Readily available, fresh produce results in a salad with a sweet twist. 

Home baked moist chocolate marmalade cake 

Juicy Kensington Pride Mangoes

Salad is something I never tire of eating. Along with chocolate cake that is. It doesn’t need to be a blisteringly hot day for me to enjoy the goodness, texture and refreshing flavours that a freshly made salad brings to the tastebuds. Even when there is a winter wind howling outside, I am still happy to munch my way through a mound of salad greens and the like, as a healthy, satisfying side dish. 

I have come across a few people who, even as adults, turn their noses up at the mention of salad muttering “rabbit food” under their breath as they move the raw veggies around on their plate. My theory is that they have never experienced the delight of enjoying a beautifully prepared salad. Perhaps the only contact their deprived tastebuds have had with a salad, is a version doused with commercial dressing, or the bagged supermarket variety. These packs are either vacuum sealed or puffed up with so much air that as soon as the bag is opened, the contents fall about limp and tasteless. Well, they are missing out, because a salad is a speedy and satisfying dish that can be prepared as a side or a complete stand-alone meal.    

Consider a salad as a vitamin pill in a bowl, only much, much better. It looks amazing, tastes fantastic and you don’t have to gulp down copious amounts of water just to dislodge a gelatine covered vitamin pill off the back of your tongue and down the throat. 

Offering children salads as soon as they are able to confidently chew textured foods is an excellent way of introducing them to a variety of raw vegetables. As squeeze of lemon or orange juice over the ingredients adds to their appeal. Little ones tend to mimic the behaviour of parents or carers, so eating salad regularly sets up a positive visual image in their minds. 

This Mango and More Salad with Citrus Dressing was inspired by a tray of marvellous yellow-fleshed mangoes that I spotted and purchased this morning from Fruit at Hunters Hill. They are superb! Dense, juicy flesh, an easy to peel outer skin and an aroma that fills the kitchen as soon as the first mango is sliced. This is such an easy and unstructured salad to make. It’s up to you to decide on the quantity of each ingredient because that comes down to your personal preferences. This evening I combined the following items in a large serving bowl and just before dishing up, drizzled over the citrus dressing. For the SALAD: oak leaf lettuce, Roma tomatoes, large fresh mango, Sicilian or green olives, Greek feta cheese, lots of avocado. 
Now the DRESSING: combine 2 tablespoons each of extra virgin olive oil and also fresh orange juice with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of finely chopped coriander leaves and a grind of sea salt. Shake in a jar and pour over the arranged salad. 

The Chocolate Orange Marmalade Cake was served while still warm from the oven, with tall glasses of icy cold A2 milk. Shards of citrus peel added a sticky, chewy consistency to every moist bite. This recipe is from Nigella Lawson’s cookbook, How to be a Domestic Goddess and she calls it her Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake. Speaking from first hand home cooking tasting experience, this cake tastes even better the next day. I will publish the recipe tomorrow because I am soooo tired that  I risk falling asleep on my keyboard.