How to impress your mother in law

I think I have finally become, what one could consider, a reasonable cook. Sure, there are many things I don't know, and before you roll your eyes at me and say, "Suse, you've been watching cooking shows again haven't you?" the answer is NO.

In fact, I actually have been using Recipes. Recipes from BOOKS and the INTERNET. I know, hardcore.

Yep, I'm a hardcore recipe researcher. I also like to tweak. That's right. I take a perfectly good recipe and go: "I can totally make this already perfected recipe even more perfected. It will be AWESOME!". This is usually after the second or third glass of wine. It gets a little fuzzy when I try to remember exactly how much I've had. Edit: Or even where I am for that matter.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, impressing your MIL. So I recently tried my hand at cooking haloumi. I totally nailed it. What's even better is that my boyfriend's mother liked it too! So here's a winning haloumi salad that I found on the interwebs (www.taste.com.au) and tweaked a little. It's great as an entrée or a quick and light lunch (or dinner!).

Hopefully I won't get sued by someone for posting this.




Haloumi Caper Spinach Salad (4 people)


Ingredients

1 teaspoons olive oil
Packet of baby spinach
400g haloumi cheese, cut into 1cm-thick slices
2 teaspoons of sesame seeds

Lime caper dressing

3/4 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
1/2 cup mint leaves, chopped
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon capers
1 lime, juiced

1. Make your dressing first. Using a mortar & pestle (or some kind of bowl and a spoon) mix the ingredients and mash them together. You don't want to turn the capers into a paste, just break them up a bit to release the flavours. Leave this to the side.

2. Rinse your spinach leaves and either pop them in a bowl or on a nice platter if serving as an entrée.

3. Cook your Haloumi. Heat the oil in a pan over medium-high heat until hot. Then place the haloumi in and allow to cook for 1 to 2 minutes each side or until golden brown (not burnt!).

4. Turn down heat to warm-medium, cover with sesame seeds, flip over and cover the other side. Remove from heat.

5. Place Haloumi over salad, and drizzle dressing over the top. Serve!