This is my version of meat and two vegetables - Puy lentils, marbled green-brown, delicate and nutty, alongside two spring vegetables, lifted with some fresh herbs and lemon juice. The lentils were simmered along with a sliced red onion for about 20 minutes, until they were tender but not mushy. Then I drained them, and tossed them with a splash each of mellow red wine vinegar and olive oil, and stirred in some roughly chopped fresh mint.

The potato salad on the side was the best I've ever had, and was inspired by a memory of a description Jackie wrote sometime, somewhere on the web. I used the tiny baby potatoes I bought yesterday, scrubbed them but didn't peel, and boiled them for about 10 or 15 minutes. Once drained and dry, they were cut in half, and mixed with olive oil, lemon juice, chopped flat-leaf parsley and chives, some capers, and a sprinkle of sea salt. Simply delicious. And then, because no meat+2 can be complete unless you have dirtied three pans, I boiled a big bunch of fresh asparagus until it was just tender, then whisked it out to adorn the lentils.

Dinner was good. Even more so after we remembered the feta we'd intended to add, and crumbled a little bit of that over to mix saltily with the lentils. God I love spring.

15 April 2004