Pea Soup and Real Deal Greek Salad

Counting down the days when fresh ripe tomatoes and cucumbers will still be available from our lovely garden. Tonight we savoured a village style Greek salad, knowing that we probably won't eat another one for a whole year.  That is the bittersweet reality of eating seasonally and locally; enjoy it while it lasts.  I cringe when I go to a Greek restaurant and see items on the menu that were only meant to be eaten when things are fresh and right from the garden.  A real Greek salad (the way I like it) is made using only a few simple ingredients: ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced onion, crisp cucumber, peppers, black olives, feta, oregano, the best olive oil, sea salt and pepper.  That's it.  And you can only pull this off with the freshest ingredients because that is where the flavour comes from.  So that is the recipe.  Place all ingredients in a shallow bowl, drizzle with LOTS of olive oil because that is what you will be dipping lots of crusty bread in!

PEA SOUP with Roasted Garlic

2 cups organic dried split peas

8 cups broth or water

1 organic onion, diced

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 organic bay leaves

2 tsp sea salt

1 large organic carrot, diced

3 organic celery stalks, diced

2 cloves organic garlic, minced

1 head of organic garlic, roasted

black pepper

Method:  Saute onion, carrot, celery in the olive oil over medium heat until soft.  Add bay leaf, salt, garlic, split peas and water, bring to a boil then reduce heat and cook until peas are soft, about 1 -1 1/2 hours.

     Squeeze the roasted garlic into the soup, remove the bay leaves, cook until soup is the consistency you like.  Serve with crusty bread.