Recipe: Endive and Tomato Salad with Kalamata Olives

I came up with this recipe myself, using some things that happened to be around the house at the time and needed to get used up. It has become a family favourite.

Start with 1 Belgian endive and one tablespoon of minced Kalamata olives per two medium tomatoes, with black pepper and olive oil. The thing that makes this work is the bitter, crunchy endive contrasting with the soft, sweet tomatoes - and the salty goodness of Kalamata olives makes everything taste better.

You can see that the olives I started with were sliced, which makes things easier. Getting them whole (squish them with the side of a large knife and you can remove the pits) is how I usually start. I give a measurement for the olives, but I never actually measure anything myself. Discard any sad outer leaves from the endive, slice in half lengthwise, remove the stem and slice crosswise in larger pieces. Slice the tomatoes in half, then quarters, then cut into bite sized pieces. I prefer roma tomatoes for this (and actually, for everything). 

Put it all in a bowl, add pepper and drizzle with olive oil then mix gently. Best eaten right away but tastes fine the next day, although the texture looses a bit.