Having chomped my way through innumerable iceberg, cos, lollo rosso, oak leaf and dozens of packs of assorted Italian lettuce, I think it’s time to say ‘enough’.

Even my beloved rocket is beginning to pall – but it’s still too hot to think about stews and roasts and things with gravy, so it has to be salads, but without the green stuff.

Pasta, rice and lentils are all good candidates for main course salads, and you can mix and match with all sorts of extras and dressings.

Chilled pasta with a few odds and ends like peppers, sweetcorn and olives will make a good ‘store cupboard’ salad, perfect to pack in a plastic box for the beach. It’s a great addition to backyard barbecues and it’s ideal for school lunch boxes too. Add a grilled chicken breast and you have an easy warm weather supper.

With a slightly sweet and sour dressing, lentils make a nice vegetarian salad with grilled or fried Cypriot haloumi cheese, which is available from larger supermarkets. If you can’t find it, I’ve tried grilling kefalotiri cheese with equal success.

I don’t think there is a definitive recipe for Niçoise salad. Every cookbook seems to have a slightly different version, but the basics are usually potatoes, green beans, eggs and tomatoes, with canned tuna or anchovies and vinaigrette dressing. Some versions have artichoke hearts, coloured peppers or cucumbers, but I just add a few butter beans and olives to the basics and swap the canned tuna for fresh.

My party piece is a seafood salad of rice with mussels, clams and prawns. It’s a bit of a moveable feast in that sometimes I add some calamari rings or tiny octopus (or both) or, when I’m feeling particularly extravagant, I add a couple of defrosted lobster tails, but you can always cheat and use a pack or two of frozen mixed seafood.

I must confess I did have an overwhelming urge to add rocket to the Niçoise salad and to serve the lentils on some crispy iceberg leaves, but I managed to overcome it and leave the green stuff firmly in the fridge.