Over my stove there is a magnet which reads: She didn’t always follow the recipe. And here’s the thing: much of the time, I don’t follow a recipe–at all. Carrot Confetti Salad which I made this past weekend is a perfect example of how I cook.
It starts like this. My eyes canvas our refrigerator and see something that needs to be used pronto; I’m in the garden and a particular edible plant catches my attention; or, I discover my inspiration while shopping at the grocery store.
Me: Hmm. We have some carrots in the fridge which really need to be used, two sweet potatoes that have been sitting idly on the counter for the past two weeks and a package of South African Boerewors sausage (with cloves, coriander and nutmeg) I picked up last week which should be eaten soon.
Then, like an intricate puzzle missing a few pieces, my mind puts together the menu: sausage, carrot salad and sweet potato fries. Carrot salad is a simple staple recipe but when I make it, there are generally a few tweaks.
For my Carrot Confetti Salad, I decided to use rainbow colored carrots: orange, red and yellow. Instead of celery, I chose fennel bulb. In place of sugar: honey. And to bind everything together, I drizzled a bit of olive oil rather than using a few spoonfuls of mayonnaise. When I realized I didn’t have enough juice left in my lemon to squeeze a few tablespoons, I got what I could out of it and then grated some of the peel. On top of that, I added lemon thyme for an additional lemony kick. Raisins? Didn’t have any but there was a bag of dried currents in the cupboard.
My hand was sore from gardening all day, so I didn’t grate the carrots as I typically do, but instead pulsed them into little bits using a small food processor, hence the confetti-like appearance of my carrot salad. Voila! Carrot Confetti Salad was colorful, delicious and paired perfectly with the rest of our meal.
The only downfall to cooking without a recipe is that duplicating my results can prove to be a challenge, for me and for others with whom I might want to share my moment of culinary brilliance. I am somehow able to divine the right amount of olive oil drizzling relative to the spoonfuls of honey and the quantity of confetti carrots, and naturally I taste as I cook which helps the results but at times leaves me with less of an appetite at dinner.
Carrot Confetti (amounts below make about 2 cups or four servings)
Ingredients
- ~ 4-5 carrots (get the colorful variety with red, yellow, purple and orange)
- 1 Fennel bulb
- 1 Spring onion (minced) or Walla Walla sweet onion
- ~1/2 cup dried currents
- 2-3 tablespoons honey
- Healthy drizzle (a few tablespoons) olive oil
- 1 Lemon (grated and juiced)
- Several sprigs of fresh lemon thyme (or any other type of thyme, preferably fresh, not dried)
How to:
Process the carrots in a food processor until they are chopped into bitsy pieces. Do the same with the fennel bulb. Mince the spring onion (spring onions have a lovely mild garlic flavor but any sweet onion will substitute just fine). Put all the chopped ingredients in a bowl and drizzle in honey and olive oil. Mix in currants and little leaves of lemon thyme.
Want to chop up more deliciousness? Check out Wanderfood Wednesday!