Bloody Orange, Haloumi and Zucchini Salad. Bloody good.

I’m excited to share with you the FIRST contributed recipe! After telling my friend Lizzie about my challenge (and surplus of zucchini’s), she text me through (ahh, got to love this modern world we live in!) a recipe her mother-in-law, Ingrid, shared with her. After devouring this salad (for 4) between just my husband and I, I share it here with you. A really enjoyable and colourful combination of flavours that I have never united together before, until now. Feel free to use normal oranges if you can’t find any blood oranges, but do ask your local green grocer first, you may be surprised to find them in the back corner along with the navels as I did.. (That’s Navel Oranges, not Navel navels...)

Prep time: approx. 20 min. cooking (grilling) time: about 15 min

Kitchen stuff needed: a grill (we use an electric one endorsed by a once famous boxer!).Sharp knife, chopping board, shallow frying pan, fork for mixing dressing, large salad bowl for serving

Ingredients from the garden:

4 x large Zucchini's sliced into planks

Other Ingredients

5 x Blood Oranges

250gm x Green beans

1 x small Spanish onion,

250gm x pkt haloumi cheese

50gm x slithered/flaked almonds

1tblspn x ground cumin

1 tbsp. x red wine vinegar

1 – 2 tblspn x Olive Oil

S & P to taste

Let’s do it:

1. Grill Zucchini’s on/under grill and set aside

2. Slice skin off oranges, cut in half and put ½ an orange aside for later.

3. Slice the remaining halves to create semi-circle slices. Deseed as necessary.

4. Blanch green beans in 2 cm boiling water for 3 min. Remove and set aside.

5. Take outer skin off onion and chop finely

6. In dry saucepan on low heat, throw in almonds and toast gently. These will only take a minute or so. Toss regularly.

7. Salad is almost done. Just need to make a quick dressing. In bottom of salad bowl squeeze juice of ½ Blood orange you set aside, the red wine vinegar, cumin and olive oil. Add S & P to taste.

8. Add all other ingredients to the bowl(except haloumi & almonds) and give a good toss with your hands to unite all the flavours.

9. Lastly slice haloumi into ½ cm squares and grill (this will grill in under 30 sec each side, so stay close.)Once cooked add to salad and give a gentle toss.

10.         Sprinkle the toasted almonds on top and enjoy this middle-eastern fusion of flavours...

Enjoy with a large glass of crisp Chablis.

Soundtrack for a Bloody Good Salad: Wonder by Lisa Mitchell