HOW TO MAKE A WATERMELON, FETA CHEESE, RED ONION AND MINT SALAD

Good Morning to you,

When I lived in Cyprus, I used to look forward to the watermelon season, because Cypriot watermelons were delicious and I have to tell you, they were huge.... yes, so huge that we could never do them justice in just one sitting.  So to make sure we did not waste any of this lovely fruit, we would cut the watermelon in half, keep one and share the other half with friends..... if only I had known about watermelon juice back then, we could have enjoyed many glasses of the refreshing juice during the long hot summer months.

So as you can imagine, when we visited New Delhi, I was thrilled to discover that watermelons were in season. 

The watermelons were so fresh, because they had not travelled very far. Cart loads of melons would trundle into the city everyday from the surrounding villages. 

So today, in honour of my love of Cyprus and India, yes, I think you have guessed, one of the ingredients we are going to be using is, watermelon. We are going to make

a Watermelon salad.  It is fresh and zingy and we love it.  It may seem a bit of a strange combination, but the sweetness of the watermelon and the tang of the Feta cheese and red onion work really well together.

So its 'on with the pinnie' and the music, I am listening to is, Indian Bhangra music, which transports me straight back to India.

Nath Dig Pey sung by TEAMBPN (PBN, BAMBI AND RAJ BAINS)

Click on the YouTube link (I do hope it works as it is the first time I have added a YouTube link..... fingers crossed) and I feel sure, you will be foot tapping, if not dancing around your kitchen... I know I am.  I find Bhangra music so infectious..... the music starts and I feel my shoulders moving up and down in time to the music and then that's it, I'm in a world of my own. 

So with my shoulders taking on a life of their own, it's time to organise my ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

YOU WILL NEED

TO MAKE

WATERMELON, FETA CHEESE, RED ONION

AND MINT SALAD

2 small red onions (you will use only one)

1/2 water melon

2 large lemons

200g Feta cheese

8-10 fresh mint leaves

black pepper

1 tablespoon of olive oil

HOW TO MAKE

WATERMELON, FETA CHEESE, RED ONION

AND MINT SALAD

THE NIGHT BEFORE

We are going to tenderise the red onions with the lemon juice, so you will need to do this the night before you make the salad.

Peel the onions

and

slice into circles.

Pop into a bowl

Juice the two lemons.

Then 

pour the lemon juice over the onion rings.

  Toss together.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel and place in the fridge overnight.  

If you are happy with full flavoured onions,

 then leave the red onions in the fridge

 for three or four hours.

I soak the onions overnight as

personally I enjoy a much more

mellow flavoured onion.

We will only be using half of the sliced onion in this dish. 

So remove half and place into a separate dish.

 I will explain why at the end

of the recipe.

THE NEXT DAY

Cut the melon in half

(The recipe calls for half, but I assume you have bought a whole watermelon)

and then,

into quarters.

Remove the rind and the pips and cut the

watermelon into 1 inch chunks.

Set aside for the moment.

Cut the Feta Cheese into roughly 1 inch cubes.

Set aside for the moment.

Wash the fresh mint and remove the leaves from the stem.

Place a third of the watermelon, 

a third of the Feta cheese 

and 

a third of the red onion into a large serving bowl 
and,

sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper.

Repeat the process until you have used all of the watermelon, Feta cheese and the red onion.

You will notice there is some watermelon juice left in the bottom of the bowl which held the watermelon.

Mix the watermelon juice

with,

 1 tablespoon of olive oil

 and 

1 tablespoon of lemon juice left over from the

 soaked onions

 and

 whisk together.

Pour the dressing over the salad

 and 

add the mint leaves

 and
 there you have it,
 a lovely fresh summer salad.

You must be wondering about the rest of the
 onion rings?

Well it's time to tell you, I pop them into a small Tupperware pot, with the left over lemon juice and keep them for the next day, when we use the other half of the watermelon to  re-make this salad.

I really don't mind having this watermelon salad twice as it really is a refreshing salad when the weather is warm.

.... or if you prefer, you could put them into a small dish and allow people to add extra red onion to the watermelon salad.

.... or you could add the onions to a cheese sandwich as George sometimes does.... he loves cheese and onion sandwiches.

Before I go, I realise some people say a watermelon is a fruit and some people say it is a vegetable.  I have always known it as a fruit. I was wondering, what about you, do you know it is a fruit or do you know it is a vegetable?

Take care and I will see you next Thursday.

This week I will be joining,

Natasha in Oz for Sundays Downunder

and

Miz Helen for Full Plate Thursday

THE TAJ MAHAL ~ THE DAY HAS ARRIVED

Good Morning to you,

'Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.'

'Watch With Mother'

1950's

I am so pleased to tell you, the time has finally arrived, we are going to visit the Taj Mahal together.

