YAY! I've passed the 1,000 readers mark! I'll share my 'Renée's Salad' to thank you.

Good Golly! More than a thousand readers for Rays of Light within 6 weeks...I am chuffed, proud, pleased, happy, over the moon, and delighted with you all!

My Selfie

Hello there, you from The United States! So nice of you to drop in!

And you, from Russia! Lovely to meet you!

And you, over there in Serbia, how are you?

And that sole reader in Greece: never mind, I adore Greece.

And all the rest of you in Germany, England, Ireland, Sweden, Scotland, Morocco, India (yes, you, Smitty), Australia, Austria, South-Africa, Brasil and last but not least my fellow Dutchmen, who think nothing of reading my stuff in English - GREAT, I am proud of you!

Apart from toasting you all tonight with my single glass of red wine (this is for that fellow who is worried that I drink too many, you know who you are!), I thought I'd write down my very own salad recipe.

Renée's Salad

You need:

- mixed greens, made up of bean sprouts, endive leaves, lettuce leaves, chicory leaves, spinach leaves, in fact all sprouts you like except for the Brussels variety (for 4 people I use 200 grams of greens at least, and that is not counting the tomatoes, pepper and cucumber!)

- a hand-full of roasted pine nuts and/or walnuts (I use both)

- 250 grams tiny sweet tomatoes

- pieces of roast chicken (organic happy chickens, please, and how much is up to you. Organic chicken is bloody expensive in my country, so 250 grams is enough for me)

- spices (I use Himalayan rock salt, freshly ground black pepper, chili pepper, garlic)

- approx. 10 black Kalamata olives (hey! Greece!)

- fresh Parmezan cheese, in slivers

- you may add a couple of hard boiled eggs, but that is optional (happy...you know the score)

- 1 cucumber (in cubes)

- a bell pepper (red, green, orange, yellow, whatever colour you like)

Start by quickly spicing and roasting the chicken (I use coconut butter for this). Let it cool off a bit. Then take out your loveliest salad bowl (large! This is a large salad!) and put in everything else (hah! This is the kind of cooking I prefer - no fuss), put the chicken on top and end by grating your Parmezan cheese on top.

Now; the dressing. I usually make up an easy one by mixing a couple of spoon-fulls of organic mayonaise with the juice of half a lime and some finely chopped parsley. But I've been known to use finely chopped dandelion leaves instead of parsley(not too many, they will make it too bitter). Chicken and lime is a perfect combination. But you can use your own dressing, as anything goes, really. As long as it doesn't clash with the olives.

Enjoy!!

This is our greenhouse in Summer, b.t.w. Notice the Rucola on the right, it was growing rampant! The kids were complaining of a Rucola overkill.