Daily salad

This salad is simple, tasty, healthy, easy to make, and easy to pack for lunch. Also, it is relatively cheap, compared with the pre-packaged salads from the stores. Here is what you need to buy:

1 iceberg lettuce

1 green or red or yellow pepper 

1 small onion (optional)

1 pint grape (or cherry) tomatoes

1 avocado

Parsley, oregano, and/or basil (fresh if possible, but dried is fine) 

Salt and pepper

These quantities make 4 portions of salad. If you need one portion only, you can divide the vegetables in 4, cut only one portion and refrigerate the rest.

Note that you will make not just your salad but many other recipes better if, instead of buying a jar of basil or parsley flakes, you buy a small basil or parsley plant and plant it in your garden. It will taste so much better you will wonder how you settled for dried leaves before, and at the end of the season you can pick any remaining leaves, dry them, and put them in a jar, and they will still be more flavorful than what you can buy pre-packaged in the spice aisle at your local supermarket.

Iceberg lettuce keeps better if you tear the leaves, instead of using a knife. After you cut the avocado, wrap it with cellophane, put it in a plastic container or a jar, and refrigerate it. You can place the rest of the onion and any leftover pepper in a jar in the fridge as well, as long as it is tightly closed. 

Also, you can use any other tomatoes, if you do not mind the liquid they leave in the salad.

Be creative and add any other vegetable if you like, e.g. broccoli, green beans, radishes, etc. I buy vegetables which are on sale and in season. Peppers in particular tend to be more expensive when they are not on sale.

Salad dressing:

Mix together in a bottle:

1/4 cup of vinegar

1/4 cup of water

1/2 cup of olive oil

If you want a more filling lunch, you can add 1-2 boiled eggs, 1-2 oz. (50 g)  Feta cheese, or bacon. Leftovers of ham or grilled chicken can also be added, as can olives, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Choose your own choice of protein!

Tomato soup

On a cold wintry day, nothing can make a better choice for lunch than a nice hot tomato soup with toasted cheese sandwiches. 

For tomato soup you need 4 cups of of chicken and vegetable stock. (You can use store-bought chicken stock or simply make your own, as I do. I use a pressure cooker since it is a time saver and excellent for making soups. Together with 6 cups of water, add to the pot 1 pound of chicken on the bone [any part of the chicken may be used], 4 celery sticks, 1 medium carrot, and 1 medium onion cut in half. Add a teaspoon salt. Boil them for 20 minutes. Cool it off and strain the liquid. This is your stock. The boiled vegetables and chicken can be used for making salad - I will give you that recipe another day.)

1 can 6 oz (170 g) of tomato paste 

1/4 cup of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of salt (more or less)

2 tablespoons of all purpose flour

Parsley

Pour the oil into a big frying pan and turn the heat on medium high. Put the flour and stir until all is mixed with olive oil. Add the tomato paste little by little and stir continually. When it looks like a thick paste, pour the stock in small portions until it reaches the thickness you like. When it is ready, turn off the heat. In the meantime, heat up another pan for making the grilled cheese sandwiches.

For every sandwich you need 1 oz of butter and 2 oz of cheddar cheese. Put the butter on the heated pan, and one piece of bread or half of a bread roll. Add the cheddar cheese slices and cover it with the other half of bread. Turn the sandwich over with the second half downward, to toast for 1-2 minutes. When ready, place it on a hot plate and keep it warm until you finish all the sandwiches you want to make.

Makes about 4 portions - although it is so good you can easily share it between three people and not have any leftovers!