dinner date - bulgur wheat salad

I've been a rather absentee blogger of late. I had been doing a psychology internship and much of my time over the past couple of months was spent finishing (or starting) assignments and preparing for oral exams. Hence my lack of blogging. Thankfully all went smoothly with my exams and I am now qualified as a Health Psychologist, with two new jobs at North Shore and Middlemore hospitals.

Now that I have reclaimed my weekends and evenings, I'm hoping to try out new recipes and keep up the blogging. Thanks Libby and Becky who have keep the blog ticking along nicely in my absence.

This bulgur wheat salad was not so much a new recipe but rather a freestyle creation made using whatever I found in the cupboard, pantry and garden.


After the above harvest of courgettes and fresh herbs I inspected the pantry and fridge and found a few veges that would roast well (including onions from the garden, potatoes, kumara, red pepper and some rather sad looking mushrooms). These seemed fitting to some sort of salad, so chopped up the veges and coated them with olive oil, some macadamia paste, salt and pepper and roasted them until cooked.

There was a packet of course bulgur wheat in the pantry which I soaked hot water for around 20 minutes until cooked. I stirred through the roast veges along with the fresh herbs and generous amounts of some basil pesto I made earlier in the day. The salad was garnished with sunflower and pumpkin seeds and extra pesto.

This was a delicious throw together kind of meal, with great textures, flavours and colours. The seeds add a lovely crunch and the nutty flavour of the macadamia paste also adds a nice dimension. I really rate bulgur wheat as a base for salads (far more than buckwheat which always tastes to me like it's not quite cooked properly). Although we ate this for dinner it would be a great salad to take to work for lunch.... lucky I made lots so there was leftovers for lunch.