Roasted Tomato and Pumpkin Salad

I bought an enormous box of sauce tomatoes the other day. I think the only thing that made these delicious looking Roma's 'sauce' tomatoes is that they are on the ripe side of ripe and not perfect.  To other people.  To me - perfection in a $13 box.

They left the shop with me without any real plan except to use them before they die.  I could make sauce out of them but that takes time I don't have.  So far I've made Tomato and Cashew Pasta twice, eaten it on every sandwich, fed it to Andrea and made this salad. As it is there will be more than one repeat.

Give it a go and let me know what you think.




One good size butternut pumpkin - diced into bite size cubes
8 ripe Roma tomatoes - quartered length ways
1/2 packed cup of fresh basil - chopped
Olive Oil
Salt
Palm sugar
Baby Spinach
3-4 stalks of spring onion - sliced into little bits (I could write a cook book with instructions like that)

Preheat oven to 250ºC
Toss the cubes of pumpkin in oil and lay out on a baking tray.
Oil a second tray and place tomato slices skin side down.
Sprinkle tomatoes with salt and sugar.  Just enough to touch each slice and give it flavor.
Spread the basil over the top.
Place both trays in the oven until the tomato is a bit crispy and pumpkin is good and brown.  Stir pumpkin once if you want.

It takes about 45-60 minutes depending on the size of your pumpkin and tomatoes and your oven.

When it's done lay out your baby spinach on plates or bowls, add the pumpkin and tomatoes then sprinkle with spring onion.

It was pretty delicious without any dressing because the tomato is so nice and juicy but I'm a big believer in taking things up a notch and dressing salads with something.  So I made a yogurt dressing to go with it.

Dressing

1 1/2 cups Greek yogurt
tablespoon of honey
tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
splash of oil
4 garlic cloves - crushed (we keep garlic in the freezer and then grate it.)

Mix ingredients together and add as much as you want.

And there you have it.  A little bit of delicious.  Veggies that you will crave.



I have a strong suspicion that I've promised some of you recipes for things at different times but don't really remember who or what.  So now's your chance.  What do you want to hear about? A recipe I've mentioned that you'd like to try? or something else?

Let's do this.