This is a really nice summer salad, really fresh-tasting and light; it’s another recipe from the BBC magazine 101 veggie dishes cookbook, and I really wanted to try it today because I’ve never been a fan of traditional lettuce-based salads before and I was hoping to have my mind changed – I did :)

Because the salad’s stir-fried you keep the fresh taste but it’s also a little warmer and there’s a really nice crunch from the almonds every other mouthful; I made enough for two dinners and had it with rice yesterday and a GoodLife mushroom and tomato kiev tonight which was lovely, I absolutely adore their products, and if you have a look on the ingredients list you’ll see they’re a really natural and healthy product – no chemicals whatsoever, I could make them in my own kitchen.

So yeah, I’m a traditional-salad-convert now, and if I like it then this recipe must be good! It’s also brilliant for a quick lunch if you just want to have it on it’s own.

Almond Salad

Ingredients 

Oil spray

40g of almonds

2 medium spring onions

About half of a cucumber, seeded

2 stalks of celery

10 or so cherry tomatoes

One little gem lettuce

A sprinkling of cress and fresh coriander

A sprinkling of lemon juice

Method

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the almonds for 2-3 minutes until golden, then chop roughly
2. Heat some more oil, then add the spring onions, cucumber, celery and tomatoes and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and then toss with the other ingredients – season with salt and pepper
3. Spoon the warm salad into a bowl, then scatter the almonds over. Have plain for lunch, or as a side salad with rice, bread or a ‘kiev-like’ vegan meal for dinner

Serves two

Oh and by the way, I thought it might be a good idea to get a twitter account, which you can follow by clicking the ‘twitter’ button on the right hand side, or just searching @EmilyCooksVegan. We’ll see in time if this decision was wise…