Roasted Vegetables and Beetroot Greens Salad

Tips for making the best roast vegetables
(thanks to Jude Blereau's Wholefood Cookbook for reminding me of some fundamentals - when I rush they can turn out half dry, half steamed!)

- use metal trays, cast iron with enamel coating if possible, to transfer heat best. Glass and ceramic don't let enough direct heat get to the vegetables.
-don't crowd the veggies too close together - give them space in the trays so they can crisp up, otherwise they can steam-cook
-cut the slow cooking veggies like potato into smaller pieces than the faster cooking ones like kumara (sweet potato) or steam the slow-cooking veggies first
-Keep watery vegetables in different trays to drier ones.
-I keep different kinds of veggies in separate trays so I can take out the faster cooking ones first- if you mix them all at the beginning some, like beetroot, might burn while others are still hard.
-Wrap whole bulbs of garlic in twists of baking paper to stop them burning. Un-wrap then un-peel when cooked (about 20 mins so remove this before the other vegetables). I also wrap my beetroot in baking paper and unwrap when soft to let crisp just a little.
-Some oil is necessary for helping the vegetables crisp on the outside and be moist inside. Only about 1-2T is fine.
-Rub the oil and seasonings into vegetables before cooking them.



I seasoned mine with fresh rosemary, home-made dukkah. Adding cheeses like feta or goat's cheese to a bowl of roasted vegetables makes a nice cafe-style salad. You can even mix with greens when cooled a little.



Beetroot leaves make a great salad. I just used the leaves from my bunch of beetroot. First I picked the leaves from the stems, washed them thoroughly, rolled them up and sliced thinly. A dressing of juice of 1 lemon, 1 crushed garlic clove, 2 T extra virgin olive oil helped 'marinade' the tougher leaves (the little young leaves are fine as is). And I just added a can's worth of chickpeas, rinsed and peeled (the skin pops off with a pinch between thumb and finger) and 1 chopped avocado.