Watermelon salad and fig flatbread

(Nederlandstalige versie)

My usual market strategy is to start by looking for vegetables that are sturdy enough to sit at the bottom of my bag and to save vulnerable things like fruits and herbs for last. Sometimes I find so many great vegetables right away that there’s no more room and I always end up regretting that because I love fruit and it’s so inexpensive at the market! This time, the opposite happened and I came home with almost nothing but fruit.

Twelve apples for €1, a watermelon for €1, a container of dried thyme for €1, a container of strawberries for €1, lots of pattypan squash for €1, six figs for €1, and a bowl of avocados for €1.

What I used it in: oatmeal porrige with apples, watermelon salad, a watermelon smoothie with strawberries, a strawberry pie, pattypan soup, flatbread with figs and almond feta, a tiny chocolate cake with figs, guacamole, sushi with avocado and watermelon, and pattypan pizza.

I loved the look of the pattypan squash but to be honest the flavour was a little disappointing. I used them in two soups and both turned out bitter. I also sliced and pan-fried a few and put them on pizza and that was a lot better. I think stuffing and baking them may be nice as well. Better luck next time, I suppose.

The watermelon and strawberry smoothie was inspired by a post on The Friendly Fig. It made my boyfriend very happy because he loves smoothies and I like them too, though I like the fruit even more in its non-blended state (that’s almost always my problem with smoothies).

We’d had a watermelon carpaccio at De Kop van ‘t Land in Dordrecht a while ago and we loved it so much that I wanted to make something similar myself. At the restaurant, my boyfriend had a type of cheese with his watermelon and I had a vegan version with olives. This time I used the almond feta I had in the fridge and it was absolutely delicious. Other than that, it just had basil and lemon juice — I’m going to give the version with olives a try sometime, too. (I couldn’t decide what shape to slice the watermelon into and they ended up more like strange ribbons than slices, but they tasted fine!)

The figs were so ripe I had to use them straight away (which was probably why they were so cheap) so I put them on pizza dough with red onion, rosemary, and some more almond feta. The flavours suited each other, but I thought the sweetness of the figs was overpowering. If I buy them again I need to make sure I have a good recipe to really make the most of them.

I’ve already blogged about the sushi and the salad with avocado. The strawberry pie should be coming up soon!