The Leon Superfood Salad and Original Wrap

To make the wrap, simply wrap some salad in a tortilla or flatbread.

Sometimes people get very mad about things that hardly affect them at all. For example, there was a bit of a moral panic when Kim Kardashian and Kanye West announced that they had created a foetus and as ever, outrage relating to trivial matters is never better demonstrated than in the Daily Mail. 

Instead of wasting our breath complaining, we should celebrate that the world's most successful porn star (progeny of the world's most successful female pimp) and a rapper who’s too-big dick is (at least partially) all over the internet ("You can't imagine how disappointed I was that I gotcut off")  have unified.

Celebrate? Are you mad? Yes, I am but that is a result of various other non-celebrity factors and none of your business. Please, give me a chance to explain. First, take a moment to consider the alternative: Kim is currently pregnant with a civilian’s baby. The normal person's genes, honed through years of careful reproductive selection (ie: not shagging celebrities) have been, to the disappointment of his ancestors, obliterated thanks to a drunken split-second/loving 15 minutes.

As if that is not sickening enough, take it a step further and assume that Kanye has done the same. A female member of the general public is waddling around, trying not to drink whilst growing an all-rapping, all-dancing human inside of her.

If it happened, this situation would be disastrous for humanity primarily because it would produce two broods of half-slebs (a species often as annoying and self-obsessed as the full version).

Another common and dreadful side-effect of this cross-breeding is that the very contagious "celebrity" condition often transmits to the civilian mother or father, causing them to become infected as well.

Appallingly, this plague doubles the amount of wazzock-celebrities the world has to endure and to illustrate this point I have helpfully compiled a non-exhaustive list of celebrity-world denizens: Britney's K-Fed, Jordan's Alex Reid and Sting's Trudie. See?

So come together and say a great big thank you to K and K for limiting their number of offspring by coming together in this beautiful way. With any luck Baby K, will have the good sense and compassion to marry an Andre-Price. 

Other things that should be applauded for being together are the ingredients in this Leon Superfood Salad. You might think that broccoli, peas and cucumber are boring and non-cool veggies but jazz them up with some feta, mint and avocado and bob’s your uncle, you have a winner.

I missed out the peas and probably some other ingredients too, so don't use this picture as a shopping list.

I used to eat this salad straight from the Leon outlets at Spitalfields and Kings Cross Station. I’d have it in a wrap and boy, it was good! I’m not really sure what superfoods do and I think that they are probably a bit of a myth (a bit like “negative-calories-in-celery-gate”) but don’t let that put you off because super or not, it’s healthy and tasty!

The original recipe only serves 2 but as I wanted this to last me for the week, I doubled the quantities in the recipe below.

Serves 4

400g broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets

240g peas, fresh or frozen

200g cucumber, cut into smallish pieces

200g feta cheese, crumbled

40g alfalfa sprouts (et al)

40g toasted seeds (I used sesame, sunflower and pumpkin)

100g avocado, cut into pieces

60g quinoa,

Handful flat-leaf parsley, rough chopped

Handful mint, rough chopped

4 dessert spoons lemon juice (I didn’t use this amount but add the juice to your taste)

8 dessert spoons extra virgin olive oil (I didn’t use this amount either but add the oil to your taste)

Put the quinoa in a medium pan. Cover with cold water plus about an inch then let it gently simmer until the water's gone - about 25 minutes. Spread it on a tray to cool to room temperature. Spreading on a tray is a revelation! It avoids the sticky mess you often end up with, as demonstrated by my quinoa, feta and courgette salad debacle. 

Put an inch of hot water into a large saucepan with a pinch of salt and cover it. Once boiling, drop in the broccoli and peas and put the lid back on. Drain after three minutes and run the veg under cold water to take all the heat out and keep them good and green.

Now build your salad in layers, starting with the first ingredient on the list and ending up with the dressing (but only dress it just before you eat it).

Here are a few notes on various stumbling blocks:

1.      Where do I get alfalfa from? I searched everywhere for this and had no luck until I stumbled across this little package in Tesco. It contains alfalfa but not exclusively. However, it seemed to work and although you feel like a first-world wanker by buying ‘sprouts’ in such elaborate packaging, you should just go with it.

2.      Toasting seeds? What a palava! Don’t panic: you can combat this with a microwave. Scatter your seeds onto a microwavable surface in a single layer. Drizzle with a LITTLE oil (I did too much and had to drain it away halfway though cooking) and put in the microwave on high. Monitor minute by minute until the seeds start to go a bit brown. Then take them out, allow to cool and proceed as normal.

Tweet Pin It Now!