Summerish

There's something sublimely summery about the Riverford box this week. The adorable tomatoes, the muddy spring onions and the lovely, crunchy lettuce.

It's an idea far too much ingrained in me from my student economy: salad is bloody expensive. Like the majority of the worlds population iceberg makes me gag. I'm sorry, it tastes like nothing. It looks worse.

I don't mind making a Caeser salad (vegetarianised, naturally) out of a head of romaine or a pomegranate encrusted rocket number. Buying the lettuce is a nice chunk of change though, especially as I could never eat the entire thing as a single person.

The Riverford head of lettuce will most likely see some waste. Although one of the benefits of the veggie box is that things straight from the farm are much fresher and last longer.

This summer's solution is cut and come again crops. Spinach beet, salad bowl lettuce, rocket, lollo rossa and mixed orientals. With the addition of herbs from the kitchen window, wild pickings and yummy dressings I'll hopefully be able to make salad an everyday thing.

This simple one was a Riverford lettuce base, spring onions and fried parsley on top and dressed with the sesame dressing from the Veganomicon.

For a tasty, healthy, adorable desert I made ice cubes out of banana and berries. I got the idea from a recipe in Vicky Bhogal's new book Flavour. I'm hoping to get a review together once I've cooked something proper from it. But in parting I'll tell you that it is stunning.