You can dress salads however you like, but if that salad has lettuce and/or slices of cucumber in it, or big chunks of bell pepper, I'm going home. And heaven forfend that anyone should serve up one of those seventies horrors that had peanuts or bits of tinned mandarin orange in them. Or cold rice...

A very nice salad that's almost a full meal if you eat enough of it is one that I saw printed on a box of Sainsbury's cherry tomatoes. It's like a caprese but with testicles (not real ones). Slice up a ball or two of mozzarella (can't be arsed with that expensive sloppy buffalo stuff - Galbani's finest will do me), slice up two avocados thinly (they must be perfectly ripe: paramount) and chop some of the best cherry toms you can get your hands on in half, about 200g mebbe. You can layer the avo and cheese artistically in a shallow serving dish of some kind by alternating the slices in a swirly pattern, or you can just chuck it all together. Throw the tomatoes on top. Season with a bit of freshly-ground black pepper. Sprinkle your very best extra virgin olive oil over it all and finish with some freshly-torn basil leaves*. Simple. The box calls it tricolore salad, because it has the three colours of the Italian flag. As they hardly use avocado at all in most of Italy, I doubt its authenticity, but it's delicious of a warm summer's evening.

*I said fresh. Put that pot of dried basil down and walk away slowly. Tomorrow, it will make the perfect partner for your kitchen waste bin...