Warm Roast Vegetable Salad with Feta

This was our dinner on Friday night – it perfectly fitted my Wimbledon food criteria... quick, easy and convenient to eat. I’d spent most of the day watching tennis (Andy Murray’s match was a real nail biter!) and could barely drag myself away from the TV so there was no way I was planning to do anything too tricky foodwise.

I had the laptop, with the BBC's live coverage, on the breakfast bar while I was in the kitchen so that I didn’t miss a ball; I will say that chopping veg is a somewhat hazardous operation, though, whilst watching Andy at set-point to level the match - I don't recommend it at all!

This made quite a decent amount of roast veg and there was some left over so I added the remainder to some garden grown salad leaves, beetroot and tomatoes for lunch yesterday - very nice indeed. It's also good stirred through some couscous along with a couple of spoonsful of dressing to moisten.

......and so we come to today’s match; at 2pm – the Wimbledon Men's Singles final. Ooo-er…missus! I have spent almost my entire life wanting this; will today be the day I’ve been waiting half a century for? I bloody hope so! C’mon Andy!!

Update:
Since I put this post on this morning Andy Murray has won the Men's Wimbledon Singles title!! Magnificent, astonishing, stupendous and every other superlative you can think of...! I never thought it would happen in my lifetime, so I am a very happy camper indeed. There wasn't a dry eye in the Simply Veggie household...it was a privilege and a pleasure to watch.

2 red onions
1 small aubergine
2 Romano red peppers
150g mushrooms
1 medium sweet potato
2 tbsp olive oil
black pepper
few sprigs of fresh rosemary
150g feta cheese

1tsp Dijon mustard
1tsp runny honey
1tbsp sherry vinegar
1tbsp olive oil
1tbsp walnut oil

a few snipped chives

Peel the onions and cut them through the root into eighths; chop the aubergine and peppers into chunks about 2 or 3cm square; peel and chop the sweet potato into chunky pieces; if the mushrooms are small leave them whole or halve them if larger. Put all the veg into a large plastic freezer bag (saves on washing up!) along with the olive oil, rosemary and a few grinds of black pepper; hold the top of the bag tightly shut and shake until all the veg are coated in oil.

Tip the vegetables into a large baking tin or two and roast at 200C for 30 minutes until cooked through and starting to char a bit at the edges.

Put the dressing ingredients into a small jam jar and shake like billy-o until the mixture emulsifies.

Once the roast veg are cooked, discard the rosemary and arrange a goodly amount of the veg on two plates; top with the crumbled feta and a sprinkling of snipped chives. Drizzle over a little dressing and serve with crusty bread.

Potato, Three Bean and Sesame Salad

I feel I should warn you I’m typing this with one eye on the telly watching Andy Murray playing Ivo Karlovic at Wimbledon; if I wander off into incoherency at least you’ll know why!

I thought you might like to see a pic of some of our ‘Swift’ potatoes which we dug up two days ago. The rest of the veg patch is still a bit hit and miss but at least the spuds have enjoyed the rain. Despite the recent awful weather we seem to be having three days of summer at the moment (I hope this isn’t all we get!) so a potato salad seemed like a good idea yesterday.

This one is based on a recipe by Michel Roux I saw mentioned on a messageboard, but I changed it around slightly; I was doubtful about the sesame dressing, but I thought this Michel bloke can cook a bit and probably knows what he’s about (ha!) so I decided to go with it. Good call…the dressing was fabulous; sweet, sharp and tangy all at once.

(Incidentally, Andy has just beaten Karlovic in four sets...good man!)

400g new potatoes

100g frozen edamame beans
100g frozen baby broad beans
100g fine green beans
½ a red onion, finely sliced
small handful fresh coriander leaves

2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
1 tablespoon soy sauce
juice of 2 lemons
black pepper

Chop the potatoes into bite-size chunks and boil or steam until just tender; drain and plunge into cold water then drain again.

Top and tail the green beans and cut into thirds. Put all three types of bean in half an inch of boiling water in a small pan, bring them back to the boil and simmer for three minutes. Drain, plunge into cold water and drain again.

