Category Archives: Lunch

I love having crunchy raw vegetables and simple dressing, ideal for Summer but challenging in Winter. Cooler weather always makes me crave for a warm soup over cold salads. Thanks to the beautiful Autumn weather in Perth, I can enjoy cool salads before it gets too cold. This salad is so refreshing and delicious. Earthy beetroot, aromatic fennel, crunchy celery and tart-sweet grapefruit all goes well together.

On top of that, this salad is so good for your digestion. Bloating can be caused by a number of things – lack of exercise, types of foods you eat (especially gassy foods like meat, beans, cabbage, etc), an acidic diet which causes an unbalance between good and bad bacteria in your stomach. Well..if you experience bloating after meals, you are not alone. I can give you some tips here.

• Exercise at least 30 minutes a day. It also helps gas to move along the digestive tract & flushes out excess salt. No vigorous exercise after meals though.
• Drink more water, especially between meals. It flushes out excess salt and also helps with constipation which is another big factor in the bloat.
• Avoid gassy foods such as meat, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, etc.
• Take some supplements such as probiotics and digestive enzyme.
• Find a way to deal with stress – exercise, meditation or anything that makes you relaxed, you can also look into stretching and find the answer to “does stretching count as exercise?”
• 10 best foods to beat the bloat – fennel, celery, asparagus, cinnamon, artichoke, peppermint, ginger, pear, watercress, quinoa

Ingredients

1/2 baby fennel
1/2 raw beetroot
1 stalk of celery
1/2 cup of romaine lettuce leaves
1/2 of grapefruit
chopped dill
a squeeze of lemon
1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp of e.v.o.o
salt and pepper to taste

Shave or finely slice fennel, beetroot and celery. Mix them with lettuce leaves and segmented grapefruit in a large mixing bowl. Add half of the dressing into a bowl and toss gently. Transfer to a serving plate and drizzle the rest of the dressing. Season with salt and pepper. It would go well with seafood like salmon or prawns.

Have you heard of Za’atar before? I’m really into spices at the moment. I recently discovered about this spice blend through other food blogs. It is Middle Eastern spice blend made from the dried herbs, sesame seeds, sumac and salt. The word refers to wild thyme herbs. It’s commonly eaten with pita bread, dipping in olive oil and then za’atar. It’s also good for seasoning meat or veggies, sprinkling on hummus, and eating with labneh (cream cheese made from yogurt). It is aromatic, earthy and tangy.

Health benefits? Sumac is rich in gallic acid. It is anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory. Amazing thyme is rich in thymol and carvacrol which is also anti-septic, anti-microbial and powerful antioxidants. It also helps with the digestive system and eliminate drowsiness and depression, improve your memory and mood by increasing dopamine and serotonin. Sesame seeds contain lipophilic antioxidants, which may prevent age-related diseases.

I’m making this salad to take to my friend’s BBQ tonight. Yes, feed some goodness to the crowd! She and her husband are off to a 2 or 3-year-long-caravan trip soon. Her husband is originally from Melbourne. So after going around up north, Broome and Alice Springs, they will eventually move back to Melbourne where we can meet up again hopefully in a couple of years time. I’m so excited for them and cannot wait to hear about all the random stories about camping. I’ve never done real camping before. We call it “Glam-ping” in Korea (Daniel will nod his head). We enjoy all fun parts like barbequing, playing games, relaxing in the tent or caravan car during the day, campfire, chit-chats at night. Then we go and sleep in hotel, which means no sharing dirty bathrooms or uncomfortable air-mattress. The hotel we stayed in Jeju island for our honeymoon actually has a package for it. There is even guys setting up the barbeque and cleaning up afterwards. Well..maybe it is a bit extreme, but sounds good to me 🙂 I should try real camping one day.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of cooked chickpeas
3 carrots
2 cups of green salad
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp of za’atar spice blend (1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds, 2 tsp ground sumac, 4 tbsp dried thyme and 1/2 tsp sea salt blended in a food processor)
1 tbsp of pepitas
1 stick of feta cheese

For dressing
1 tsp of za’atar spice blend
1 tsp of tahini paste
1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp of e.v.o.o
a squeeze of lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Combine cooked chickpeas, sliced carrots, coconut oil and za’atar spice in a mixing bowl. Put it in the preheated oven (180) for 30 minutes until cooked, tossing them occasionally. In the meantime, make a za’atar-tahini dressing. Combine roasted chickpeas, carrots, chopped tomatoes and green salad with half of the dressing. Transfer to a salad bowl. Sprinkle pepitas and crumbled feta cheese. Drizzle the rest of the dressing on top.