Vegetable salad for afternoon
It may happen that you had an early lunch but there still is plenty of time to wait until dinner. What to do?
You can prepare a light afternoon meal as a vegetable salad.
Ingredients
- Half of a red pepper, about 75 grams
- Cucumber, about 100 grams
- Leeks, about 100 grams
- Two tablespoons of 12-18% sour cream, about 50 grams
- Tablespoon of Provencal mayonnaise, about 20 grams
- A pinch of salt
If you like to count, it’s a total of about 315 calories (Kcal).
Preparation
Cut the leek lengthwise into four parts and then into slices. Do the same with cucumber, then clean peppers and cut into mid-sized cubes.
After that everything goes into a salad bowl, add on top soured cream, mayonnaise and salt. Mix it and taste if any seasoning is needed.
You can eat this with rye bread; butter on the bread isn’t even necessary because the salad is juicy enough.
Leeks
Leeks are one of my favourite vegetables, so a little about those here.
Leeks can be bought in grocery shops all year round. It is often called an herb and used as an additive to food, although I think everybody can use it as a base product for various types of salads and in other ways, such as fried on pan vegetables, too.
The white and light green parts of the leaves of leeks are mostly used for salads, although the darkest part contains more flavour. For this reason, the darker part is usually fried or used to make leek soup.
Organic leeks are like onions, their development has a two-year cycle. In the first year, the leeks form the part below the soil and leaves, but in the second year, they bloom and form seeds. Leek leaves are rich in vitamin C, their lover part contains carotene and the specific smell is provided by essential oils. I have read somewhere that the content of vitamin C in leeks increases when you store it.
Leeks have one negative feature – small grains of sand from the soil almost always accumulate between their leaves, so they should be cleaned of sand before use. There are two ways to do this and it depends on how the leeks will be used.
If you cook soup, getting rid of grains of sand is relatively easy. 
Cleaning leeks involves first slicing them lengthwise and rinsing them under running water. Then slice the leeks crosswise, and soak the slices in water (when preparing a salad I avoid doing it so that there is no water).
Cleaning leeks involves first slicing them lengthwise and rinsing them under running water. Then slice the leeks crosswise, and soak the slices in water (when preparing a salad I avoid doing it so that there is no water).
If whole leeks are needed for cooking, cleaning them is a bit trickier. Again, to get them cleaned, use a knife to cut in half the part where the leaves begin and rinse the cut part thoroughly under tap water. Then cut off the upper part of the green leaves and roots and that’s everything you need to do.