Summery Salad

Total Time: 15 mins Preparation Time: 15 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 4
• 1 cup small plum tomato (grape tomatoes)
• 1 cup english cucumbers or 1 cup israeli cucumber, in bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup onions, preferably sweet onion or 1 cup red onion, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded, ribs removed, in bite sized pieces
• 1/2 cup black kalamata olive, pips removed and halved
• 1/2 cup arugula, pushed in or 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 3 1/2 ounces soft fresh goat cheese (note below) or 3 1/2 ounces jersey milk cheese (note below)
• fresh ground black pepper
• good salad dressing, preferably made with extra-virgin olive oil and cider vinegar

Recipe

• 1 ** because i'm in south africa, i am never sure whether the same ingredients can be found elsewhere. we get soft, creamy 100g packaged goats' cheese in little logs, and recently also jersey milk cream cheese logs. i prefer those flavoured with herbs, or with black pepper, or garlic and parsley. you could substitute ricotta, but it's not as flavourful.
• 2 rinse and prepare everything.
• 3 the cheese will crumble, and if you use those specified, it'll be very soft when you mix it in and add to the general flavour mix.
• 4 if you only have strong onions, you might want to use less.
• 5 put all the ingredients in a plastic mixing bowl first, season with the pepper, and mix in just enough salad dressing to coat the ingredients lightly.
• 6 carefully "decant" into a pretty salad bowl.
• 7 this will be 4 generous side servings with dinner, or 2 - 3 lunch servings with fresh, crusty continental-style bread.