Spinach, Beetroot and Crumbled Cheese Salad.

I have always wanted to grow my own veggies but have never had the space.  However, one of the million amazing things about our move to South Africa is that I now live in a house with a garden.  As soon as we moved in the hubbie constructed a monkey-proof cage for our tomatoes and strawberries while I bought a couple of plastic baths and hoarded large yoghurt pots to plant our crop.

I spent a morning making holes in the bases of the baths and yoghurt pots and placing a few small stones in the bottom for drainage.  I then filled the containers with potting soil and planted a million tomato plant and strawberry seedlings.  Wonderfully the weather is reliably sunny and so they are growing like crazy, so much so that a monkey cage extension is under construction! 

We also planted spinach in a container outside of the cage - it turns out that monkeys aren’t fans of ‘peppery greens’.  The spinach is also completely ecstatic and is growing like crazy despite being rather penned in.  On a slight whim I scattered eggshells around the soil to try and stop slugs and snails and also to perhaps leach some nutrients into the soil.  But being completely unscientific about it I failed to leave any plants un-shelled as a ‘control’ and so I don’t really know whether my eggs can take any credit for the success of the spinach….

This Sunday I though we would should try our first harvest of spinach in the form of a salad.  If I had cooked the spinach it would’ve been enough for a shot of spinach soup thanks to the disappearing nature of this wonderful veg.  But the salad was completely divine and a real beauty to behold.

Ingredients (serves 2 as a starter)

1 handful of young spinach leaves

1 baby courgette

1 raw beetroot

1 handful of sunflower seeds

1 handful of beetroot seeds

1 handful of fresh parsley, torn

1 handful of fresh mint, torn

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

50 g white cheese, I used a combo of leftover feta and gorgonzola

salt and black pepper

Method

1. Tear the spinach leaves and place in a bowl with the sunflower seeds and parsley.  Use a vegetable peeler to strip the courgette lengthways and add to the bowl with the lemon juice, 1 tbsp of oil and seasoning.  Mix well and place in a clump on each serving plate.

2. Coarsely grate the beetroot and place in a bowl.  Add the vinegar, mint leaves, pumpkin seeds, 1 tbsp oil and seasoning.  Mix well and place in a clump on the serving plate.

3. Crumble the cheese and place on the plate in the third space.

Serve with some crusty bread to mop up the juices.