Healthy Eating: Food and Health with Healthy Eating Recipes by Lucy Hyland at Food For Living

Friday 17th

Check out my article in the Cork Independent this week or read below:

Dressing it up

I was talking to a girl the other day at my nutrition clinic. She was telling me how much easier it was to stay focused on healthy eating during the summer. She felt that the season was filled with salads and the variety of fruit, making them a more natural choice. Not only can you have great variety in the types of vegetables you can have with your salads, but you can also create a variety of dressings to with them. So what can you do yourself in the kitchen?

Many people tell me that they find vegetables a little boring. Yet, they tend to do the same things with the same vegetables every day. Boil and serve is what I tend to hear the most! But the summer allows us to try vegetables in a different way: slicing, grating, steaming and roasting veggies can create completely different textures and flavours.

Not only can we cook and prepare our veggies in a different way, we can also create different salad dressings every day if we choose. Once we understand what the basics, we can shape the dressing to suit our needs. Generally, the basic formula is this – 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. The most healthy choice in terms of oils are cold pressed virgin oils as these have not been effected by manufacturing and processing techniques. I find many shop made dressings tend to use oils such as ‘vegetable oil’.

With regard to the vinegar, you can choose whatever suits your taste. Balsamic, cider, white wine and red wine are just some of the options. However, I tend to substitute vinegar with lemon or lime juice for an even fresher taste.

From here, you can create anything! Use mustard, garlic or ginger to create a zingy taste, use cumin or coriander, chilli or paprika to create a spicy taste, use soya sauce to create a more Asian flavour. In addition, blend in a few fresh or dried herbs, such as parsley, mint, fresh coriander or basil to really let the dressing come alive.

Simple homemade dressing

90 ml extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
1 teaspoon mustard
½ teaspoon honey
½ teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

Combine all of the ingredients and whisk well.
Use as much as you need at a time and then place in the fridge for up to a few weeks.

Wheat free, dairy free, gluten free