Without realising, until very recently that it’s actually become an annual tradition, there’s a default meal we always make when the first warm days and lighter evenings arrive. It goes back to when we lived in West Didsbury, in Manchester and those first few days of warm sunshine, after a long winter, usually meant we’d fling open the French doors, get out the garden furniture and eat outside, no matter how chilly it got later. And after a winter of carb loaded stews, soups, curries and although usually delicious, always quite heavy food, we always craved a salad. Not a summer one with delicate leaves and light dressing, as it generally wasn’t quite warm enough for that kind of salad. No, what we wanted was the kind that still was substantial enough to withstand a chill in the air, but be a cold dish, with salad ingredients. I think this started out as being made from what we had in the cupboards/fridge at the time, but it definitely wasn’t from a recipe I followed, so the ingredients do change.

Easter Monday 2021 was a lovely warm spring day and we had everything necessary to knock up our first Spring Salad of the year – with enough left over for a working lunch the next day. If you fancy giving it a try, here’s what was included :

• New potatoes – cubed and boiled, then left to cool
• Hard boiled eggs, quartered
• Ripe, ready to eat avocado, chopped roughly
• Cherry tomatoes
• Cucumber
• Thinly sliced red onion (or sliced spring onions if you want a less intense flavour)
• Pitted black olives
• Tuna (I used a tin of smoked tuna, from the Greek range in Lidl) and/or chopped anchovies
• Feta cheese, crumbled
• Olive oil and salt and pepper

There’s no fanciness to the way we do this salad – everything is piled into a big bowl, mixed and drizzled with olive oil. It’s very tasty on it’s own, and because it is actually quite a substantial salad, you don’t really need anything else to accompany it. It’s great as a very quick meal to make for friends and if bulked up with crusty bread or pittas and hummus, it’s a winner as it’s quick, easy and good on the washing up. It also looks very pretty as a centre piece because of the colours.

Oh, and the working lunch the next day? Yes, we did have plenty left over which had chilled over night in the fridge. Perfect to eat as an unexpected April snow blizzard raged outside…