Cooking: Salade à trois

I'm trying to make vegetables my main food these days. I think it's because it's summer and I'm constantly dehydrated. I've been adding an extra vegetable or two to most of my meals, making entire meals around salads, and eating lots more raw fruit and veggies. I'm into it.

I usually start cooking with only half an idea of what I'm going to make. With this one it was "warm salad" and my ingredients were asparagus and swiss chard. Often I'll throw everything together at the end of a recipe to make a big stewy mush, but for whatever reason I chose to keep the flavours separate and made three different salads. It worked out well and made for a light and satisfying summer dinner.

Here's how you do it:

Put lentils and twice as much water into a pot with a pinch of salt and bring them to a boil. Add a splash of Bragg's or soy sauce, a pile of dill (I used dried, better to use fresh), and a pinch of cumin. Once boiling, lower the heat and cook until the lentils are soft and most of the water's gone.

In a frying pan, cook diced onions with olive oil. Add the asparagus, cut into inch-long pieces and then the swiss chard, finely chopped, once the asparagus is soft enough to eat. When the vegetables are cooked (err on the side of underdone), add salt and a squeeze of lime to taste.

After a week of making lunchtime salads I had half a carrot left in the fridge so I grated it and mixed it together in a bowl with green apple chopped into tiny squares. I added a bit of apple cider vinegar (which I have around the house to make this facial toner and my third salad was complete. You could totally add honey or cinnamon or lemon juice or raisins or sunflower seeds or like a million other delicious things.

(sorry for the crappy cellphone picture)

Recipes by Tessa Gold Smith