A partly well-travelled summer harvest salad

Last night's harvest salad was a combination of gifts. Leaves, tomatoes and brassica buds (blanched) from a visitor who brought them from the Numbi Valley. That story - the valley and hers - are interesting but not mine to tell.

She didn't think they'd survive the excruciating summer heat for more than soup. They did (and some still for another meal).

Also in the bag of treasure, a large butternut squash (stashed for yet another meal) and the most glorious heirloom tomatoes.

In the salad, together with the tomatoes with gooseberries and some basil from our garden, and the treasure chest.

Finally, and scrag-ends of courgettes from Saturday's in-the-jar, offering at the market lightly sautéed with some garlic and dressed with a squeeze of lemon juice. Finally, I drizzled the entire salad with a homemade vinaigrette.

It was a good way to end the day because I'd spent most of it in the kitchen.

Because

I am nuts.

This means that that Saturday, I have two markets - our usual morning market and the Lantern Festival. So, I spent the day working on things that don't go off and/or freeze.

One of my offerings is snoek fishcakes - a play on fishcakes that the Brits might make with Haddock.

But first, it was shortbread.

This will be part of one of the best receive Sunday Supper desserts, which I called Scottish Milk Tart and which was the filling of a traditional Afrikaans melk tert served with Scottish shortbread.

The presentation won't be quite so attractive...I'm working on something, though. I'll be doing a few other things, too. All things being equal...

Oh, and if any local - as in Cape Town-based Hiveans want to make a weekend of it (a meet-up would exclude me - for obvious reasons...) McGregor's not so far. You can check out accommodation options via Destination McGregor or via our Tourism Association website.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma
Post script

If this post might seem familiar, it's because I'm doing two things:

• re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine....?
• and "re-capturing" nearly two years' worth of posts.

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• Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers' community.

Original artwork: @artywink

• lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs, images available freely available on @hive.blog and Canva.