Hello again! I hope that you are having a good week so far. Just a quick post from me to share the recipe for this gorgeous salad that i whipped up today for my lunch.

As much as I love Autumn and all the roast vegetables and casseroles that come with it I have been missing Summer recently so I created this salad to bring a taste of the Mediterranean back into my life, even if just for one lunchtime.

This is a wonderfully healthy dish (I promise) but I added a little bit of cheese (mozarella) and a dollop of carbs (wholegrain Israeli couscous) just to keep it from being too virtuous plus it makes the salad that bit more delicious and sustaining. I have kept the flavours simple here: all the best elements of a caprese, with a little extra zing from the lemon zest, but please feel free to add other vegetables or herbs if  you have any lying around.

Serves 1

15 minutes prep and cooking combined

Ingredients

• 50g dry Israeli couscous
• 150 g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 50g mozzarella, cut into bite sized chunks
• 30g spinach, roughly chopped
• 1 handful of basil, roughly chopped
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 veg stock cube

Method

1. Preheat an oven to 180 degrees.
2. Lay out the tomatoes on a baking tray and drizzle over 1 tbsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Roast the tomatoes for 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile bring a saucepan of water to the boil, add the stock cube and stir until dissolved. Add the couscous to the pan and cook for 10 minutes or until soft.
4. When the couscous is cooked through drain it and then run it under water for around a minute to cool it down a little.
5. Place the couscous in a bowl, mix it together with the olive oil, salt and pepper and then stir in the remaining ingredients: lemon zest, tomatoes, mozzarella, spinach and basil until they are evenly distributed. Taste a spoonful of it and adjust seasoning and lemon zest to your taste.
6. Sprinkle over any remaining basil and then serve!

I hope you enjoyed this brief taste of the summer and let me know what you think!