A quick lunch for two – Salmon Salad

It was just Noor and me at home yesterday for lunch. She loves baguette and we had picked up one from the boulangerie when we walked back home from school just before noon.

So I decided that I’d make some salad for lunch, to eat with the baguette, with fruit yoghurt to serve as dessert.

Luckily I had cherry tomatoes in the fridge, and canned salmon and sweetcorn in the kitchen cupboard. Noor LOVES each of those things, so I knew she’d approve of the salad, even though I was planning to sneak in some green beans. This is how I made it.

Salmon Salad

(serves 3-4)

1 150g can of salmon, packed in water

1 150g can of sweetcorn

100-150 g of fresh/frozen green beans, cut/snapped into1 inch pieces

150-200g cherry tomatoes

1 or 1 and a 1/2 tsp dried basil

2-3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp of lime juice (add more, or less, if you like)

Cut the tomatoes in to halves and put in a salad bowl. Sprinkle the basil on top and add the olive oil.

Mix these 3 ingredients together gently and leave for some time, say 30 minutes (this is the key to making a really tasty salad if you are using tomatoes and olive oil. The flavors of these two things mingle to produce the most divine taste there is, and you really have to give it time for it to develop).

In the meanwhile, steam the green beans and allow them to cool. Drain the salmon and break up the meat with a fork. Now add the beans, the corn, and the salmon to the tomatoes, season with sea salt, add the lime juice, and toss everything together.

Serve roasted potatoes on the side, for a more filling meal.

Bon appetit !

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Empty Nest Syndrome, already

It is the first day that Noor has gone back to school, for the afternoon session, after eating her lunch with me at home. And I find myself a little – forlorn.

It was easier for me to deal with the transition when Indira started to go in the afternoons, back when she was in maternelle (kindergarten). I guess because I had so much to do then, and so little time, since Noor was just a six month old baby.

And Indira had had a tough time getting used to going to school even only for the morning sessions; so it was actually a relief when she started to go in the afternoons as well- it was a sign that she had finally adapted/integrated.

But this afternoon, as I handed Noor over to her teacher at the door of the dortoire (it is the place where the little ones nap), I found myself overwhelmed with that same familiar urge to cry that I have experienced on other similar occasions – when I said bye-bye to Indira outside her maternelle her very first morning there, 4 years ago now; when I walked back after dropping her off on her first day at her then-new primary scool last year. I was really worried that she would have to start the process of making friends, making a place for herself all over again -though as it turned out, she did just fine and is absolutely happy there now.

But Noor seems more than ready for this step, and I am sure that I too will quickly come to treasure these 3 quiet hours I will have each afternoon to myself.

There will be no interruption at 2.30 or 3pm, which is the time when Noor usually finishes her nap and comes to me. And yet that interruption has been welcome too; it meant that I had a legitimate excuse to stop work to either play with her, or to start on household chores, since that is one more way to keep her occupied- to ask her to help and give her some little task to do.

But today, this first day, I find myself wishing that I had put this off just a little bit longer…