Salad Days

One of the delightful perks of living here is that we are surrounded by orchards and market gardens. We have been eating well, the fruit bowl is always heaped, the fridge is full of vegies.

One of our favorite summer dinners is a sort of a Greek salad. Greek salad has red onions, but we don't particularly like raw onion, so I leave them out. We are happy to eat this salad twice a week, so I thought I'd share the recipe. I bought the ingredients for tonight's salad from the stand about a mile south of us. The tomatoes came in from the field as I selected the peppers. The peppers and cukes are grown next door.

Ingredients:

1/2 each large green sweet pepper, large yellow sweet pepper

2 red "pimento" peppers. These are small (not even tennis ball size), deeply lobed, flat and very dark intense red with an intense flavour.

2 medium ripe tomatoes

1 medium cucumber

4 ounces feta cheese - I used an "Italian-style" one with basil and tomato.

half dozen Kalamata olives per serving.

1 TBS extra virgin olive oil

1 TBS apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp Mrs Dash garlic and herb seasoning

salt to taste

Method:

Wash vegetables. Cut peppers into cubes, core and cube tomatoes, peel cucmber, cut lengthwise in halves, then each half into four lengthwise sections. Cut across to dice.

Mix cut up vegetables in a bowl, add Mrs Dash and feta cheese. Stir. Mix olive oil and vinegar together and pour over salad, stir.

Spoon portions into bowls, serve with bread for soaking up juices.

Makes two large dinner portions or four salad portions