Last night I lovingly made a healthy version of Shepherd’s pie for dinner, only to be told by one of my sweet daughters that I’d taken all the joy out of it. She said it tongue in cheek and ate every bite so I wasn’t too offended. But it’s not “exaaaaactly” the feedback you want after you spent an hour making dinner.

Usually, I love cooking but there are definitely days when I roll my eyes and think “here we go again”. Sometimes the chore of making dinner isn’t the actual making, but the thinking, planning and shopping part. It’s another tab open in my brain — and there are so many tabs. The actual making … that’s usually fairly relaxing. I pop something on audible and switch off from my day. However, yesterday I had tried to get ahead and cooked while Attix was still up. This meant I was also rolling cars down a ramp every few minutes and tried to chop the onions with him on my hip. There was a lot of up down up down, beep beep, vrrooooom, don’t touch, that’s sharp, here’s a snack, want a drink? It’s amazing dinner eventually materialised at all.

The good thing is that now summer is here, I can do a bit less cooking and a bit more assembling. One of my favourite ways to get dinner together more quickly, is to buy a base salad from Miles deli and then augment it from there. (I often do this with fresh soups in the winter — adding chopped cooked chicken breast, some left over pasta and wilting in some spinach.)

Recently, my favourite dinner in minutes has been this combination pictured here. It’s the Miles chickpea and wild rice salad, with diced avocado, flaked salmon, toasted pine nuts and chopped chives. I had leftover pine nuts from last week’s recipe so that was super easy and I always have some kind of fresh herbs to hand. You could use anything here — parsley, cilantro, basil would all work — so it’s a great way to use up what you already have.

For the salmon, I’ve done this often with the grilled salmon (also at the deli) but I have to say I absolutely love the Ducktrap roasted smoked salmon fillets as well. You can get these at most grocery stores and they are packed full of flavour. Just remove the skin, flake it and toss it into the salad. I usually make plenty so that I can have it for lunch too — however, don’t dice the avocado until you are just about to serve so it stays nice and fresh.

As well as being easy, this is so healthy. You’ll get tons of fibre from the wild rice, chickpeas and lentils. This is great for keeping things moving on the digestive side but also good for slowing down the energy release from the carbs. This means better balanced blood sugar and sustained energy, rather than a peak and a crash. In addition, you get some plant proteins from the chickpeas, lentils and pine nuts — but top up nicely with protein from the salmon. This makes it nourishing and filling too.

What else is great about it? Hmmm you also get good fats from the avocado and salmon. The avocado giving you an extra dose of heart healthy vitamin E. And adding any kind of fresh herbs gives you a nice little pop of antioxidants. How good is that? The quickest meal you will make this summer and totally delicious!

• The advice given in this article is not intended to replace medical advice, but to complement it. Always consult your GP if you have any health concerns. Catherine Burns BA Hons, Dip ION, BNTA is a fully qualified Nutritional Therapist trained by the Institute for Optimum Nutrition in Britain. Join Catherine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/nutrifitandnaturalnutritionbermuda or instagram @naturalbda.