Summer Salads : Tomato, Mozzarella & Fine Bean

As part of my fantastic goody bag from the Irish Food Bloggers event, I was the lucky recipient of a herb plant from Living Flavour.  These guys have the freshest herbs I've ever seen.  I could only choose one from the selection of basil, mint, curled parsley, sage, coriander (eewwwww....) rosemary and thyme, so I went for one that would work with a dinner I had planned for tonight.  I bought a pair of Ribeye Steaks in Aldi on Wednesday, hoping that the rumoured good weather would appear so we could have a barbeque.  At a special price of just €9.99, they are a bargain - and they're part of the Bord Bia Quality Assurance Scheme so you know exactly what you're getting.

As I'm trying (in vain) to stick to the Weight Watchers plan, I decided to make a herb butter using my Living Flavour thyme and some Connaught Gold low fat butter (half the WW points of the real thing and no difference in taste).  I added some crushed garlic, ground mixed peppercorns and chopped flat parsley, blended it thoroughly and put it in the fridge to chill and allow the flavours to develop.

Salad is a perfect companion to steak and I decided to make a tomato salad with a twist - using a packet of Aldi fine beans to add colour and texture.

Tomato, Mozzarella and Fine Bean Salad

1 packet M&S Santini tomatoes

2 Beef Tomatoes

200g Fine Green Beans

1 ball of Mozzarella 

2 tbsp M&S Sicilian Lemon salad dressing

Small handful basil leaves, shredded

Halve the Santini tomatoes, core and roughly chop the beef tomatoes and place in a large bowl.

Chop the mozzarella into small chunks & add to the tomatoes.

Trim the fine beans, chop into 3cm pieces and briefly cook in salted boiling water in tender.  Rinse in cold water to stop cooking and add to the tomatoes & mozzarella.

Add the salad dressing and basil just before serving.

This was our absolutely gorgeous first dinner of the summer - the Ribeye steak, seared on the barbeque, with the herb butter,  the tomato salad and some new potatoes.