4 Vegan Salads, all cold.

We had a couple of hot days in a row and Troy and Nadia have been going to Storm Point (Troy to gather seaweed for his garden, and Nadia to swim) and we've been joining them. We had a meal together (and then watched Runaway Bride) so Angelata made some summer salads.

Hi. I'm Angelata.

1. Pasta with creamy spinach sauce.

The penne cooked 9 minutes, the twirls for 7 (packet says 10 and 8) and then rinsed thoroughly in cold water stirred a few times in olive oil, salt and pepper; and set aside to wait for the sauce - finely slivered silverbeat leaves, soy yogurt, lemon juice and crushed garlic.

2. Steamed vegetables with avocado oil and flat-leaf parsley dressing.

Steamed potato, turnip and fresh sugar-snap peas, the sugar snap peas just blanched with boiling water. The turnip takes a good deal longer than potato to steam so I dice it quite finely - about 1 cm cubed, and the potato pieces about 2cm cubed. Avocado oil is tinged with green and looks better with chopped herbs to ... um... explain the colour.

3. Chilli bean and vegetable salad.

Tinned (thoroughly rinsed and drained) borlotti beans are sauteed with chilli and garlic and small cauliflower pieces. Once the garlic is soft - not long - maybe three minutes with lots of stirring, add tinned tomato - I used a tin of cherry tomatoes. I added the tomato juice just before taking off the heat and stirred ot in well. The other vegetables I added to this salad were fresh green bean pieces (about an inch long - and so bright - I cooked them seperately in boiling water for a minute only and then chilled them immediately) and finely sliced raw celery.

4. Pistachio Rice.

Cold basmati rice, finely sliced spring onion and finely sliced sage leaves with roughly chopped pistachio nuts.

We had these with cold tofu slices for the vegans, and because it's Nadia's favourite we also had cold smoked salmon. Then the next day, I believe Gray and Mannie had them for lunch with slices of cold silverside beef.

A.