Time has really flown since my last post. My visa is all sorted and I am now home in London, down to unpacking the last box and getting used to having doors within the flat after living in a studio for over 4 years.
I had an amazing time in Malaysia, mostly because my best girls are there and took such great care of me. I love you girls! They threw me a brilliant birthday dinner surprise, complete with flowers and cheesecakes in little cupcake forms. And if that wasn’t lovely enough, they bought my ticket as a birthday present when we watched ‘Train’ performing at KL Live. It was an event I will be telling my grandkids about…such a cool band, such a great concert!
We also watched ‘The Avengers’ together, went to a day spa (so good they fixed my sprained ankle and I fell asleep) and shopped. A lot…of which had to be shipped home in a box weighing 17.49 kilos. To be fair, they contain a lot of blog props therefore are investments into my future café. Okay, okay…yes it also contains 5 pairs of shoes but I blame that on the Malaysia Sale season. Plus, Limmy also said we needed to do our part to help boost the economy in such dire times. And so, try we did.
Another thing we did a lot of was eat. I should have put on the weight of a cow with so much food and more beer than I drink in the UK, but it must have been all that laughter we had burning all those calories…
We ate out a fair bit but I still got to cook for the girls. One of the nights we had grilled stuffed peppers and I made this salad of endive, fennel, Danish creamy blue and walnuts to go with it. I love the contrast of crisp leaves, spicy fennel, crunchy walnuts, and soft creamy cheese all tossed in a sweet balsamic dressing. I made this salad again a couple of nights ago and we had it with pork shoulders seasoned with fleur de sel and black pepper roasted at 180˚C for 30 minutes, turning once. At the end of the roasting time I upped the temperature to 200˚C for another 5 minutes each side to give the meat a luscious caramel colour and crisp the fat from the shoulder steaks. Delicious!
I’ll be back with more stories from my trip, meanwhile enjoy this salad and I hope the sun is shining where you are at!
4 side salads
1 baby fennel
4 large leaves from an iceberg lettuce
¼ cup walnuts
50g creamy blue cheese
For the dressing
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Pinch of fleur de sel
Pinch of freshly cracked black pepper
1 tsp soft brown sugar
Separate the endive leaves and quarter the cob, place into a large colander. Roughly tear the iceberg lettuce leaves into the colander. Rinse thoroughly under running water to ensure you clean off any dirt from the leaves and cores. Leave to drain or dry in a salad spinner. Then transfer into a salad bowl.
Next, julienne the fennel and add to the endive and lettuce leaves. Leave to chill in the refrigerator until you are just about to serve the salad.
Roughly chop the walnuts and add to the salad leaves. Then add small cubes of the creamy blue cheese.
Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together until the sugars dissolve. Pour into the salad and lightly toss. Serve immediately.
You can prepare the dressing beforehand, just leave it to chill or set aside to toss salad only when you are ready to serve the salad.
I use the House of Castello creamy Danish blue cheese. If serving with roasted pork shoulders I would recommend using 75g of creamy blue as they go so well with the saltiness from the shoulder steaks.