Salad for the winter? You must be crazy.

My husband Rob is a massive salad fan. He will have salad, whatever the weather. I am quite sure that a lot of people do not mind it either, but until now i have found winter salad eating, ludicrous.

It got me thinking really. People are prone to colds in the winter and result in eating comfort foods that may not be high in the veggie stakes. Although lots of slow cooked recipes involve plenty of the good stuff, the longer you cook a vegetable the more the nutrients disappears. My mother used to say ‘the brighter the food the better it is for you’, and i am sure i will now get challenged once again by Rob with ‘but SKITTLES and Relentless are brightly coloured!’ Other sweets and energy drinks are avaliable.

The key to salad in the winter is to make it wholesome and full of lots of interesting things. So after a raid in the fridge we came up with a naturally gluten free salad i would happily eat every winter and good enough to fight any cold from the offset. The chinese leaf is so additively sweet and goes extremely well with the heat of the chilli and the fragrant basil; The smell is incredible. Gorgeous with steamed salmon or a jacket potato.

Winter Chinese Leaf Salad

Makes enough for 2 very hungry or 4 not so.

2 Whole Chinese leafs

1 White Onion

1/2 a Cucumber

Juice of 1/2 a Large Lemon and 1/2 a Lime

4 Basil leaves

2 Red Chilli’s

Drizzle of Red Wine Vinegar

Chop the Chinese leaf into medium- large chunks.

Pop the Onion, cucumber, basil leaves and chilli into a food processor on the slice blade. You can also do this by hand, but we liked the thinness of the cucumber and onion this way.

Mix the Chinese leaf in with the sliced onion, cucumber, basil and chilli.

Pour over the lemon and lime juice and mix this in with clean hands.

Taste and season accordingly with red wine vinegar.

The perfect cold buster on it’s own or with a hot steaming jacket potato.