The peak of the growing season is upon my garden. I am now able to harvest more that 2 or 3 bits of produce from the plot at any one time, as this Garden Summer Salad demonstrates perfectly. This is a salad to be proud off, as everything ( eggs-cept the eggs, get it?!) has been grown or harvested by me. The olive oil, is strictly not our own, but is from our friends own olive grove in Italy, and as they put it- is 3 times Extra Virgin Organic olive oil, and it tastes heavenly too. The peas, potatoes, dill, salad leaves, cucumber, and edible nasturtium flowers and corn flowers were all picked this morning, in preparation for lunch. I love how you can tuck into a portion of food, knowing that is was growing barley an hour ago, cool right?

 

 

The peas are an exciting rare variety called Champion of England, dating from the 1840’s and are from The Real Seed Company, an innovative British family business who see the soil as a living organism that must be cared for, not thrashed. They have lots of exciting old as well as new fruit and veg varieties, and they are well worth a look, next time you are seed shopping.

The driving force behind this post was to share the delicious Elderflower vinaigrette, that I’m really crazy for at the moment. It is summer in a jar, fresh, fruity and sweet, and it goes with anything from the summer season – salads, fish or even ice-cream.

Its made using this seasons Elderflowers from down the lane, get the recipe here.

 

 

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Serves 4

 

Vinaigrette

50ml white wine vinaigrette

50ml olive oil

25ml elderflower cordial

pinch of salt

 

Salad

2 heads of little gems, or equivalent

1/2 cucumber, sliced

8 sugar-snap peas

a handful of garden peas

2 eggs

6  small new potatoes

some dill

a few flowers

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Boil the potatoes until tender, set aside to cool. One min before the potatoes are ready, pop the sugar snaps into the pan, and boil for 1 min, drain and set aside.

Boil the eggs, until hard boiled, leave to cool, then shell them, and cut into quarters.

Make the vinaigrette by pouring all the liquids into a jar,  shake well until combined, add the salt.

Assemble the salad by placing the leaves, potatoes, peas, sugar snaps, dill and eggs onto a serving dish, finish with the flowers and elderflower vinaigrette.