With a new book comes new ideas. Salad For Supper. Patricia Wells, inspirational cooking teacher and author, tantalizes with her new cookbook Salad As A Meal, a concept that speaks of ease, freshness, light meals, casual concoctions. Don't approach this with notions of a messy hodgepodge thrown into a salad bowl. No no no. Here we have lovely, gentle tossings of elegantly simple elements that work together to build a sum greater than its parts.

Then, there are the things that go with salad for supper, some gentle soups, homemade crackers, the wines we may like to enjoy. Salad As A Meal takes us by the hand and invites us inside Patricia Wells' charmed life in the south of France, enabling our participation in the creation of sun-drenched foods and easy living. Cookbooks like this promote the fullfillment of a fantasy, a portal to a kinder, gentler world where people sip wine and eat canapes under the canopy of an oak tree. While some elements of our own lives may differ, we can adapt the themes and menus to our own circumstances and get one step closer to creating our own happy retreats within our own homes.

So, which salad should I tell you about? Thai Beef? Potato Salad With Capers, Spring Onions and Mint? Pear, Blue Cheese, Fennnel, Endive and Salted Almond? Vietnamese Chicken and Green Papaya? Marinated Shrimp? You may have noticed that some of these creations are not particularly French, as are many of Patricia Wells' notable recpes. No matter. They are inspired and fresh, trademarks of Wells' casual, elegant style. The more I browse Salad As A Meal, the more enthralled I am with this book. Here is a salad that calls out to me:

Crab, Avocado and Quinoa Salad With Technicolour Tomatoes

3 cups water or stock; 1/2 tsp. kosher salt; 1 cup quinoa, well rinsed and drained; 2 bay leaves; 1 pound (2 cups) lump crabmeat, cooked; 1/4 cup minced fresh tarragon or Italian parsley; 1/2 cup minced fresh mint leaves; 1 large rip avocado, halved, pitted, peeled and cubed; 2 cups mixed red, yellow and green cherry or pear tomatoes, halved.

In a large saucepan, bring water or stock to a boil. Add salt, quinoa and bay leaves. Bring back to a boil and then reduce heat to low, cover the pan and simmer until the quinoa is tender and translucent, about 15 minutes. Drain and return quinoa to pan. Cover with a clean dish towel, replace the lid and let it sit for 10 minutes. Discard bay leaves and let quinoa cool.

Place cooled quinoa in a large, shallow bowl. Add crabmeat, tarragon, mint and avocado. Toss with a dressing of your choice. Patricia likes this Yogurt and Lemon Dressing:

Combine 1 tbsp. lemon zest and 1 tbsp. fine sea salt in a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Take 1/4 tsp. of this lemon salt and combine it with 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt and 2 tbsp. of fresh lemon juice. Shake well to blend. Adjust seasoning and add pepper if you like. Serve with quinoa salad.

Let your days be salad days:

I have tried a few versions of roasted fennel and generally find the sweet, tender result quite appealing. But I also find some of the chunks from the outer layers of the bulb stay tough and stringy, the oven not quite rendering them into the gentleness I am seeking. Until I met this fennel dish, meltingly soft, spiked with parmesan cheese and strewn with a crisp, salty topping of roasted prosciutto. If "crisp" and "salty" are emotional hotspots for you, your soul will sing with this rustic Italian dish from matriarch-chef Lidia Bastianich.

The first order of business is the one responsible for the moist tenderness I speak of. You boil your fennel chunks in salted water just until they can be easily pierced with the tip of a knife. After a good draining in a collander, you line the morsels in an oiled baking dish and sprinkle some grated Parmesan cheese, along with salt and pepper, over them. Over this goes slices of San Danielle prosciutto, following the lines of the vegetables. Roast for about 25 minutes and you will be rewarded with a hot, savoury casserole filled with sweet flavour and crisp bacon-like notes. Prosciutto undergoes a fabulous transformation in the oven, darkening, shrinking, and thus giving off a more concentrated hit of its essence.

What makes this dish work so well? The fennel is hot, sweet, juicy and tender. The prosciutto is dry, salty, crisp and meaty. Together they sing a happy song, the blissful conjoining of disparate elements creating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is one of those kitchen mysteries, where flavours play off each other in a particularly harmonious manner.

Roasted Fennel and Prosciutto - adapted from www.lidiasitaly.com

2½ pounds fennel, trimmed and cut in wedges; 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil; 3 ounces prosciutto, thinly sliced;
½ teaspoon salt; freshly ground pepper; 1 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated.

Bring about 4 litres of water to the boil in a large pot. Drop in the fennel wedges and cook them at a gentle boil for 10 to 15 minutes, just until you can pierce them easily with a sharp knife tip. Lift out the wedges and drain well.

Cut the prosciutto slices crosswise into strips, about 1/4-inch wide.

Set a rack in the middle of the oven; preheat to 350 degrees. Coat the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch baking dish with a splash of olive oil. Lay the fennel wedges in one layer, filling the dish. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the top. Lay the prosciutto in strips over the fennel, following the direction of the fennel. Finally, sprinkle over the grated cheese, covering the whole dish evenly. Bake the dish for 25 minutes or until the top is crusty and golden and the edges of the prosciutto and fennel are also colored and crisp.

Learn from Lidia!

This is SO easy and SO delicious, I wonder why it took me this long to tackle. I have a few versions of roasted cauliflower, one that involves par-boiling first, but this one is even easier. Simply separate a head of cauliflower into roughly equal sized florets, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and parmesan cheese and roast in a hot 400 F oven, turning pieces every 15 minutes or so, until deeply and evenly browned and tender, about 40 minutes. The sweetness of the veg sings out like never before, dispelling any memories of sulphurous odours linked to the cauliflower. Vegans may wish to omit the cheese. The dish is still fabulous without it. Expect crisp and toasty nuggets of succulent vegetable. You may play with some flavour options here: a bit of curry powder in the mix would be nice, as would a squirt of lemon juice or the inclusion of thickly cut onion wedges from a sweet onion like Walla Walla or Vidalia.

Of course you could eat the roasted cauliflower as is, but I have an enhanced flavour-packed treatment for these tender, golden vegetables you will want to try. Roast your cauliflower florets to your liking and set aside in a mixing bowl. Take a can of anchovies in olive oil and spill the oil into a saute pan. Mince the anchovies and place them in the pan with the oil. Add in 2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped, a large pinch of pepperoncini (hot pepper flakes) and 2 tablespoons of minced capers. Cook the mixture over medium heat until the garlic is golden and the anchovies have melted down to a moist paste. This should take about 4-5 minutes. Be careful the garlic doesn't get too dark, as it could easily scorch and turn bitter. Scrape this fragrant mixture onto your cauliflower florets and toss to coat everything well. Season to taste with salt and fresh cracked pepper. I like to add some green to this mix in the form of fresh chopped Italian parsley which adds jolts of herbal joy and marries well with the garlic/anchovy/caper elements in the dish. Serve immediately. This gutsy, lusty vegetable creation pairs nicely with other Mediterranean offerings, including tomato-centric pastas, grilled fish, or savoury meat pies.

You need never be bored by the humble cauliflower. Roast it!