a big bowl full of caprese blt salad

Straight to the recipe tonight for caprese blt salad because yesterday, as usual, I waffled on with nonsense. But first, I do have one urgent question to ask…

Tea. My parents are having a right old dingdong about who is right when it comes to making a bog-standard cup of tea. Do you put the milk in first like my father or last like my mother? Please: leave a comment or a Facebook comment below and let me know. In the interests of balance, I’ve managed to quickly screenshot the various Facebook messages showing both sides of the argument. I may have touched the colour balance up on the photos but that’s the only change I’ve made, I swear.

Mother:

Father:

And for some reason Paul’s mother got in on the act:

So who is right? Milk in first or milk in last? Don’t be all cosmopolitan about it – we’re talking just normal tea, nothing fancy, served in a cup from a Smarties Easter Egg back from 1993. Comments please!

caprese blt salad

caprese blt salad

to make a big bowl full of caprese blt salad you will need:

  • 160g cous cous (or 400g cooked cous cous)
  • 40g rocket leaves
  • 150g lettuce
  • 2 reduced-fat mozzarella balls (roughly half a ball each will be 1 HeA)
  • 300g cherry tomatoes
  • 2 balls of steamed beetroot (or whatever you have)
  • 8 bacon medallions (you’ll get loads of syn free ones in our Musclefood deal!)
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of pepper
  • pinch of oregano

Fair warning: we love to roast the hell out of our tomatoes and beetroot, hence the blackened look above, but you don’t need to be quite so keen!

to make a a big bowl full of caprese blt salad you should:

  • preheat the oven to 200°c
  • slice the tomatoes and place on a baking sheet, cut side up
  • dice the beetroot and place alongside the tomatoes, and spray the lot with a little oil
  • grind over some salt and sprinkle with some oregano and roast for about 30 minutes (keep an eye on them though)
  • cook the bacon under a grill until nice and crisp
  • cook the cous cous according to the packet instructions
  • when everything is cooked, throw it all together in a big bowl!

How’s that for fresh? We like to cook this on a Sunday, triple the amounts and make six packed lunches with it to see us through to Wednesday. I know, we’re good like that.

We’ve got plenty more to keep you going, just click on one of the buttons below to find even more of our recipes:

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J

Comments

comments

21 thoughts on “a big bowl full of caprese blt salad

  1. From a Tea fanatic – milk only goes in the cup first if you are using a Teapot! Milk goes in after, if you are lazy and put a bag in a cup! (otherwise the tea is a funny camel poo colour)!

    PS – love your diary entries. They make my day!

  2. I always put it in first (the milk, you mucky bugger) because I don’t take sugar or sweetener and pouring the tea into the milk mixes it up so i don’t need to dirty a spoon stirring it – putting the milk in last makes it go all streaky if you don’t stir it.

  3. I always add milk after as I only take a teeny tiny little bit and it’s easier to gauge when the tea has been poured. In fact I dip a clean spoon into the top of the milk carton so I don’t end up with too much in!

  4. I don’t drink tea but if it’s made in a tea pot then the milk in the cup first. If it’s made in the mug then it’s water first and wait until the bag has brewed before adding milk or you end up with a mug of piss.

  5. I agree with the above..if you make tea in the pot then milk goes in first and if you’re using a teabag then water first, leave to brew then add the milk when you’ve taken the bag out otherwise the milk stops the tea from seeping. Best way is from a teapot in a China cup! Old fashioned but delicious..especially with a slice of homemade cake!!

  6. Traditionally tea would be drank from China teacups and putting the hot tea straight from the teapot into the cup could cause the cup to crack so the milk would be put in the cup first to lower the temperature of the tea. However, if you’re drinking it out of a mug and the water is going straight from the kettle to the mug with a teabag waiting, putting the milk in first prevents the tea leaves from reaching the heat they need to in order to release the flavours of the tea. So milk first if you’re drinking from china and the tea has properly infused in a teapot, milk last if you’re putting water straight into a cup with a waiting tea bag!

  7. In the olden days, when teabags hadn’t been invented, tea was made in a teapot with loose leaves. Milk had to go in the cup first so that any stray leaves stayed at the bottom of the cup and could give a nice psychic reading after the tea had been drunk. If you put the milk in last the leaves floated to the top and you got a clip round the ear! When teabags came along, the instructions were that if you brewed it in a mug you had to put the milk in last as tea needs boiling water to brew, but if you’re brewing with teabags in a teapot it really doesn’t matter what order you put them together so long as you don’t put the milk in the teapot!

  8. Tea etiquette dictates tea, then milk, then sugar. But I recall a health and safety TV campaign that recommended milk first because it lowered the temperature and reduced the chance of a bad scald if you spilt a cup. It even had two old dears having the very same “milk first or last” argument. Of course, the “milk last” lady got badly scalded and was hauled off on a stretcher moaning – health and safety didn’t pull punches in the 70s!

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