Jane wanted “something Mexican” for dinner tonight as we had a ripe avocado to use up. A bit of searching – just “avocado” along with a list of a few other ingredients I knew we had, took me to an interesting looking recipe from what appears to be a tomato grower based in the Netherlands: Tomato Salad with Red Bell Peppers, Kidney Beans and Creamy Avocado.

Ironically, we didn’t have any tomatoes in but we did have a large red pepper and a tin of kidney beans, along with a red onion. I’m used to treating recipes like this quite liberally. I quietly ignored the bit about charring and removing the skin of the pepper and pressed on with only a minor hiccup at the dressing. Whoops! No lime juice left in the fridge but perhaps that was just as well as both the lemons in the fruit bowl turned out to be in urgent need of using up. Lemon juice, mixed with oil, salt, pepper and paprika formed the dressing and, after a quick mix (and ignoring more of the ingredients and directions), it was ready.

I’m sure the salad would have benefited from some time to rest but it was more than adequate scoffed down with a lump of buttered bread.