This salad dishes up delicious flavours and a variety of nutrients from the colourful vegetables. My toddler gobbles it all up every time.  Of course, she helps prepare the dressing and finish off the salad. Any version of this dish is served with quiche, fish, roasted free range chicken, marinated tofu or bbq skewers in our home. Yum!

I blanch beans, cauliflower and broccoli for an extra few minutes to serve my infant too.

Ingredients
Vegetables
1 carrot grated
1 medium zucchini grated
¼ large red capsicum very finely diced
1 head broccoli, in bite sized florets
½ head cauliflower, in bite sized florets
3 generous handfuls of green beans, topped and cut in half
1 handful baby spinach leaves

Dressing
½ cup full fat natural yoghurt
1/3 cup egg mayonnaise (made from free range eggs)
2-3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice to tast
cracked black pepper
2 tsp olive oil (optional, but nice)
½ to 1 tsp runny honey

Method
1. Blanch the broccoli and cauliflower for a couple of minutes. Blanch the green beans for four minutes. Once out of boiling water, immediately rinse all blanched vegetables with cold water in a colander, shake dry and add to large bowl.
2. Add remaining vegetables and optional extras to the blanched vegetables and stir gently to combine.
3. Prepare dressing. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl with a spoon. Adjust lemon juice and mayonnaise to taste.
4. Add dressing to vegetables. Gently stir through and serve immediately.

Cook’s Note:
Any colourful vegetables that don’t release too much water suit this salad. Fresh corn is good. Pre-cooked brown rice and toasted flaked almonds add carbs, protein and complexity making it a complete meal.

This salad keeps well undressed in the fridge for a couple of days, but it never lasts that long in our house!

Activist note:
We are connected to the hens that lay our eggs. Let’s choose a free range life for them by buying higher animal welfare products. Ban the cage. Note if you live in Australia, Coles brand egg mayonnaise is made from free range eggs and very reasonably priced.