Dancing in the Moonlight and chick pea salad

I remember very early on in Jamie Oliver's telly career when he was a geezer about London Town, cooking for his mates and his band members, there was one particular episode where he had a barbecue (it is a barbecue as it was British television). Anyhow, the episode culminated in his friends talking and relaxing in his garden (this must have been a studio cause nobody in Clerkenwell, London has a fecking garden nor are the evenings ever balmy in the UK unless there is a freak heatwave which kills people and there certainly wasn't one that year). I digress, so there his friends are looking cool and sexy with fairy lights and food and that song by Toploader came on, "Dancing in the Moonlight". And everybody wanted to be them or aspire to be like them. Well, saccharine sweet as it sounds, that was me last night. It was a balmy evening, my friends were in my garden looking cool and sexy and having a damn brilliant time with the promise of brilliant food. I thought about that Jamie Oliver episode as it really did capture the moment perfectly. You can now put your sick bags away.

Firstly a MASSIVE thank you to Patrick who brought me the most amazing braai set that serious braai-ers use (I will get there); I said it last night and I will say it again, you are a rockstar of note. And thank you to the braai master. It did not disappoint despite the moaning and whining that the steak was 'overcooked', it was like butter.

As Kesh said, you know if you are coming to chez Sam, there is always the promise of great food, and last night was no exception (if I do say so myself). Gazpacho for starters, and a host of different salads for mains to accompany the meats and bread. There was a chick pea and roasted pepper salad, a beetroot, sugar snap pea and feta salad and a cous cous, broccoli and marinated tomato salad.

The great thing about salads is that they do not have to be your wilted lettuce, soggy tomato type, there is so much scope for variation and creativity and they can ultimately be made from anything from your store cupboard as one of my salads was last night as I thought I would be a salad short so I had to whip something up in a hurry. And this was what it was:

Chick pea, roasted pepper and feta salad (serves 8)

Ingredients:

2 tins of chick peas
1 tin of roasted peppers (chopped)
large handful of chopped coriander
1 red onion finely chopped
250 grams of feta
1 packet of sugar snap peas
generous pinch of salt to taste

Dressing
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of soya sauce
4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
1 heaped teaspoon of grain mustard
Juice of 1 lemon

Method:

Mix all the ingredients for your dressing

Throw your ingredients in a bowl

Add dressing

The end