Kumera, Roast Tomato & Pine Nut Salad

Looking for salad for people that don’t like salad ? or looking for something simple that you can pull together quickly that you can have on its own or as a side dish for a BBQ.  Its one of our favourites and is fabulous served with grilled lamb cutlets, roast chicken or Italian sausages.

Its such a versatile recipe, that you can subsitute many of the ingredients with what you have on hand and still serve up something just as delicious. Exchange the goats cheese for feta.  The spinach for rocket (or a mix of both).  The nuts could be pistachio instead of pine nuts.  You could roast the tomatoes or leave them fresh and use pumpkin instead of sweet potato.

The addition of an avocado compliments the flavour and texture of the dish but as you can see by my pictures, is still a winner without it.

INGREDIENTS

1 kumera (yellow sweet potato)
½ punnet cherry tomatoes
olive oil
¼ cup pine nuts
3 handfuls of baby spinach (approx 60g)
goats cheese or feta cheese
½ avocado, sliced (optional)

Dressing
1 tsp honey
1 spash red wine vinegar or balsamic
1 tblspn extra virgin olive oil
pinch of sea salt

METHOD

1. Peel kumera, slice into 1 cm thickness rounds.  Cut the rounds into half and place on a baking tray.   Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and place on another tray. Sprinkle tomatoes and kumera with olive oil, salt and pepper.

2. Bake the sweet potato and the tomatoes for about 30mins until the kumera is golden and the tomatoes are caramelised and roasted.  The tomatoes may take less time so check them after 15-20mins.

3. In the meantime, lightly roast the pine nuts in a dry frypan until golden and set aside.

4. Make dressing in a small jar.  Shake the jar to mix and dissolve the honey into the dressing.

5. To serve, place spinach in salad bowl (or individual serving plates). Sprinkle with a little dressing and mix through the salad leaves.

6. Add the avocado if including, along with cooked kumera and roasted tomatoes on the spinach. Pour over the rest of the dressing. Crumble over the goats cheese (or feta) and lastly sprinkle over the toasted pinenuts.

Serves 2