My Friday delivery from Farm Direct was so intriguing this week that I really felt I had to share…
Apart from a fine selection of lettuces (large Cos, crispy Salanova and curly endive), some delicious new season carrots, new season spinach and golden mini plum tomatoes (which actually taste like tomatoes), I got, clockwise from the top left above, organic wild rocket, organic land cress, marsh samphire, wild bathua and, in the middle, organic wild Charlock flowers! How could you resist?…
In fact, they arrived slightly before I had quite finished up last week’s delivery. I cannot quite remember what I had last week but they had all been washed and put into one bag so I finished them off last night in one of my favourite hot-cold salads.
Most people tend to think of salads as cold and hot dishes and hot, but I really like to mix the two. I often do it with pasta (see here for a few recipe ideas) but last night I had some Italian sausage – excellent for freefrom dishes as the good ones only contain pork – all kinds of bits of the pig, but nothing but pig! For the salad below I lightly fried a sliced leek in 1/2 tbsp of coconut oil, then added a few sliced mushrooms and one sliced Italian sausage. While they were frying briskly, I steamed a handful of mange tout, and spread out the remains of the Farm Direct mixed leaves on a plate. As soon as the sausage and mushrooms were cooked I spooned the lightly steamed mange tout and the sausage mixture over the leaves, dressed with sea salt and black pepper, a ‘drizzle’ of cider vinegar and Italian olive oil – and ate – with pleasure!
Feel free to used any combination of hot and cold that you fancy – but do try it!
Sounds yum. I often have warm seafood in melted mayonnaise sauce on leaves. Something about warm salads; they feel more decadent somehow..