The excitement began on Friday evening, when we enjoyed a lovely meal with Natasha and her husband. It was agreed, that as we would be getting up so early on Saturday morning, it would be a good idea to have an early night..... but do you know what,  I couldn't sleep. When I finally managed to drift off, I found I kept waking up.  I often do this when I am excited about something, it's usually a mixture of excitement and concern. The concern is, that I will not hear the alarm when it rings in the morning and that I will oversleep. Of course this never happens, but it's a process I seem to go through time and time again.

I really did not need to worry though, because on Saturday morning, we were up bright and early at 4.30 am. We were showered and dressed by 5.00 am and downstairs in the lobby of The Oberoi by 5.10 am, where a lovely cup of Indian coffee was waiting for us.

We enjoyed our morning cup of coffee and we were ready for our adventure

.... and to our surprise, we discovered it had been raining during the night.  This brought a smile to our faces because it meant that the early morning would be cool and it would give us just enough time to visit the Taj Mahal before the sun rose and it became too hot. As you can imagine, it can be very hot in India and with temperatures which reach over 40C the morning rain was very welcome.

Our guide arrived and we were driven the short distance to the Taj Mahal.

We entered the grounds and there before us was,

The Great Gate.  As we walked towards the Great Gate our guide told us that The Taj Mahal was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan after the death of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

We walked through the Great Gate.

 and there, before us, in all its glory

was The Taj Mahal. 

Honestly I do not exaggerate when I tell you

that

it took my breath away. 

l wonder, do you recognise this bench?

This is the same marble bench, which  Diana, The Princess of Wales was sitting on, when she visited the Taj Mahal. My over riding memory of the photograph was how sad she looked, in such a beautiful setting.

So of course George and I had to take this photo opportunity.

I'll let you into a little secret.  Looking at this photo, all seems tranquil, but I have to tell you, it really was not.  There were so many people, waiting to have their photograph taken....  I wonder how many people have actually sat on this marble bench. When you consider that over 20,000 people a day, yes you read that correctly, 20,000 people a day visit the Taj Mahal in high season, I should imagine the number runs into millions.

We then made our way to the entrance of the tomb,

but before we could 

enter,

we had to don some attractive looking covers for our shoes. Mind you, we did have a choice, we could wear the shoe covers or we could have gone bare footed, but we all decided to enhance our outfits with these shoe covers..... so naturally we had to take a photograph.... we all do this type of thing don't we, take random photos of odd things.

From a distance, the fretwork looked like honeycomb but as we got nearer, I could see that what looked like honeycomb was in actual fact, beautifully carved  blocks of marble... honestly it is amazing to see first hand.  Each square that you can see, started life as a solid block of marble, which was then painstakingly cut into this fretwork.  If a piece of the fretwork was accidentally broken, then that piece of work would be discarded. Using a new piece of marble, the artisan would have to begin his work all over again.

Our guide told us it took over 20,000 artisans, 22 years to build the Taj Mahal. The work was commissioned in 1631 and ended in 1643, but it took a further 5 years to complete the surrounding gardens. 

When we walked through the Taj Mahal, I understood that the fretwork was not just  a thing of beauty, it had another purpose,  to allow the breeze to flow through the building, which in turn made the interior, so very cool. 

To create the flowers, which you can see in the photograph, each individual block of marble was chiseled to form the shape of flowers and a piece of semi precious stone was inlaid into the shape ..... a little like marquetry, but on a much larger scale. As you can see, the curls and swirls are so very thin, this must have been such painstaking work for the artisans.

.... and the calligraphy on the walls, was made by chiselling the letters and then inlaying with black marble. 

As we looked upwards, our tour guide asked us if we could see anything different about the calligraphy. We noticed that the further up the wall we looked the larger the script. We were told this was to avoid the script looking smaller when viewed from below.

Here you can see the size of the pieces of marble used. The weight must have been immense.

We enjoyed looking inside the mausoleum, but we were not allowed to take any photographs, so sadly I cannot show you inside.... but I can tell you that the vaulted dome ceiling was stunning as were the semi precious stones which were inlaid around the tomb. Honestly, when you see the Taj Mahal you realise what an amazing feat of architecture it is..... and remember it was built in 1631, when there were no lorries to transport the marble and no cranes to lift the marble.

The tomb we saw was not the actual tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, her tomb, was at a much lower level.  When the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan died, his tomb was built and placed next to his wife.

We stayed a while and then finally we wandered back towards The Great Gate,

..... and as a final goodbye, when we looked up, there in the distance, were a troupe of monkeys going about their day.  (I am sorry it is not a very clear picture, but they were quite a long way away.)

The sun rose and as we strolled along

 the avenue, both George and I agreed, 

we were very lucky to have visited 

The Taj Mahal. 

It was so kind of Natasha and her husband

 to treat us to this 

wonderful experience.

It is a memory which will stay with us forever.

