Seasonal Ontario Food

With greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers, and peppers if you would like them, this simple Mediterranean-style salad can be made all year long. I suppose you could serve it as a side-salad, but it's the kind of thing that we eat as our full meal. Round it out with some good, rustic bread and you are all set.

It's funny; though we could eat this all year, for some reason I tend to forget about bean salads in the fall. As soon as the first whiff of spring arrives though, I start making them again. I guess I prefer a hot meal in the winter.

I'm saying 15 minutes to prepare this salad, but that does assume you have made the salad dressing in advance. Also, this salad is pretty flexible about what goes into it. I wouldn't put all the optional ingredients in (I didn't use any of them here, in fact) because I do think its simplicity is part of its charm. However, any of the items suggested will fit in very well.

2 servings
15 minutes prep time


1 large carrot
1 540 ml (19 ounce) tin chick peas, or 2 cups cooked chick peas
2 small cucumbers, or 2 cups sliced cucumber
6 to 8 small tomatoes, or 2 cups quartered
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup diced yellow pepper (optional)
6 to 8 brined black olives (optional)
1 stalk celery, chopped (optional)
1 green onion, chopped (optional)

1/2 recipe Italian Salad Dressing


Peel the carrot, and cut it into dice about the size of the chick peas. Put them in a pot with water to cover, and boil them for about 5 minutes. Drain them and rinse in cold water.

Meanwhile, drain and rinse the chick peas, and put them in a salad bowl with the sliced cucumbers, quartered tomatoes, crumbled feta cheese, carrots and any of the optional ingredients if desired.

Toss with the dressing and serve.





Last year at this time I made Shaker Baked Carrots.