Baxter & Vincent: Leon Happy Salads

John Vincent and Jane Baxter

You may already know how to make a good salad to finish off a meal All you need is a good selection of green lettuces, perhaps some tomatoes in season, a few snippets of herbs, and a lemony vinaigrette.

That is only the beginning.

Long, hot, summery days are stretching before you and you need more than a light salad to get you through them.

Jane Baxter & John Vincent’s Leon: Happy Salads (Conran 2016) will turn you into a salad wizard, spinning puns with your lettuces, and cranking out a different salad for practically every day of the year.

Happy Salads by Jane Baxter and John VincentThe book starts off with familiar composed salads like Nicoise (p. 10), Lyonnaise (p. 13), and Prawn (p. 14). Each is presented in a full-page photograph by Tamin Jones. Then the punning starts for some very fun salads like Farro & Wide (p. 119) “The salad you’ve been search for.” This one is loaded with crunch fennel, radish and smokey farro and parsley. The Has-Bean (p. 131) has protein-rich broad beans, Puy lentils, as well as peas and sugar snaps. It certainly beats three-bean salad from the deli. And the Beet Goes On (p. 152) has, you guessed it, beets, but also feta, pistachios and lots of other colorful vegetables. There are plenty of other non-pun salads in this chapter for Food for Friends.

Buy a package of Freekeh and make Get Your Freekeh On (p. 190) and then use it for Vegetable Freekah with Date Yoghurt (p. 87) and Hot-Smoked Salmon (p. 91) with a snappy dressing of crème fraiche, horseradish, and lemon. Is your vegetable patch producing too much zucchini and summer squash? Try Karen’s Squash Salad (p. 100) with garam masala, peppers, mint, more beans, and nuts. The bonus is that it will keep in the refrigerator for a few days without the fresh herbs. The squash salad is in a chapter on Lunch Box salads. Pack Chicken with Sweetcorn Dressing (p. 112) packed in a wide-mouth jar in the photograph. It would make a wonderful salad to take to a potluck or a picnic.

Pack Leon: Happy Salads in your suitcase for your next holiday so that you will remember to eat health, light, and colorfully. Salads aren’t boring as long as you have imagination and a good guide.

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