The clocks have gone back. That's it. It might only be a mild 16 degrees and the sky might be blue with bright sunshine and the garden might still be very green and the banana trees might still have their leaves but none of that matters because as soon as the clocks go back that one precious little hour at the end of October, that's it for me. It's winter.
Apart from sulking at the fact that it's dark at 5 o'clock in the afternoon it's also time to rake up all the leaves, clean out the greenhouse, plant violas, cyclamens and pansies and curl up with warm soups, hot chocolates and my early winter favourite - mulled wine! I think we'll have a go at preparing our own mulled wine this year instead of buying the usual sachet filled with cloves and cinnamon. Yes, this year we'll create our own little bundle of spicy goodness to place in a pot of warming red wine. Mmm...delicious!
Anyway, before I get carried away thinking about warm spicy wine, onto something not very warm at all. A few days ago we decided to make a Waldorf salad with the apples from the apple tree. There are so many apples on there at the moment and so many shapes and sizes too. Some extra large ones to some tiny little baby ones and all sorts of shapes too as some have grown in peculiar places like squashed between small little gaps in the branches so they're plump on one side, skinny in the middle and plump again at the end. I suppose that's what happens when you try to grow too much in a tiny space like ours. So with an apple corer in one hand and a couple of unusually-shaped apples in another we decided to desert the sweet for the savoury and make a winter Waldorf salad.
This is one of the simplest recipes I could find. Some recipes use yoghurt instead of mayonnaise but having recently invested in a very large jar of garlic mayonnaise we decided to add a tiny twist to the recipe by opting for garlic mayonnaise instead of ordinary mayonnaise.
Wintery Waldorf salad
Ingredients
2 large (round or not very round) apples
4 tbsp garlic mayonnaise
1 tbsp French Dijon mustard
2 stalks of celery
1 tbsp freshly-squeezed lemon juice
Walnuts, generous helping
Watercress, a handful
Method
1. Core the apples and cut into slices and then mix with the lemon juice to prevent from browning.
2. Cut the celery sticks into chunks and add to the apples.
3. Mix the mayonnaise and mustard together in a salad bowl and then add the apples and celery and toss together until well coated.
4. Sprinkle the walnuts and watercress on top. Crunchy and delicious!
2 comments:
Hi. I've never made a Waldorf salad before - I think I might have to give this recipe a go. How is the Hungarian grazing rye doing? Are they growing merrily yet? BTW can we see some pics of you in action in the garden?
Hello! Funnily enough the tares has taken over the Hingarian grazing rye. I think the grazing rye needed to be planted earlier to take root - not sure. On the plots of the vegetable patch where we planted both, the tares is definitely coming out stronger.
As for pictures of me in action, there are very few. There may be some of my bright yellow and purple spotted wellies but I think that's about it...Never too late to take some photos though...
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