A nourishing, flavourful salad, autumn on a plate! I used Uchiki Kuri squash for this – easy to grow, sweet, nutty and you can eat the skin – but any firm fleshed squash or pumpkin is fine.

For this salad I used squash, leek and parsnip – it is worthwhile roasting a whole tray of the vegetables and saving half to make soup, hummus (see the recipe here for squash and bean hummus), curry, stew or pie filling. The actual ratio of leek, parsnip and squash don’t matter too much and of course you can replace the veg with anything else you fancy: onions, celeriac, potato, sweet potato, turnip, etc.

 

 

Roast Squash Salad

1 uchiki kuri or other medium sized squash

2-3 leeks medium sized leeks (or one massive one)

2 medium parsnips (or 1 huge one)

A teacup full of pumpkin seeds (or more if you want)

Light oil – sunflower, olive, etc

salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 180˚C (356˚F).

Chop the squash in half, remove the seeds and cut into bit sized pieces. This squash has edible skin: if your’s has a hard skin, then peel before chopping.

Peel and dice the parsnip to a similar size and chop the leeks. I add the green parts too – yum.

Place the veg in an oven tray, drizzle with oil and wiggle it about to lightly coat the vegetables. Season with sea salt and pepper and place in the oven for around 25 minutes.

Spread the pumpkin seeds on another baking tray and put to one side. I used shop bought seeds for speed (this was part of a course lunch for 16 people), but you can use the squash seeds if you wish, cleaned and dried.

Around 5 minutes before the vegetables are ready, pop the seeds into the oven. Keep an eye on them because they quickly go from just toasted to frazzled!

Put veg and seeds somewhere to cool, then scrape into a serving bowl with a spatula (making sure you get the lovely juices from the pan) and sprinkle with some of the toasted seeds.

Meanwhile make the…..

Paprika Tahini Dressing

125 ml tahini

juice and zest of 1 lemon

a jug of warm water

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp sweet paprika

2-3 cloves garlic (or more if you like)

salt and pepper

 

Place the tahini, lemon juice and zest, paprika and garlic in a food processor. Season with salt and pepper, replace the lid and whizz, gradually adding the warm water until the dressing is the consistency of thick cream. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Pour into a bowl and sprinkle a little extra paprika on the top.

Alternatives to the paprika for different flavours – garam masala powder, seasonal herbs from the garden, turmeric.

The dressing is lovely in sandwiches, too. It keeps for 3 days or so in the fridge, in a clean jar.

Uchiki Kuri seeds are widely available – the squash has different names including Hokkaido and Onion Squash. Mine were from Real Seeds and Mr Fothergills.

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Here are some of the other dishes I made for the course at the weekend. One of my favourites was the Garlic Nibbly Beans (I really need a fancier name for them – but the are really so nibbly and moreish!) The recipe for these is on my Instagram account under the photo that looks like this:

Charles took the photo of me with The Creative Kitchen to celebrate a year since its publication. I currently have two double pack special offers on in my shop, to celebrate too.

There’s still time to enter the Burgon and Ball Giveaway – the competition closes at the end of November 12th.