Bread Salad in Mustard Dressing

There comes a point in every kitchen where you have just about all sorts of vegetables stocked up in your fridge, leaving you wondering what to make...you want to eat something beyond the regular stir fry or vegetable curry, but cannot seem to figure out what! Well, I woke up on one such situation one morning and I called my close buddy, Sathya, who is always full of ideas when it comes to cooking with what you have. She was a saviour through my pregnancy craving for Chinese food! Do you remember Sathya?? Anyway. let me not digress and go straight to the recipe of this wholesome salad... oh, and yes, you must have some bread stashed somewhere behind all those veggies, don't ya?

Ingredients
Bread - 2 Slices, cut into 1 inch squares (I have used brown bread to keep things healthy)
Choice of fresh or frozen vegetables - Chopped (I have used iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, broccoli florets, green peas, corn kernels, sun-dried tomatoes and red onions)
2 tbsp Mustard (sauce form)
5tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Lemon juice
A pinch of red chilly powder (You can opt to use pepper)
And, of course, some salt to taste!!

Method
- Preheat oven to 250F. Place the bread pieces on an oven-safe tray/dish and drizzle a little olive oil (about 1 tbsp). Sprinkle salt and pepper and place in oven to toast the bread.
- Steam your veggies (other than the cucumber and lettuce if you are using them) until crisp/tender (based on how well-cooked you like it) with some salt.
- In a bowl prepare the mustard dressing by mixing together the mustard sauce, remaining olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper/chilly powder.
- Once the bread is toasty and the veggies are perfectly steamed, toss them together in your salad bowl and pour the mustard dressing over it.
- Stir gently and serve fresh

SERVES 1

NOTEWORTHY NOTES
1. You could try to rub a clove of chopped garlic on to the bread before you toast it to give the entire salad an exotic taste
2. You can use a regular bread toaster if you do not have an oven (although the oven makes it a lot more tastier!)but make sure you have evenly toasted bread pieces.