Pink grapefruit, avocado and watercress salad

Hello everyone, in the last couple of weeks I have made lots of salads. Regular readers will know that I did quite a few winter salads too, using roasted vegetables. Now with the warmer weather there's a whole new range of vegetables and fruit to use, and when I spotted this recipe in the October edition of delicious I just had to try it as it contains lots of different ingredients that I love. I made it for dinner on Sunday night last week. It really only took five minutes and looked and tasted stunning. Non vegetarians might like to add a few slices of prosciutto. I might add that when I was shopping for the ingredients that morning I must have tested every avocado in the shop and they all felt too firm, so I selected one and put it out on the windowsill for the day. By night time it was fine.

Have a happy week. Love from Jane xxx

Pink grapefruit, avocado and watercress salad

Serves four

What you need:

• 16 macadamia nuts
• 1 pink grapefruit
• 1 ripe avocado
• A bunch of watercress, sprigs picked
• 8-12 slices prosciutto (optional)
• 8-12 wafer thin slices pecorino (optional)
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat leaf parsley

Dressing

• 1/2 tablespooon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar (or whatever you have to hand)
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons hazelnut oil, if you have it, otherwise use more of the extra virgin olive oil

What you do:

1. For the dressing, combine the mustard and vinegar in a small bowl with a pinch each of salt and pepper.
2. Whisk in the oils, then set aside.
3. Preheat the oven to 180 and then toast the nuts until they smell nice, about ten minutes.
4. Peel the grapefruit, removing all the pith, then cut into segments over a large bowl to catch the juice.
5. Halve, stone and peel the avocado, then cut into slices of a similar size to the grapefruit slices.
6. Add the avocado to the grapefruit with the watercress and toss very gently to mix.
7. Drizzle half of the dressing over the salad and toss lightly, so you don't break up the avocado or grapefruit slices.
8. Arrange the salad on a plate, interleaving the prosciutto and pecorino slices, if using, with the watercress, grapefruit and avocado.
9. Sprinkle with the parsley and drizzle over the remaining dressing.
10. Scatter over the macadamias and serve.