Rukmini Iyer's quick and easy recipe for baked feta tacos with pink onion and pineapple salsa
The salsa is best made just before serving, so prep and chop everything and keep it separately in the fridge, if need be (though you could chop and mix the onion with the lime in advance).
Prep 15 min
Cook 25 min
Serves 2
200g block feta
½ tbsp olive oil
5-6 stalks oregano and/or thyme
½ tsp chipotle chilli flakes
4 small corn tortillas
1 romaine lettuce, finely sliced
For the salsa
1 fresh, ripe pineapple, peeled, cored and flesh cut into small chunks1 small red onion, peeled and very finely chopped1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped15g fresh mint, finely chopped1-2 limes, zest and juiceA pinch of sea salt flakes
Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Put the feta on a lined baking tray, drizzle with the olive oil, then scatter over the oregano and/or thyme and chilli flakes, and bake for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix the pineapple, onion, chilli, mint and lime zest, then add the lime juice and salt a little at a time, tasting as you go. (You may need all or just one of the limes, depending on how juicy they are.)
Warm the tortillas in a hot pan for 30 seconds per side, or according to the packet instructions. Pile the lettuce, pineapple salsa and hot, broken-up feta into the tortillas, and eat immediately.
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Long summer days call for picnics – but wasps often make an uninvited appearance. One quick trick can stop them from ruining an al fresco get-together. It's summer in the northern hemisphere and that means Sun, sea – and wasps. A lot of us have been taught to fear wasps as aggressive insects that exist only to make our lives a misery. But with unsustainable wildlife loss across the planet, we need to learn to live alongside all organisms – even wasps. They are important pollinators and predators of insects. A little knowledge about their natural history can help you dine safely alongside wasps. The wasps that usually visit your picnic are typically the common yellowjacket (Vespula vulgaris) and the German wasp (Vespula germanica). They seem to appear from nowhere. What should you do? 1. 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It depends on what is going on inside the colony – and this changes with the season. Wasp larvae are carnivorous. Together, the workers rear thousands of larvae. If your wasp wants ham (or some other protein source) at your picnic, you know her colony is full of hungry larvae. You might notice this in early-to-mid summer – and no later than mid-to-late August. Enjoy the knowledge that you are helping feed armies of tiny pest controllers, who will soon set to work regulating populations of flies, caterpillars, aphids and spiders. A defining feature of an adult wasp is the tiny petiole (wasp-waist). This constriction between her thorax and abdomen evolved so her ancestors could bend their abdomens, yoga-style, to parasitise or paralyse their prey. The wasp-waist of an adult worker limits her to a largely liquid diet. She is like a waiter who must deliver feasts to customers without tasting it. The larvae tip her service with a nutritious liquid secretion, which she supplements with nectar from flowers. For much of the season, this is enough. Blend science and a picnic Towards the end of the summer, most wasp larvae have pupated – and a pupated larva doesn't need feeding. So, demand for protein foraging diminishes, as do the sweet secretions that have kept the workers nourished. More like this: • Elephants hate bees – and that helps humans • Air pollution turns bees' world upside down • The bumblebee battle against invasive hornets This means worker wasps must now visit flowers for nectar – although your jam scone or sweet lemonade may also be exceedingly tempting. If your wasp is fixated on sugar at your table, then you know her colony is likely to be in its twilight phase of life. Although time of the year is a good indicator of the balance of ham-to-jam in a wasp's foraging preferences, weather, prey availability, local competition and rate of colony growth can influence them too. This means the switch from ham to jam this year may be different to next year. * Seirian Sumner is a professor of behavioural biology at University College London (UCL). ** This article is adapted from a piece that originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. --
