Roast Vegetable Salad

I’m pretty lucky for the most part with the lovely blokes I share my table with. They’re good eaters with an adventurous enough palette to indulge my experiments. But… and there’s always a but…they’re not the biggest vegie lovers. Each has their own preferences only a few of which cross over though the three all share a distaste for pumpkin. So some days out of exasperation I fall back on this old favourite. It’s colourful and vibrant, it cleans out the vegie drawer in the fridge, it goes with nearly anything, can be built up to be a meal in itself and is excellent for sharing with vegetarians. And the best part…. It’s all muddled together so more vegies are consumed than perhaps the eater may or may not intend.

I’ve shared the basis of what makes this salad but like a lot of family recipes it’s different every time in one way or another acting as a blank canvas of sorts to transform into whatever you need.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 small, orange sweet potato peeled and cut into chunks

3 cups of pumpkin cut into chunks the same size as the sweet potato

2 large carrots peeled and sliced thickly

1 spanish onion cut into wedges

2 garlic cloves bruised

1 capsicum cored, deseeded and cut into chunks

1 zucchini quartered lengthways and sliced thickly

1 punnet of cherry tomatoes

2 handuls of baby spinach leaves or rocket (arugula) leaves

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

Dressing:

1 tbs balsamic vinegar

½ tbs brown sugar (I’ve used my favourite Panela Sugar here)

1 tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 small garlic clove, crushed or grated

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Combine all dressing ingredients in a jar shake well and set aside allowing the flavours to combine while you make the salad.

Place sweet potato, pumpkin, carrot and garlic in a bowl with half the olive oil toss to coat, spread out on a large baking tray and roast for 20 minutes.

Combine onion, capsicum, zucchini and cherry tomatoes with remaining oil, toss to coat again. Add to the other veg on the same baking tray after the initial 20 minutes and return to oven for a further 15 minutes or until tender and softened and the edges are just caramelised.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle over the thyme leaves straight away. The heat from the vegies will warm the thyme and bring out the fragrance and flavour.

Allow to cool a little so the veggies don’t wilt the leaves too much. Serve on a platter either layering with the fresh leaves or gently tossing them through. Drizzle over the dressing (give it another shake before you do this), sprinkle over sea salt flakes and fresh ground black pepper to taste.

Notes:

Slice 1-2 chorizos, fry and sprinkle the cooked slices over just before serving.

You can bulk up the salad, especially for vegetarians, by gently folding through a can of drained beans, lentils or chickpeas.

Sliced 100 gm of haloumi. Fry over and toss over salad just before serving.

Sprinkle over crumbled feta to taste.

Dried chilli flakes are also delicious sprinkled over.