Fact #1; it is not currently summer in Australia, rather it is July, and therefore the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere.
Fact #2; I do not care for the realities of the seasons, and I will make myself a summer salad whenever I so happen to feel like it.
And that friends, is precisely how this particular salad came to be. Right now, I'm 'enjoying' the freezing cold surrounds of Canberra in the depths of winter, very much wishing I was sunning myself on the beaches of Europe like three-quarters of my more fortunate friends seem to be doing. Not me though - I'm working away (making cash monies) in Canberra, being a hermit and watching Netflix. Despite that physical reality though, I've been busy transporting myself to more exotic locations culinarily, experimenting with new flavours, inspired by the things I'm missing most about the warmer weather and foreign adventures. Conveniently, the strawberries in Australia right now also taste spectacular, and being one of my very favourite things about the European summer, I decided to use them to create what I feel, is the flavour of summer in salad form.
Most importantly, this salad is super quick and super easy to put together, which also reminds me of summer because usually in the warmer months I like to spend the absolute minimum amount of time indoors prepping food and maximum time outdoors absorbing all of the sun and basking in the warmth. (Can you tell I miss actual warmth? No? Well I do. Very much so.)
Ingredients;
1 large head fresh green lettuce
1 cucumber
1 pear
1 red onion
1/2 avocado
2 generous handfuls fresh strawberries
4 spring onions/shallots
Handful fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup lightly roasted pine nuts
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1. Finely slice the cucumber, pear, spring onions and red onion into thin strips. For the cucumber, doing this diagonally works best!
2. Take a large bowl, roughly tear the lettuce leaves up and chuck them in. Add in the finely sliced pear, onion, spring onion and cucumber. Roughly chop the parsley leaves and add them in too, along with the pine nuts.
3. Slice the strawberries and avocado up (for the strawberries, any way works, I like them done in thin slices personally, though quartered also works, and for the avocado, thin slices work best) and add those in too. Mix everything through.
4. Finally, drizzle with balsamic and a teensy-bit of olive oil. Enjoy!
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