Leaf free and lovely: avocado, apetina cheese and pear salad
Ahhh summer is finally here. The garden’s like a jungle, the washing basket is overflowing, but I don’t care – there’s a sun lounger in the garden and that’s where I’ll be if you need me. Summer is also salad central, but I don’t know about you – I get a bit bored of leafy salads. The Death Wish Child won’t touch them with a barge pole either, so I have to get a bit creative on the salad front: something fresh and lively, but without the leafy element.
Happily, then, Apetina has challenged me to create a leaf-free salad, and this one will do you very well. We’re a bit addicted to Apetina (I used the classic cubes for this one), the slight saltiness goes well with the sweetness of the pear and the creaminess of the avocado. Add in olives and cherry tomatoes and it’s a colourful, healthy summer delight. Here goes, then:
You will need:
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lime, juiced
1 red chilli, deseeded and very finely chopped
Handful of herbs: mint and oregano are perfect, chopped
Rapeseed oil
1 ripe avocado
Couple of handfuls of black olives
Small punnet of cherry tomatoes
1 pear (slightly under ripe is fine), cored and chopped
To prepare the salad:
Crush the garlic cloves with a little pinch of salt and pop the resulting paste into a jug along with the lime juice, chopped red chilli, chopped herbs and a couple of big glugs of rapeseed oil. Mix it all up and leave to one side.
Next, take your salad bowl and pop in the Apetina cheese, sliced avocado, black olives and cherry tomatoes. Lastly add in the chopped pear, then quickly pour over the salad dressing and toss gently.
And that’s it! Serve with crusty bread and a final sprinkling of fresh herbs. Delicious.
If you love this recipe, pop along to the Apetina recipe challenge on Facebook where every week Apetina will be featuring four salads and vote (for me, preferably, but hey, check out the others too). You could win a picnic hamper or – on the final week – a BBQ.
