Freekeh with Hot-smoked Salmon

Less a recipe, more a fridge and cupboard raid, but a godsend when you want a summery supper with minimum effort. If it’s still raining where you are, put a woolly on and pretend you’re at the British seaside. A flask of stewed tea helps the illusion but a glass of wine would probably be preferable. Continue reading

New Potato Salad with Lemon, Mint and Feta

I dithered a bit about sharing this, to be honest, because even by my easy-going standards it is a very simple recipe. But the lemony dressing lifts it and prevents that clagginess you sometimes get from a potato salad made just with mayo, so I’ve included it as a sort of bonus post. Continue reading

Broad Bean and Goat’s Cheese Salad

The end is nigh … the end of the broad bean season, anyway. This is such a simple salad I thought twice about posting it (‘am I insulting the skills of my readers?’) but hey, it’s delicious. It’s as good as a barbecue side dish as it is packed into a lunchbox for work, so here it is as a sort of bonus recipe. Continue reading

Summer Salads #2

Image of basketful of salad crops

The veg patch is bursting at the seams with salad crops and we have so many courgettes and cucumbers the neighbours are beginning to sprint the other way if they see us coming. I’ll sound insufferably smug if I list everything as not everyone has room for a veg patch. Mind you, if you saw the weeding we have to do, the welly boot would be on the other foot.

Suffice to say we have a lot of salad crops. Continue reading

Roasted Med Veg With Tahini Dressing

I was a fairly unsuccessful tomboy as a child. I got stuck up trees and fell into ponds. I did end up extremely grubby most days though, leading my mother to say if my ears got any dirtier we could grow potatoes in them.

My hygiene standards are higher nowadays but I do have courgettes and aubergines coming out of my ears, figuratively speaking. Casting around for different things to do with my Mediterranean veg, I found a fine-looking dressing from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in the Observer the other day and thought it would work well.  Continue reading

Summer Salads and Pots of Pesto

It’s blazing hot and as we get so few days like this in the average British summer, it’s tempting to abandon the computer and leg it down to the veg patch with a basket, a trowel and a pair of scissors. Continue reading