Put the potatoes, beans, red onion and half the coriander leaves in a large bowl. Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl, drizzle over the salad and mix gently with your hands so as not to break the potatoes.

Scatter the remaining coriander leaves over the salad before serving.

Served 2 for dinner with some left to have on the side with a sandwich next day.

Mixed Bean Salad with Tomato Dressing

Well, I’m amazed to be able to say that the weather forecasters were right for once in their lives; the weather has been glorious for the last couple of days so, following on from what I said a couple of weeks back, I had a go at recreating another one of my ‘This is Not from Waitrose’ salads yesterday. I decided to go for the mixed bean variety.

The bean part was easy but the dressing required some thought. I wanted a dressing that was tangy without being citrusy and something that would be thick enough to cling to the beans; I definitely didn’t want to end up with something resembling soup with the beans swimming in a sea of dressing! I decided to go for a tomato and balsamic combo; it took a while to get just the taste I was after but I got there eventually.

Now, I have to tell you that we had this for dinner last night with quiche and new potatoes…and we had to stop ourselves from eating it all – we loved it! There was about two spoonfuls left (!) which we ate alongside our lunchtime salad sandwich today; I’m happy to report that it was just as good after 24 hours in the fridge.

1 tin mixed beans, well-rinsed and drained
100g fine green beans
50g frozen soya beans
½ a Romano red pepper, diced
¼ of a medium red onion, finely chopped
small handful of roughly chopped curly parsley

2 sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 small clove garlic, chopped
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 heaped tsp sun-dried tomato paste
4 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp sugar
1 tbsp water
black pepper

Top and tail the green beans and cut into thirds; bring ½ inch of water to the boil in a small saucepan, add the green beans and the soya beans, bring back to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Drain and plunge into cold water then drain well again.

Put the mixed beans and the cooled green and soya beans into a bowl, add the diced red pepper, the finely chopped onion and the parsley and mix well.

Put all the dressing ingredients into a blender and blitz until almost smooth.
Stir the dressing into the salad, cover with cling film and refrigerate for a couple of hours to let the flavours amalgamate.

Serves 4 or maybe even 6 as part of a barbecue or buffet (or 2 extremely greedy simple veggies!)

Beetroot, Feta and Walnut Salad

Beetroot…I think it’s another one of those 'love it or hate it' foods. I've always loved it but until today I’ve only had it pickled from a jar or from a shrink-wrapped packet bought at the supermarket. Well, I am so excited, I’m fit to burst – I have just made a salad with our very first home-grown beetroot plus some gorgeous salty-sharp feta and toasted walnuts! (Really, I must get a life…I should not be this excited about a root vegetable!)

It was absolutely delicious and like no other beetroot I’ve ever tasted; I don’t know whether that’s because it was only dug from the garden this morning, because it was organically grown or because it was freshly cooked…probably a bit of all three but, whatever the reason, I have had a slice today of my own little beetrooty heaven!

4 medium raw beetroot

3 tomatoes, cut into largish chunks

½ a small red onion, thinly sliced

3 or 4 good handfuls washed salad leaves

200g feta, roughly crumbled

50g walnut halves

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp grainy mustard

1 tsp runny honey

juice of ½ a lemon

few grinds of black pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

Wrap the beetroots individually in foil, place directly onto the oven rack and roast at 200C for 30-40 minutes until tender. While the beetroots are cooking put the walnuts into a small baking tin and toast in the oven for 8 minutes (put the timer on, they turn to charcoal very quickly!)

When the beetroots are cooked and cool enough to handle, slip the skins off and cut into wedges through the root ends.

For the Honey Mustard Dressing - whisk the two mustards, honey, lemon juice and black pepper together in a small bowl then gradually whisk in the olive oil until the dressing thickens.

Chop or tear the salad leaves into bite-sized pieces and divide between two serving plates; top with the chopped tomatoes and red onion followed by the beetroot wedges, feta and the roughly chopped toasted walnut halves.

Drizzle over the dressing just before serving.

Serves 2