We were sent a selection of Sarah Raven salad seedlings by Higgidy, with the task of making a salad to go alongside some of their delicious pies. You can’t beat a freshly grown salad – after all, you just pick it and eat it. Read on to find out how we got on!

Higgidy Pies need no introduction here. They’re my vegetarian pie of choice with excellent varieties to choose from as well as several meaty ones for Shaun and H. I love that they’re freshly made with healthy ingredients and that they taste good.

Higgidy are currently working with Sarah Raven on a ‘Grow Your Own’ campaign; you can get £5 off at the Sarah Raven site via Higgidy – and having grown our own this last month it’s much easier than you think – the time it took to grow to then being on our plates was around three weeks.

We were sent a selection of Sarah Raven salad seedlings which were: Rocket, Mizuna, Red Solix, Mustard Red Giant and Green Salad bowl. These were carefully planted in our back yard and lovingly watered by Shaun on a daily basis, though he had to claim another of my wine boxes that I’d converted into CD racks – I let him though.  So what makes a good accompaniment for a Higgidy pie?

Take several rocket leaves (and a couple of mizuna too, and a few red solix). Slice an apple and a pear. Add some colourful dried fruit to the salad (I used cranberries and goji berries), and set aside to chill while the pie cooks (not too long as the apple will start to discolour) which should be around 25 minutes. I then chopped up a bit of red pepper, added it to some 0% Greek Yoghurt with a generous helping of freshly chopped mint and a couple of basil leaves, added a few cubes of feta, mix together and chill.

I received a selection of Higgidy pies, and for this meal chose the Sweet Potato & Feta Pie with Pumpkin Seeds, there’s a bit of a feta thing going on here, but the whole dish is also cool and fresh tasting which is nice when it’s hot like this.

I used the yoghurt as my dressing as I didn’t want too much of a flavour clash (and it mixes well with the apple) – if you wanted to thin out the yoghurt a bit use some lemon juice – it doesn’t overpower the taste. Once the Higgidy pie is ready, serve straight away. Yum! If you’re like me, not having a lot of time to spare this is a nice quick and easy meal to put together and filling too. The fruit in the salad kept it crisp and fresh tasting too, and I felt quite healthy afterwards!

Thank you Higgidy for this chance – we’re loving our salads so much I’ve just invested in a Salad Zinger, so we’ll have the best dressings to go with it!

We were sent a selection of Higgidy pies and seedlings from Sarah Raven to complete this challenge. Thank you!