Salad – Page 16 – Myfrenchkitchen

This is a quick starter, popular with everybody. It can be played up or down, with more vegetables added, or less or different ingredients. Instead of the pine nuts, pumpkin seeds can be added, in which case a roasted pumpkin seed oil would be perfect. Be sure to serve it with the courgettes still warm. A great dish for spring and summer, served on a hot spring day or a summer evening, while watching the sun fall away slowly below the horizon.

Courgette feta salad

Olive oil, rosemary salt (or any other herbed salt)
Four courgettes
salad leaves – rocket, watercress, batavia…
a handful of roasted pine nuts (or roasted flaked alomonds)
feta cheese
olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
teaspoon of dark honey

Preheat the oven to 200 degr. C.
Wash and slice the courgettes on the diagonal.
Plce in and oven dish, sprinkle with olive oil and rosemary salt. Roast in the the oven until nicely caramelized.
Place a mixture of washed and dried salad leaves on 4 plates.
Serve the still warm courgettes on the salad leaves and top with crumbled feta cheese and dry roasted pine nuts (or almond flakes).
Drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice, honey and finish off with a sprinkling of pepper.
Serve immediately.

Serves four

…in the footsteps of the shadows…

Time for informal, relaxed picnics is here. Our summer weekends consist mostly of some working on the house and in the garden, some tennis, and then some extended dinners that linger along with our dusk…late and lazy. I love simple meals where colour and texture play a major role and each ingredient stands on its own. A long time ago, I once thought I made an innovative potato salad, just to have my youngest 10 year old daughter tell me: “I can’t eat this salad! It’s too complicated.”

That was a lesson never to be forgotten.

For a Sunday afternoon by the Loire river across our house, this is a typical salad we would pique nique on. Very ordinary, but spiced up with an interesting vinaigrette of your choice and accompanied by an array of cheese and grainy baguettes, not forgetting an ice cold Rosé, it becomes a meal I’m sure that is served frequently in paradise, which makes it one of the reasons why I intend on going there one day…

As usual, I don’t give a formal recipe , but will mention what I’ve used in my salad.

Cut some vegetables in different shapes…carrots in spaghetti, roasted red peppers (of which I don’t bother to remove the peel), some mango slices, a few slices of smoked duck and cooked quinoa with sauteed onion. (Read more about quinoa. )
A handful of fresh herbs; rocket, sage, large Italian parsley, chives, wild celeri and tarragon.
Vinaigrette: make a puree of the small pieces of mango that you cut off the seed. Add some white balsamic vinegar, some poppy vinegar, salt and pepper, a small finely chopped shallot and add olive oil to your taste and whisk until creamy. I prefer a pungent vinaigrette.
Add some cheese triangles, a handful of olives and a fresh baguette.
Pack some ice cream in a cool bag along with the wine, or fresh fruit for dessert.
And don’t forget a flask of good coffee for that wake-up call after the nap…

Pack interesting layers of individual portions in picnic hampers.
Take the vinaigrette separately in a little container and add to your salad just before serving.
Finish off with cheese and fruit.

Bon appetit!