Beetroot and goat's cheese salad

Two years ago when I visited France, especially the reviera, there was goat's cheese galore! Everywhere us three gals went 'chèvre chaud' (hot goat's cheese) followed :)
Honestly, at the end of our ten days I was quite sick of it. However now the sight of this unique smelling cheese and we all go crazy pouncing on it. Here I am sharing one of my most cherished and fun to make salad recipe that would see u through many a continental dinners.
Beetroot and chèvre salad
Ingredients

pic courtesy: http://www.taste.com.au

1 bunch of arugula leaves
2 peeled and cut beetroot
Fistful brown sugar
250gms of goat's cheese
150gms of boiled black lentils
100gms of baby tomatoes halved
A few basil leaves
For the dressing:
3tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1 and a 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Boil the beetroot along with a cinnamon stick, star anise and a fistful brown sugar until the beetroot becomes soft and fragrant. Now on the bed of fresh arugula leaves, put the beetroot, halved tomatoes And boiled lentils. Lastly crumble the goats's cheese on top and then throw in some basil leaves. For the dressing, mix together olive oil and balsamic vinegar and seasoning. Drizzle on the salad. Let it seep in for 10 mins until the leaves soften a bit and then bit into this heavenly salad. Enjoy a piece of France on your plate :) Bon appetit!!

The invaluable Golden syrup

pic source: bbc.co.uk; golden syrup

There are a few ingredients in most of the dessert recipes that are simply gorgeous! Golden syrup is one such ingredient. You can use it on top of pancakes, as the special ingredient to cakes and puddings or just to dunk donuts in. While I truly believe its not worth the effort to make it at home, it certainly is a lot cheaper and a whole lot better when you take the effort to cook up this liquid gold. One of the patrons, Pinky Mistry happened to ask me for the same on mail, so I thought might as well share the good deed with everyone.. hahaha!

I took my recipe from Tod's kitchen, and although I buy one usually, this recipe worked brilliantly as an at home experiment for golden syrup. Here goes:

In a saucepan put in a 100gms of sugar and add 2 tbsp of water to it. put on heat. now keep stirring so that the sugar dissolves well and then start caramelising slowly and steadily. once the mixture reaches a dark golden color add 300 ml of BOILING water to it. Now stir around to loosen up the caramel so it takes to the boling water well. Now add 1/2 kilo of sugar to the pan and stir. that's it, now all that you need to do is to let this simmer for about 35-40 min. once done, the consistency of this mixture would still be liquidy. seive it into a sterilised bottle. let it cool for an hour or so. After an hour, this liquid should have turned into a honey like consistency. Which is when your golden syrup is ready :). You can store it for months at end in a cool dry place.

Will soon share the recipes in which it is the core ingredient. For now, as I said, enjoy the liquid gold'.