Cafe Style Grated Carrot Salad - FFWD

We´ve chosen a carrot salad for today´s recipe from Around My French Table.

I made this at the last minute and ate it for dinner with a blackened piece of rump steak. It was, much to my amazement, wonderful. We really liked it.

As far as salad simplicity goes this is almost just grated carrots, considering the walnuts, raisins and parsley are optional ingredients in the recipe. The rest is just raw carrots and a honey mustard vinaigrette. And for that you need a recipe?

Well, the vinaigrette is, according to my taste buds, perfect. I make this kind of dressing a lot, and usually end up with an un-balanced result and spend the next five minutes adjusting it. A little bit more honey, then it needs more salt, but then it tastes too salty so it´s a bit more vinegar, and so it goes…

So this vinaigrette is a staple from now on in my house. I´ll have a jar of it at all times in the fridge and suspect will be using it on everything.

I had been posting, and consequently eating, a lot of bread, scones, cakes, you know all very healthful and appropriate for the thighs kind of food. It was the perfect moment for a salad.

So, in the end, this recipe delivered, especially since I love dried fruits and nuts in a salad. Next time though, I would plump up the raisins a bit in boiling water before adding them.

Last month I missed a few recipes because of a crazy work schedule. So, I also made the Lemon Barley Pilaf, since it was another extremely easy recipe and I had bought a bag of pearl barley at the time.

This is good for winter. A mound of al dente barley cooked in broth, with red peppers, green onions, lemon zest and carrots. Easy, flavorful and with a lot of color.

After taking a few pics, though there´s not much to do with a bowl of barley, I took a bite. A few minutes later I had eaten the whole thing. Guess you could say I liked it.