Salad 7 | The salad flower

How to get rid of stress after work? My advice is that "Cook something". Just like me this evening. Finishing work about 20:30pm, going back home, thinking of ordering food and being lazy... the problem was that the delivery food did not sound very exciting to me. So, stress is another excuse for me to create.

This evening, in about 30minutes, here is what I created:

THE SALAD FLOWER

• Orange (01)
• Tomatoes (02)
• Mixed salads (you can buy the mixed salad bag, I think, it's about 13,000VND/bag)
• Bacon (I love bacon very much :))
• French bean (haricot vert / đậu cô ve)
• Emmental cheese (shredded)
• Carrot (shredded)
• Poached eggs (02)
• Bread (01)
• Sauce: herb anise, mustard, vinegar, olive oil

Salad 6 | Emmental in the green garden

One of the things I really look forward to every Sunday is to have time to buy things to fill up the fridge and get all the ingredients I would like to try available at home. I did not have much time to go to Metro or An Phu SuperMarket or An Nam in District 2. I think there should be more kinds of salad available for me to choose. Finally, I sticked to Central Market at Saigon Pearl and Thi Nghe market for convenience.
Among all items I bought, here are things I used for the food creation today.

KIWI PEAR SALAD

• Romaine lettuce (01 bag as sold in the supermarket) 
• 01 pear
• 01 kiwi
• Bacon (01 bag as sold in the supermarket)
• Emmental cheese 
• Pepper
• Mustard 
• Olive oil 

FRESH GREEN ROLLS

• Mustard leaves (04 leaves)
• Fresh rice noodles
• Egg (01, fried)
• Carrot (0.5) 
• Herb anise 
• Meat pie
• Pork (boiled) 
• Shrimp 

It is the first time I have kiwi and use it for salad. My dear said to me that "It was amazing... a perfect combination. It is the best salad so far." It was somehow a surprise to me as this Kiwi-Pear salad took me less much time than the others. It was so simple to prepare, but the outcome was so great: the juicy sweet pear mixed with the salty crispy bacon and the little sour kiwi and the crunchy lettuce and the cheese... It is so pure. I called it "Less is more."

Tip: A good sharp knife is so important for your cooking. I recently have bought a Japanese knife for fish cutting and found it really helpful. 

Salad 5 | The surprise salad box

A salad box to share with C&T at their place this evening... It took me 60 minutes to finish: a salad box for 4 pax and a bottle of fresh carrot-dragon fruit juice. I called this salad box "The Surprise Balls" as I made some meat balls with its inside of random stuff: olive, cheese, sun dried tomato, carrot...

Salad 4 | The game of food creation

It was Saturday and it rained heavily, again. That was perfect for my food creation game. No time pressure at all. I spent 02 hours and cracked my brain to create something still fresh but fun. This idea was inspired by an article I read about a Polish artist, Boguslaw Sliwinski, and his food artwork. 
This evening, I used:

• Some bush of green salad

• Fresh salmon

• Mackerel (silver fish)

• Octopus 

• Fish eggs 

• Sesame

• Japanese rice

• Some basilica leave

• Mini tomatoes

• Seaweeds

• Meat pie

• Meat balls

• Ginger

• Beetroot

• Avocado

• Cucumber

With all these, I created:

1. Bigball Boat: green salad in the shape of a boat with 04 big meat balls with green rice covered
2. Parachute Fishes: deep-fried egg fish with a decoration at their tail like they were parachuting
3. A Happy Sunny Day: a mix of sashimi in the shape of the happy earth planet (do you see the little plants with egg fish as their fruits?) and a happy sun - my sun is happy when he can dry his hair and wears his sunglasses :)
4. Fish Love: two little fish, one following the other, around the coral flowers... 
5. Rice Bugs: two bowls of rice reminding of some bugs... 

I really had a great time when creating these. Next time, if I have to do it again, surely it will be shorter than 02 hours... as the thinking process to have some ideas takes quite long... 

I look forward to more time at home and creating with food... It is really fun!