Salad days.

This week we picked the first of our homegrown tomatoes. It’s always a treat to be given the first one, straight from the plant, still warm with a flavour that can never be matched by one bought in a shop. We’ve been having pea shoots for several weeks along with the mixed leaves that grow in a sort of netted cage – an attempt to keep the caterpillars and bugs away which is quite successful, thankfully. Isn’t this a lovely time of year? I could live on salads of any type. Insalata Caprese is another favourite – interleaved slices of tomato and mozzarella cheese, basil leaves too, then a drizzle of pesto. So colourful – a reminder of the Italian flag. And Greek salad too, feta, olives, cucumber, red onion and thyme. All these are so much more interesting than salads of my childhood which were only livened with a splash of beetroot for colour and celery for flavour. To this day my brother won’t touch celery… the taste, the smell and worst of all, the crunch!!