Chilled Salad

 

If you regularly buy too much at the farmer's market and the results crowd out your fridge all week here's one way to cut the clutter and help ensure you don't end up throwing a lot out. Spend half an hour blanching your haul in a single pot of heavily salted water, dropping each batch of cooked vegetables into a fresh bowl of ice water. Seal 'em up and use throughout the week. Then make something like this.

My whatever-works kind of farmer's market salad. The one pictured has blanched asparagus, peas, favas; boiled potatoes, chickpeas and egg;  ricotta, anchovies, capers and basil ripped from an indestructable plant that's been surviving on my sill for five months. I doused it in good olive oil, salt, pepper. (Sometimes I dress it in a vinaigrette of torn basil leaves pounded with a clove of garlic, Txakoli vinegar, salt, pepper and olive oil.) Serve it cool.

It also works great with green beans, tinned tuna, shreds of cured ham, chunks of salami, flakes of Comté, a squeeze of lemon, and probably a hundred other things.