Carrot and sesame salad

Since we find ourselves newly (and officially, at least) in spring time, I thought I'd share a salad recipe. There will be more to come. It's a really easy one, but it does call for some ingredients that are not quite as common as those that usually feature here. Hopefully you'll forgive me just this once... besides, they're not completely weird.

This is another of the recipes I found the time I bought too many carrots. I can't remember the source.

Ingredients

4 large carrots
45ml rice vinegar (if you don't usually have a use for rice vinegar, white wine vinegar is almost as good)
30ml corn oil (if you don't have any, use olive oil or any vegetable oil)
5ml sesame oil (I'm afraid I can't suggest a more common substitute for this, and it really makes a difference to the taste of the salad. Fortunately, you can get fairly small bottles, and it works very well for salad dressings and Chinese food)
5ml toasted sesame seeds (once again, this is must have)
15ml (or so) moist raisins

Method

• Clean/peel and grate the carrots coarsely and set aside until needed.
• Mix together the vinegar and the oils and mix through the carrots.
• Add the sesame seeds and raisins and toss the salad until you have a roughly even distribution.

Carrot and lime soup

There's something I should confess to right here and now: I am a lime addict. I absolutely adore the taste of limes and am inclined to use them instead of lemons in pretty much any recipe. So, when I stumbled across this recipe, it was a have-to-have.

The recipe itself is one of those 'unknown origin' types, which I found somewhere when looking for ideas to use up a large quantity of carrots after I accidentally bought carrots twice in two days (as you do).

The taste of this soup is a little unusual. I would describe it as hot-and-sour, and I would advise against serving it to owners of conservative palates.

Ingredients

1 large onion, chopped
Little olive oil for frying
500g carrots, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
75g uncooked brown rice
1 or 2 red chillies (to taste), seeded and chopped
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
Juice of 1 lime
A little sugar and salt (if necessary, and to taste) - I use about 10ml sugar and no salt
Natural yoghurt for serving

Zhoozh it in the blender

Method

• Heat a little olive oil in a large pan and gently fry the onions. 
• Add the garlic and carrots, stir, cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
• Stir in the raw rice, chillies and stock and simmer until the carrots are tender and the rice is soft.
• Add the lime juice. Taste and adjust with sugar and/or salt if necessary.
• Blend and serve with a swirl of natural yoghurt and crusty bread.

Wendy Wilson's banana, carrot and nut cake

 And so yesterday you met the Kitchen Crusader. She will be guest blogging here from time to time. I hope that you will feel encouraged to swing by her blog and try some of her recipes. She is a far more creative cook than I am! She also (and this is important) eats tomatoes. I don't, so without her input, there would be a paucity of tomato recipes on this blog. Not that she will be sharing only tomato recipes here, I hasten to add. Next week's recipe is something completely different, and one I can't wait to try myself!

Banana, carrot and nut cake

This recipe came from about the same period as the banana loaf recipe, but it comes from a different Wendy. I gather that she is no longer a Wilson, but she was when she gave me the recipe, so we'll stick with that. Wendy' speciality was cakes. She baked magnificent cakes and generously shared her recipes with all comers. I am about to share one of them with you. Apologies for the 'hotspot' in the photo - my photography skills need work (I also need a better camera, but hey ho).

Ingredients

250ml sugar
250ml oil
3 eggs
375ml plain (cake) flour
7.5ml baking powder
7.5ml bicarbonate of soda
10ml ground cinnamon
250ml grated carrot (about one 5"/12cm carrot)
250ml mashed banana (about 3 smallish bananas)
250ml chopped nuts

Icing:
375ml icing sugar
15ml butter
15ml cream cheese
Plain yoghurt
Little lemon juice

Method

• Cream sugar, oil and eggs well.
• Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb and cinnamon together and add to the creamed mixture.
• Add remaining ingredients. Blend well together.
• Pour into a deep cake pan and bake at 160C for about an hour. Check from time to time with a skewer.
• Allow to cool on a rack. Don't ice it until it has cooled down completely.

Icing:

The icing should gently run over the edge

• Mix a little icing sugar with the butter and cream cheese until creamed.
• Alternate adding more icing sugar and yoghurt and a few drops of lemon juice until the mixture is just stiff enough to run over the edge of the cake when poured on top.
• Pour gently and slowly onto top centre of the cake.