Layered Garden Salad

I know it's winter over here and I've been cooking warm/hot comfort food for my family; anything cold would put me off and I'd usually boil or roast my vegies. So I was quite surprised myself when I felt like having some salad last weekend. But for all of you Northern Hemisphere folks, I thought I'd share this as it would be just the right thing for you to have now. This is called Layered Garden Salad. It's really creamy and refreshing at the same time. I love the mix-of-tastes-coming-together-in-one-salad kind of feel to it. It's even cheesy, which I love as well. I usually use a larger clear glass salad bowl for it as it is layered and it looks great seen through clear glass, but with this one I didn't use the full amount of ingredients in the recipe, I simply halved or adjusted to the amount I needed for this particular bowl as I thought the full amount is too much for just my family and I and I didn't want to waste as salads don't keep well if not eaten up straight away.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 lettuce
2 cups (250g) frozen peas
2 hard boiled eggs
250g mushrooms (finely chopped)
125g Tasty Cheddar Cheese (grated)
1 cup Mayonnaise ( I used "Whole Egg" Mayo, you can use any)
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teasppons French mustard
6 shallots
4 rashes bacon
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tomato, cut into wedges

(1) Shred lettuce coarsely, place in salad bowl.
(2) Sprinkle in cooked frozen peas over lettuce.
(3) Push eggs through sieve. Combine with finely chopped mushrooms. Spread over peas, topped with grated cheese.
(4) Combine mayo, sour cream, mustard, lemon juice and shallots. Pour over cheese.
(5) Dice bacon, fry in pan until crisp, drain.
(6) Top with tomato wedges, bacon and chopped parsley before serving. Enjoy!My early flowering (winter flowering) Australian-bred Lavenders from the Ruffles Collection are just starting to flower in my garden, they are a delight in the wintery dreary cold weather, even though they are not in their full-bloom glory yet; they have a superb scent which warms my heart! Simply lovely!