Salad in a hurry

I've had a busy time this weekend; Mum and Dad have been visiting to get a bit more work done on the house. I knew I had a barbecue to go to today, but somehow it crept up on me anyway. I found myself rushing to the supermarket this morning, to get what I needed for a carrot salad (p176), which I had just enough time to throw together before heading down to Rakaia for Richard's birthday barbecue.


There aren't many recipes left to do in the salad chapter. I'd been putting off making carrot salad, because for some reason it never seemed that appealing. Still, since Bex had specified "not potato or green salad", this seemed just the thing.


It only took a few minutes to put the salad together. It would be slower if you didn't have a food processor, which sped up the grating of carrot and cheese considerably. The salad is just a mixture of grated carrot, cheese, sultanas, roasted peanuts, and plain unsweetened yoghurt. You just mix that all up and chill it for a while.

Of course, mine didn't get much chilling down time, as I very soon departed for Rakaia, leaving my hard-working parents busily sanding and painting in my absence.


Though I didn't originally like the idea of this salad, I found it very tasty when I actually tried it. The peanuts are great for both flavour and texture, and the yoghurt and sultanas prevent the cheese/carrot mixture from being too similar to a basic coleslaw. I suppose a lot of people wouldn't like the sultanas, but I found the odd burst of sweetness quite pleasant. If you don't like them, just leave them out.

Owing to the usual oversupply of food at Richard's birthday lunch, I wound up taking home about half my salad. That was ok, though, because Mum, Dad and I ate the rest with our dinner this evening.


From not liking the concept of this salad at all, I've gone to thinking of it as something tasty and different I might make from time to time. So I guess the moral of this story is 'don't knock it till you've tried it'.