This dip is loosely based on the Middle Eastern dip muhammara. Although I lived in the Middle East for 10 years, I had never tried or had even heard of this dip (and I tried A LOT of Arabic food) then on a visit back to see my Dad we went to a new cafe and muhammara was one of the dishes we were served. It was love at first bite for me. It’s spicy yet you don’t lose the flavour of the peppers and walnuts.
My Mum used to make an amazing carrot and orange soup however as it’s not been soup weather of late I decided to combine the flavours in a salad. Quick and easy using just a few ingredients but still full of flavour. I like to serve this alongside roast chicken or a quinoa salad.
I hardly ever eat peaches, not sure why, it’s just a fruit that I don’t tend to buy. However, I bought some at the shops the other week and they are so good just now so I’ll be buying them regularly whilst they’re in season.
This recipe is simple to make (which I like most of my recipes to be!) and can easily be doubled. I’ve had the peaches hot but they are also lovely cold too which would make them a nice breakfast option to have with granola and yoghurt.
It really is too hot to spend too long in the kitchen at the moment with this hot weather – not that I’m complaining as it will soon be cold and raining. This salad is so easy and quick to make and is firm becoming one of my favourites to have made up and ready in the fridge to have as a side with grilled chicken, steak or even just on its own.
One thing is for certain with me, I always have berries either fresh or frozen, in the house. I can’t get enough of them, they’re like nature’s sweets. I eat them on their own, with yoghurt, on salads, porridge, smoothies, and now this little creation!
For this recipe I used a mixture of raspberries, strawberries and blueberries but you can stick to just one type of berry or use a variety. As some berries are lovely and sweet at the moment, I added a little honey at a time as I didn’t want overly sweet yoghurt pops. I used coconut yoghurt in this recipe as I much prefer it over soy yoghurt. The coconut yoghurt I use is lovely and thick, similar to Greek yoghurt so if you can eat dairy I’d suggest using Greek yoghurt or full fat natural yoghurt.
Salads are so easy to throw together and there are such a variety of ingredients available nowadays. It used to be a salad was a bit of limp lettuce, a tomato and some cucumber and perhaps some cress!
There are no rules when it comes to making a salad, use whichever lettuce you like or try a salad without lettuce. Add whichever vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, seeds you have at hand and you’ll come up with a great salad. This is what happened when I created this salad. I hadn’t been to the shop but I had some roast sweet potato in the fridge (I often roast or steam a batch of vegetables and keep them in the fridge to snack on or for salads), a lone pomegranate and some other salad items that needed using. I also had a tin of mixed beans in the cupboard that I added too.
I love a good cup of tea, especially in the morning. My morning brew has to be regular black tea with some almond milk but during the day I’ll drink fruit tea, green tea and right now my favourite is matcha tea with almond milk and ground cinnamon – it sounds a very random combination but give it a try it’s really good.
Some of the readers of Four Candles Kitchen may be aware that I love hummus. I have it every day as a snack or with a meal or just spooned right out of the blender and straight into my mouth! Lately though I’ve been wanting a dip/spread that isn’t hummus and concocted this recipe.
This actually reminds me when we used to go for Sunday lunch to my Gran’s house. She used to have mint growing in her garden and would put in with the new potatoes and through the peas too….it makes the dip fresh and Summery in my opinion.
It’s Summer which means its barbecue time! And you can’t beat a good burger on a barbecue.
Unfortunately for me I don’t have a barbecue but these turkey burgers are super tasty oven baked – although I’m pretty sure they’d taste awesome done over some hot coals, so if anyone wants to pop over with their barbecue it would be greatly appreciated 🙂
When I could eat dairy, I didn’t particularly like ice cream. For as long as I can remember I never have. People couldn’t understand how I could pass up on a scoop of mint-choc chip or creamy vanilla but I just didn’t enjoy it. It was either too creamy – I never liked cream either, far too sweet or some ice creams would leave a strange after taste in my mouth, probably from weird ingredients!
So now you’re probably wondering why on earth have I created a recipe for ice cream! Well, this technically isn’t ice cream, it’s blended frozen fruit, yet it looks like and has the consistency of ice cream. Luckily for me it tastes loads better than all the ice cream I’ve tried in the past.
Four Candles Kitchen 