Holiday cooking is always special. And with the holidays falling during the summer here, it’s easy to create stunning meals without a trip to the grocery store.

For Christmas Day, I made homemade linguini, and my husband topped it with a delicious selection of garden vegetables—a fabulous, festive meal.

But Boxing Day’s dinner sort of blew Christmas Day out of the water.

It was a simple meal. Just three salads.

A potato salad made with purple potatoes, sparked up with celery, spring onion, parsley, and homemade pickles.

An Ottolenghi-inspired roasted cauliflower salad made with purple and white cauliflower and toasted walnuts. A dressing of vinegar, oil, maple syrup, cinnamon and allspice added complexity to the flavours, and fresh red currants added crunch and zing.

A fruit salad made with the many fruits gushing from the garden these days.

The overall effect was a riot of colour and flavour. Best of all, nearly everything came from the garden. Holiday meals don’t get much better than that.