The first Irish tomatoes and courgettes have found their way into our kitchen in the last few weeks. Tomatoes in all varieties are grown all around Ireland: yellow, green, red and black. We get lovely organic ones from Beechlawn farm in Ballinasloe. Courgettes, too, come in different colours. I love the slightly sweet yellow ones.

Thinly slice lengthwise on a mandolin and pickle overnight. Combine 250ml apple cider vinegar, 75g organic honey and 50ml water and bring to the boil and cool for a simple pickling liquid.

You can drop some cherry tomatoes in too. The next morning you’ll have gently pickled tomatoes. For a twist, add some dried kombu to the pickling liquid. The umami quality of this seaweed will give your tomatoes and courgettes a real boost.

When you’ve eaten all the pickles, reuse your flavoured vinegar. It will develop over time. I pickled cherry tomatoes last year. While the tomatoes themselves were a little tart and shrivelled, the resulting liquid was divine.

I made a quick dressing with one part vinegar to three parts rapeseed oil for a salad of fresh tomatoes, courgettes and goat’s curd (from St Tola in Co Clare or Galway Goat Farm in Co Galway). Dress the tomatoes and courgettes with the dressing and season with some coarse sea salt. Use some nice, bitter mustard leaves.

There are loads of nasturtiums about, so finish the lot with some of the leaves and the flowers.

On the subject of nasturtiums (which grow wild nearly everywhere), you can make a wonderful green flavoured mayonnaise. In our gastropub EAT in Galway, we made this recently and used it in a corned beef and fermented cabbage sandwich. Half fill the food processor with mayonnaise and pile in the nasturtium leaves. Add a little olive oil and blend until smooth. Season and spread away.