food: beet, pumpkin + feta salad

ok, so this is music bog, blah blah blah... i made the most killer salad this week and i wanted to share..

if you're vegan, just leave out the cheese (duh!).

half a relatively small butternut pumpkin
3 medium sized beets
bunch of garlic
a bunch of asparagus
handful of sugar snap peas
6 inches of cucumber
1 tomato
about 300 grams of feta
half a spanish onion
a mix of baby spinach and rocket (about two handfuls)
a handful of macadamia nuts chopped into 2, 3 or 4 pieces
a handful of chopped continental (flat leaf) parsley
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt + pepper


get the pumpkin and beets and peel and cube them, chuck some crushed garlic and olive oil over it and bake it at about 180 (c). if you've got a heap of garlic, it's totally killer just to chop the tops off all the cloves and pour some olive oil over it and add that to the baking dish too! when that's done, you can just squeeze the garlic out and add it to the salad, or eat it on some bread. just check the pumpkin and beetroot and garlic in a little while and take it out when it's cooked how ya like it.

put the macadamia nuts into the oven too, but not for as long!! they're so good roasted...

put some water on to boil; about 4 or 5 cups should do (depends how big your pot is, i s'pose.. just to cover however much asparagus you have). cut the asparagus diagonally in pieces about 3 centimetres long and dump them in the boiling water for about 5 minutes (or til they're done how ya like em). pour the asparagus into a colander and rinse with cold water immediately.

slice the onion, cube the tomato, peel the sugar snap peas (you can blanche these too if you like, but i reckon they're best crunchy), slice the cucumber diagonally and then in half, cube the feta and chuck it all on top of the spinach and rocket, also adding the asparagus, parsley and macadamias. mix 3 parts olive oil to one part balsamaic to suit the size of your salad, add salt and pepper to dressing to taste.

when ready to serve, mix the salad dressing through the mix and serve onto a plate. sit the pumpkin, beetroot and garlic (if you bothered) on top.

this salad goes really well with some bread with nuttelex, or even better, some toasted fresh bread with garlic and olive oil rubbed in to it!

so delicious! try it!

x kurt