Restocking the boat with fresh fruit and veg is always a challenge. What fruit and veg will stay the freshest the longest?… that sort of thing. While at Mooloolaba we went to the supermarket and, surrounded by fresh fruit and vegetables, I went a little crazy. Forgetting I only have a small fridge on the boat I bought lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, fennel bulbs, chillies, zuchinni, capsicum, carrots, swede, and more. Of course when I got it all back to the boat there was no way I was going to fit it all in my fridge. Some of it was able to go into the bilge with the potatoes and onions, (i.e. swede and carrots), but others such as the lettuce and cucumbers needed to go into the fridge.

Anyway that dilemma led to me deciding to have a salad for lunch. My next dilemma was how to serve a salad to Dwayne for lunch without him thinking I am trying to starve him to death! After a search through the fridge I discovered we still had some pickled octopus left. (The occy we caught in Fame Cove).

So this is what I did…

I made a simple salad of lettuce leaves, sliced cucumber, chopped tomato, sliced red onion, thinly sliced fennel bulb and sliced green chilli. I arranged the salad on a platter and topped it with sliced pickled octopus. I wasn’t sure how to dress this salad. What would go with the pickle flavour of the octopus? I decided to do a simple aioli of whole egg mayo and lime juice. I used bottled lime which I always have on hand on the boat. I mixed quite a lot of lime with the mayo to make a thin dressing, which I drizzled over the salad.

It worked really well. We thought the flavours complemented each other. Dwayne loved it and because it had something other than just veggies i.e. the occy, he didn’t accuse me of feeding him diet food!