Salad Days and Salad Dressing

Loads of grown-up work to be getting on with now that we are back.  Slowly ploughing through it.  Thanks so much for your nice hello emails :)  I hear that (in the UK) July has been pants for the weather, I know I shouldn't be surprised.  Ah well.

Here are a few more holiday snaps (that will be the last of them).

In the mountain in Segovia.  See that zig zag road leading to the bridge in the distance?  We rode over that on our scooters.  It was just like those blokey car ads hugging windy roads except it was more exhilarating and a hell of a lot more scary - my knuckles were bright white!

Just another typical pretty street scene in down town Segovia.  Any more relaxed and they have to resuscitate everyone.

This believe it or not is the oldest restaurant in the world.

Yep, dunno about you, but I'm lost for words...

Ooh, yes please!

The amazingly beautiful (and touristy) Sagrada Familia designed by Gaudi.  It's stunning, but so over run by tourists (no irony lost) we couldn't bear it.

Outside view of this gorgeous oldey worldey Barcelona fabric shop...

...and inside.  This was only a sixth of the stock they had and the staff inside were sweet old folks with bi-focal spectacles and tape measures around their necks.

Park Guell (by Gaudi) overlooking Barcelona at dusk - a great time to go if you want to avoid the hordes.

Last evening of looking really holiday healthy before returning to London. No more salad days, back to work!

See this droolsome plate of fish yumminess?  It's smothered in an incredibly delicious traditional Spanish dressing.  The recipe for it is below...

Spanish Parsley Oil Recipe

Slather it on your fish, meat, veggies and salad or use it as a bread or crudités dip or whatever!  It's a bright green zingy & garlicky taste of summer, it looks so pretty, and it's healthy too.

For an average sized jam jar (it keeps for ages in fridge) you will need:

• 50g of flat leaf parsley roughly chopped
• 100ml of extra virgin olive oil
• 4 anchovy fillets (this doesn't makes the dressing taste at all fishy, it just deepens the flavour)
• few twists of black pepper
• salt to taste
• 1-2 fat cloves of garlic
• a quick shake of sherry vinegar (approx 1/2 tspn) or to taste.

Method:

1. Bung the lot in a food processor and whizz it up until all is well mixed and the parsley is fine. Taste the oil and add more seasoning or sherry vinegar to your liking if necessary.
2. Find something, anything to put this oil onto pronto!