Delivery service - LENTIL AND CUCUMBER SALAD

There was a bit of a bottleneck at our house this week. Marc Loiselle dropped by with a bag of Red Fife Wheat, just as Al Bennett arrived with 20 dozen eggs and a whole bunch of ground beef. I had to do some tricky rearranging in the freezer, because the next day Karen Dale delivered six chickens. Well, I could only get five into the freezer, which meant we had chicken for supper. I just love it when the grocery store comes to me!

LENTIL AND CUCUMBER SALAD
2 cups cooked lentils
¼ cup green onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped (or parsley)
1 cup diced cucumber
¼ cup crumbled feta cheese

Dressing
½ tsp each cumin, coriander, mustard seeds and peppercorns
2 tbsp vegetable oil
½ tbsp balsamic vinegar
½ tsp salt

Mix together the lentils and other salad ingredients. Dressing: toast the whole seeds in a dry frying pan. Grind in a spice grinder or mortar. Mix with the other dressing ingredients and stir into lentils.

Hanley Bread Series #3 - FATTOUSH

This is the third installment in a series of receipes using the free bread "reward" for filling up at the gas station in Hanley, Saskatchewan.

Fattoush is a bread and vegetable salad. In the Middle East, it would be made with pita bread, but this is Saskatchewan, so I made it with the free loaf I got for filling up at the gas station in Hanley. The cucumber, lettuce, bell pepper and tomatoes came from the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market, and the mint was from my garden.

Cut four slices of hearty day-old bread. Remove crusts. Toast and cut into cubes. Chop the vegetables: cucumber, bell pepper (red, green or both), lettuce, parsley, green onions and mint. Include as much as you like of each one. Make a dressing of ¼ cup olive oil, ¼ cup lemon juice, salt and pepper. Toss all the vegetables with the dressing. A few minutes before serving, toss in the bread. I served this salad with a ground lamb 'pizza' called Sfeeha (see 30 April 2007).