Monday Lunch, 24th May

I’m in full clearing-out-the-fridge-before-we-go-on-holiday mode. It was a beautiful day today – sunny and warm but not energy-sapping hot. Just perfect English summer heat. I’d been working away in the garden (as I have been for weeks), the lawns had just been cut, the birds were singing, the sheep were bleating. Given I’m trying to lose a pound or two before having to bear flesh next week, a salad outside in the sunshine was what the doctor ordered.

I peered into the fridge: dog-end tub of ordinary houmous, new tub of Moroccan houmous, cherry tomatoes, tenderleaf salad (half a bag full), bag of prettily purple bean shoot salad, quarter of a red pepper (slightly flaccid), some chicory left over from yesterday’s lunch. I suddenly thought (in a small wattage lightbulb sort of way) what I could do, so:

I chopped up the pepper and chicory and mixed them in with the houmous (finished off one tub and added 1 spoonful of Moroccan to it) and put it in a bowl.





If you were being posh you could drizzle some olive oil and/or pesto on top of it.

I then halved the tomatoes and mixed them in with the tenderleaf salad and some bean-shoots and dressed them with some oil and balsamic vinegar. It didn’t need salt as there were so many strong, earthy flavours in there.



I then poured myself a glass of grapefruit juice (resisting wine after a big boozy day on Saturday and with a mind to feeble attempts at slimming a little) and went outside where I ate and contemplated the sun-filled garden while the cat sat in the shade looking slightly weary (it was a little warm for fur). This simple, but healthy and filling little repast, was then followed by some home-picked Moroccan mint tea. Perfect.

(PS: if this all sounds rather sickeningly idyllic, you should know that I had previously removed the hind leg and muzzle – complete with whiskers – of a rabbit from the terrace as it was attracting hideous amounts of flies and rather off-putting to have beside one’s lunch table. No wonder the cat didn’t eat her breakfast – she was clearly full of rabbit).