Oh yes, it’s salad season. Tender, fresh lettuce leaves, mixed with all kinds of spring veg like snap peas, shelling peas, pea shoots, asparagus, and scallions. Add some salty aged cheese, a chewy whole grain like farro or bulgur, a dressing of lemony garlicky olive oil, and maybe even some grilled salmon or chicken, and you’ve got a great meal. How about a side of focaccia? I mean, what could be better?

Recipe for a spring salad, adapted loosely from Bon Appetit:

1 cup semi-pearled farro, boiled in salted water for 30-ish minutes, drained and cooled

8 cups of lettuce leaves, whatever you’ve got in the garden

2 cups of pea shoots (the tender new leaves and tendrils)

1 cup of sliced snap peas, or shelled peas, or sliced asparagus, or scallions, whatever is fresh from the garden, or a little of everything

Shaved aged parmesan

Dump all of this in a huge bowl.

Make a dressing: Grate a garlic clove or two into a mason jar, then add 1/4 cup-ish each of olive oil and lemon juice, plus some salt and pepper. Put the lid on the jar and shake shake shake.

Toss everything together. Add a protein if you like.

Easy Focaccia: For this, I use the recipe from Alexandra Stafford on her site Alexandra Cooks. I use the yeasted version, and I follow it to the letter. Trust me, it’s foolproof. It also works as a fabulous pizza base and we often use it for this purpose.

You can watch her make the bread on YouTube, below:

Enjoy!