In reds Manchester, probably wrong day/weather for this but burnt ends be good.

I'm at a comedy thing so missing dinner. Gonna get Lebanese on the way home

Good bark on that? The outer crust, falling off the meat but a little crunchy and intense with seasoning is my favourite bit.

GooberTheHat wrote:

OK, how about cucumber salad with rice vinegar, fish sauce and lime dressing?

1 cucumber, peeled, split down the middle and deseeded, then sliced into 5mm thick slices.

4 spring onions sliced.

2 red chillies thinly sliced.

Shallots or sweet mild onions, whatever you can get out there. About the equivalent amount as a large onion, very thinly sliced.

A handful of toasted cashew nuts.

Handful of chopped coriander.

Handful of chopped mint.

Mix it all up in a bowl.

For the dressing, 4tbsp rice vinegar (I'm assuming this is available?)
5tbsp fish sauce
1tbsp (give or take) palm sugar or brown sugar.
Juice of one lime.

So I made this.

Wasn't able to get the mint - herbs are an absolute pain to get here as the Chinese tend not to use green herbs much in their cooking. So, it's dried or nowt, and even among the dried selection there was no mint.

So, dropped that, but did the rest as ordered.

Absolutely lush, loved it. I upped the chilli content, admittedly, but otherwise stuck to the plan. Cool, refreshing, tangy, the first mouthful was a proper surprise. Will make it again later in the week.

Thanks goobs. Any more no-fuss stuff you know?

I'd love that, yeah, thanks.

Yeah, the herb growing is something I will definitely do - I actually did that before and was a godsend, but when I moved to Hainan I didn't pick it back up again. Gonna move in October probs (closer to uni) and I'll grow ma own.

I'll pass on the beef, though - it sucks here. Locals don't seem to mind - beef is beef to them, but growing up on a farm raised my standards somewhat.

Aye, considered prawns when I finished eating it. Not that it was missing anything, was just pondering variations. Prawns are totes plentiful here, cheap and delicious.

Man, that sounds awesome.

I recently had the perfect banoffee pie in ice cream form. No doubt that will become one of my favourites.

Tomato salad.

Get as many different varieties of tomatoes as you can, slice them up and layer them on a serving plate. Sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt.

Slice a red onion into wafer thin rings, and soak in some white wine/rice vinegar or white balsamic for about 5 minutes. Layer them on the tomatoes.

Make a dressing with a minced clove of garlic, 1 tsp dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon vinegar (whatever white vinegar you have), 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Mix it well and drizzle on top.

If you can get it, fresh basil leaves and mozzarella goes perfectly to.

Smuggle one back in your suitcase for me.

They new what they were doing.

Tried the above.

Shame I couldn't get mozzarella and basil as I always tend to have those with toms when I do tomato salads. Also, rock salt was a no go.

But, I really liked it. It was the red onion in vinegar that made it.

For some reason, nowhere sells cherry tomatoes right now, so I just had some biggies and checked in some sun dried tomatoes too. Those combined with the dressing made a really nice lunch.

I think I overdid the Dijon a bit - taste was fine, but maybe my teaspoon was overly generous as I wasn't really able to "drizzle" - I shall adjust next time.

Overall, satisfying as fuck and I'll adjust the proportions next time. I also bought another cucumber, some cashews and a lime to do a repeat of yesterday's salad for dinner.

I'm also in the process of trying to source some good beef, so I can do the suggestion @Kow put forward.

If its not too much bother, I'd be more than happy to try out more recipes for salads and simple non-oven dishes people have. I seriously fucking love cooking (and eating) but I'll admit I've gotten a bit lazy the last year or two, Chinese food excepted.

The last two days have been good for food. Thanks.

Made chicken, hot dogs and BBQ sauce for @Cherry_Pez and @woodimari last night, think it went down well.

thread makes me want a thai style papaya salad.

It's just fish lime juice and salad really

http://mexican.food.com/recipe/mexican-ceviche-8899

Coriander is going to be the hard bit to replace.