Summer salad

Yesterday evening we had a lovely salad in the back garden. After a day of rain it brightened up and we were able to escape before the rain resumed again.

I had found an unusual salad in a Finnish home interior magazine which blended leaf, basil leaf, cucumber, melon, strawberries and brie topped off with peanuts, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We accompanied it with some Spanish style new potatoes which means adding fried chorizo and bacon and plenty of rosemary.

The salad was excellent and the potatoes were also very good. I was also told that the potatoes were even better the day after as lunch.

Today it has rained and rained again which scuppered any idea of eating out so instead we raided Nigel Slaters' Kitchen Diaries and made his excellent Courgette Fritters. He uses dill but as we didn't have any we used coriander. Although I was initially sceptical about mixing feta and coriander I have to say that it wasn't a bad combination after all.

A salad for the day after the night before

This may seem obvious, it may not so I offer it here on it's own merits. When preparing your food think about how you want it to look when it is all put together and set on the table. Tonight's supper was a simple affair, the first salad of the spring and very lovely it was too. What elevated it over the humble was me thinking about how the ingredients were working out with each other.

I started out with the basic idea of doing something with Basil, Tomatoes and Mozarella. I knew that I was going to slice the mozarella and the tomatoes and once it grew into a bigger salad than that I knew the other elements should not compete with the big milky whiteness and the tomatoes. Make it and enjoy!

Various salad leaves
Tomatoes sliced
Mozarella sliced
Red Onion finely diced
Cucumber finely diced
Mushrooms extra finely diced
Parmesan - small shavings
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Salt
Pepper

I don't think I need to go into the intricacies of how to put this together but this dish lends itself to more or less love depending on your energy levels. I was out at the excellent Tapista last night and consequently wasn't feeling the most energetic. However I know that the mushrooms could be fried, bacon could be added, the oil and vinegar could be worked up into a real vinagrete. Let your imagination work wonders for your fridge.

*****

Spring is here and I enjoyed the long walk from the central railway station to the British embassy to lodge my passport application. The weather was glorious and to just enjoy the sunshine and look at the buildings was a treat. I was really struck by the number of buildings in Helsinki adorned by carvings of animals and I wonder whether there is a maybe a photographic project here for me. So many creative things going on at the moment is extremely exciting, a little hectic and a good sign about where life is.

*****

Tomorrow is football, beer, ice hockey beer and beer in town. Should be fun, I'm not a football fan but there will be good people there and that is good enough for me. I'm even going to miss American Idol for it. They must be good people!

Waste nothing and love living in Finland.