In a recent post, I wrote about how, through our CSA share, we are receiving a bounty of greens. So many, in fact, that at first it put me in a bit of a panic. How would I use them all before they went bad? While we do have a compost bin, I hate throwing food away. Not only is it wasteful, but it is also expensive. To the rescue came Mark Bittman, with his 101 ideas for salads, and since our friends Judy and Paul were coming for dinner on Saturday, what better way to use some of those greens than to make one of Bittman’s salads?

I made salade niçoise, or at least something resembling it. I didn’t have green beans, but I did have sugar snap peas, and that’s what I used, blanching them first, just a little, so that they were soft but still had a crunch. I cooked some red potatoes and hard-boiled some eggs. I also used capers, olives, and sliced radishes. On a large glass platter, I made a huge bed of mixed greens—lettuce, Swiss chard, and spinach, and I sprinkled the diced potatoes, pea pods, chopped eggs, capers, olives, and sliced radishes over the greens. The salad was dressed with a simple vinaigrette.

I am happy to report that the salad was a hit on Saturday. We decided it was familiar, in that it was a salad, and unfamiliar, because of the selection of ingredients. Definitely a make-again salad—so good  that it is likely to be a summertime staple at our house, both for when we have guests and for our own dinner.  In fact, tonight’s meal will be salade niçoise, where I will use leftover potatoes from Saturday, cook some more eggs, and include the rest of the ingredients listed above. I will also add some canned salmon, since this will be the main event for our dinner.

On Saturday, along with this salad, we had grilled bread and sliced cantaloupe for appetizers; the salade niçoise; a pasta and spinach salad; hamburgers; and for dessert, ice cream with fresh raspberries, purchased that morning at the farmers’ market.

The weather on Saturday could be described in one word—delicious. It was very warm, but not too hot or too humid. We sat on the patio and ate as birds fluttered around the feeders. From deep within the woods came the ethereal song of the wood thrush. The dog barked at passing cars. A summer’s night, all the more beautiful because such warm evenings only come to Maine for two months each year. The mosquitoes drove us in for dessert, but we had a couple of fine hours on that patio.

As we do on a regular basis, my husband, Clif, and I reflected on how lucky we are to have that patio and to have such a nice backyard to share with our friends.