cover with a layer of lettuce 
11. Pour ingredients for tuna dressing into a small jar with tight lid; shake until mixture thickens, set aside; lightly stir tuna with rest of tuna layer ingredients until well mixed; pour over dressing...the fish will be a little dry which is as it should be. Spread evenly over lettuce; cover with cucumber slices if using 
12. Mix egg mayo with finely chopped sunblush tomato, adding a little of the juices if you like; spread egg over tuna
13. Cover egg with hummous; scatter over sunflower seeds
14. Cover with soft dry lettuce; top with cholla lid
15. Wrap tightly twice in clingfilm; place on a tray
16. Cover with second small tray; place a good sized book on top
17. Refrigerate a few hours...no more than 4
18. Slice into wedges on site

Comments from the feisty group of mature ladies/early feminists:

'This is really really nice!'

'Could I have a bigger piece? Oh, alright, I'll have two!'

'Very tasty.'

'Yes, I would love to take home the leftovers!!'

'Think it's going to be bunch of boring old fillings? Think again.  Nearly every layer has an unexpected and unusual flavour.  Fabulous!'

Tips:

Vegetarian option: 

• replace chicken with tofu 'chicken' gougons
• replace ham with vegan deli ham (M&S/Waitrose) OR thinly sliced vegetarian frankfurthers (Tivali: Waitrose, Mr Mistry South End Green) 

* small cholla loaf £4+, Roni's Hampstead & Belsize Village, Panzers, Waitrose 

Notes:  The muffletta is an Italian sandwich originating in New Orleans.  It's always been hefty despite - in the early days - having only three components: bread, spicy olive salad and Italian charcuterie.  Nowadays there is a wide choice of fillings including soft cheeses, cooked and raw vegetables, deli meats and rich dressings.

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