Take care and I will see you next Thursday.

THE TAJ MAHAL ~ WE ARE ALMOST THERE

Good Morning to you,

I have travelled on many different roads, but I have to tell you, travelling on the roads of New Delhi is a totally unique experience and it certainly isn't for the faint hearted.

There are a number of ways to get through the experience. For instance,

you can close your eyes and listen to some soothing music and ignore what is going on around you

or

you can read a book and keep your eyes firmly fixed on the text and not be distracted by the sounds you will hear.

Of course, if you are brave enough, as George was, you can watch the comings and goings of the New Delhi traffic, but even George found it difficult to follow the rules, because just as he thought he understood them, a car would appear and travel up the wrong side of the road.

The most constant sound you will hear is the tooting of car horns. A toot to get out of the way, another toot to say you are there behind a car and finally a toot to say you are over taking. I have to say, I did not work out what the double toot meant... probably best to leave well alone. So much tooting.... so as you can imagine, driving is certainly not a relaxing experience.

For the first part of our journey to Agra, we had to do battle with the New Delhi traffic, in all its shapes and forms.... 

with its mix of cars, motor cycles and young men pushing their wheel carts

to the many auto rickshaws which are always in abundance.

New Delhi is a city which is always full of hustle and bustle and there are always so many people
 out and about, even at eleven
 or twelve o'clock at night.

So as you can guess, driving out of New Delhi was going to be quite an experience.

Having said that,

you can imagine my surprise, when

 after the hustle and bustle of New Delhi,

 we found ourselves travelling along a

 three lane expressway,

 which was devoid of traffic.  

There were no auto rickshaws, 

there were no motorbikes carrying families, 

there were no cars.... 

for quite a few miles there was just us, 

which seemed very strange, almost eerie. 

It was as if everyone else knew something 

we did not know
and 
that they had forgotten to tell us.

Then finally, we spotted a car on the other side of the expressway.... so a photo was in order, but still our road ahead was clear.

There was the odd spot of colour, which came from the pink of the bougainvillea

and the odd colourful house dotted along the way

and then slowly, but surely, the traffic  began to increase.

First there were a few cars and then

before we knew it, we were bumper to bumper.

A little way further and we saw the sign post for Agra.

We passed  the magnificent Red Fort which had been built in the 11th century.
You can find out more about the Red Fort
here

We passed the odd tractor, believe it or not this one was being pushed through the busy traffic, 

even a horse drawn cart, which surprisingly, was not nervous of the cars,
 passed us by

as did the cows.

Even an elephant... only teasing, no not a real one, but a stone carved elephant.

We continued through the busy streets of Agra, getting lost now and again, because the sat nav did not recognise many of the smaller streets 

until finally, we turned the corner

and

found the peace and tranquillity of the Oberoi Hotel. 

We checked in and were shown to our rooms

 and when we walked

 onto the balcony, 

this was the sight we saw,

The Taj Mahal.

Exquisite.

Take care and I will see you again next Thursday.

This week I will be joining,

Sherri at To Simply Inspire

and

Natasha in Oz

UP, UP AND AWAY!

Good Morning to you,

'I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down

and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all.'

Joni Mitchell

I do so love travelling and visiting new places.

I also love the sense of adventure that travelling gives me.

..... and before I begin travelling, I even love the mundane things which I need to do, such as taking the suitcases out of the loft and dusting them off.

I love packing my clothes, probably a few too many times. Putting this in and taking that out, three or four times, possibly even more, before I decide I have the right combination of clothes.

I love deciding which outfit to wear when travelling, but it always has to be casual and it most certainly has to be comfy

..... and when the time arrives,

I love the tingly feeling I get when I arrive at the airport.

I love the hustle and the bustle of the airport

and I love, love, love seeing all the adults and children, so excited about their own family holiday. 

I love checking the departure board, to see the different countries people are  travelling to,

and I am always thrilled to find that our flight has not been delayed but is on time.

Once we have boarded the flight.

I love settling myself in to my seat and unwrapping my blanket, sorting out my book and my Ipod and looking to see which films are being screened during the flight.

..... and then I wait.

What am I waiting for?

I wait patiently until the flight takes off and as we climb higher,

I see the most beautiful sights below,

and then I see the first glimpse of clouds.  

Just a few fluffy clouds pass by at first,

and then,

as the plane climbs higher,  
a
 few more clouds appear,

until we rise above the clouds and
 we see
the most beautiful blue sky.

Whilst below us,

 clouds are swirling and others 

seem to be floating like big puffy meringues.

Once we fly above the clouds

I am very excited,

as I know I am on my way

to see Natasha and her husband

 and then

 to visit the most beautiful sight I will ever see in my lifetime.

The Taj Mahal in Agra, India.

Take care and I will see you next Thursday

when I will tell you more about my visit to India.