November 13, 2018

Half-Baked Salad

Half-Baked Salad

A salad of half-baked, half-raw vegetables, combined with lettuce leaves, roasted chickpeas and roasted honeyed goat’s cheese.

So because it’s Vegan Month, the first week was all vegan recipes. OK that was actually a pure coincidence. A happy accident. Very happy actually. I am really pleased with those recipes. The black beans are basically The Pioneer Woman’s recipe, so that was no surprise. And the Hot and Nutty Vegan Curry is an adaptation of Chicken, Pistachio & Black Pepper Curry from Sabrina Ghayour’s Feasts so that was also bound to be good. But the baked coconut rice puddings… mm, they were a surprise. And of course the Chia Seed Apple Pudding deserves a nod too – must buy some apple juice.

Anyway I’m delighted that I’ve got those recipes now but they probably are the last vegan recipes I’ll add this month. This week I want to focus on some simple just-throw-it-in-the-oven type recipes. This is probably the most complicated of them. And this isn’t complicated. Convient healthy recipes that I can tag convenience-health-food. Because it’s not the time of year for any other sort of health food, is it? Oh, you don’t find being healthy a hassle? … Well, good for you.

I’m not going to tag this convenience-health-food because it does require more than simply opening a bag and putting the thing in a bowl or in the oven. But not much more. By the way if you can’t find honeyed goat’s cheese – and I assume you can’t because this is the first time I came across it – just drizzle a teaspoon or so of honey over the cheese before baking. I think that’s how I’ll write it in the recipe.

But before I give you the recipe it’s time to ask –

How Much Protein in One Serving?

I’m going to regret starting this…

Anyways. This makes two servings. It’s got chickpeas and goat’s cheese – and the other things contain protein too. But let me just check an online calculator…

OK I’m a little confused. I must be somehow adding the recipe wrong. It’s telling me that you get about 28g per serving. But if I look at the amounts of protein listed on the packets and work it out that way, it seems like it should be more like 16g.

Well, I’m pretty happy with getting 16g of protein with my lunch. Even happier if it’s 28g – but I really don’t think it is.

ingredients for half baked salad
Salad leaves, red, green and yellow bell peppers, onion, carrots, chickpeas, goat’s cheese and baby potatoes.

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Half-Baked Salad

Serves 2

Half-Baked Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 x 400g tin chickpeas
  • 6 baby potatoes
  • 3 bell peppers one green, one red, one yellow
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 onion
  • 1 bag mixed salad leaves
  • 100g soft goat's cheese
  • runny honey
  • vinaigrette

Instructions

  1. Turn the oven on to 180 C. Rinse and drain the chickpeas in a colander. Place on a baking tin lined with baking paper. Sprinkle over some seasoning (_some salt and pepper and what ever spice or herb mix you fancy_). Bake for about 20 minutes or until they quite nutty looking. Take out and leave to cool.
  2. Turn the oven up to 215 C. Add some oil to the baking tin and spread it around.
  3. While the chickpease are roasting you can prepare the veg. First prick the potatoes with a knife, put them in a little container that is microwave-friendly, with a spoon or two of water, and cook them for 4 minutes. Leave them in the container while you prepare the rest.
  4. Peel one of the carrots and grate it finely. Chop the other in half and then in half again lengthwise and place these in the greased baking tin.
  5. Remove the stalks and seeds from the peppers and chop of a third of them. Dice the thirds. Place the rest in the baking tin.
  6. Peel, top and tail the onion. Slice of one-sixth and dice this. Chop the rest in quarters and place in the baking tin.
  7. Chop the potato into quarters and place on the baking tin.
  8. Bake the veg for 20 - 30 minutes. At this point the potatoes should be roasted so remove them from the tray and leave to cool on a plate. The peppers and onion should need another ten minutes. You'll know when the skin is quite charred and blistered that they're done. Remove from the oven from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes or so until the peppers are cool enough to handle and peel.
  9. Turn the oven down to 200 C. The peel peppers, onions and carrots into a smaller oven dish. Remove any obviously charred bits. Mash up the veg - they should be so soft and cooled that you can do this with your fingers. Place the goat's cheese on top of the mashed roasted veg and drizzle over some honey. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until the cheese has turned golden brown on top.
  10. While the cheese is baking, cut up the lettuce leaves and combine with the diced peppers and onion. Add in the chickpeas and potatoes. Pour over your own choice of vinaigrette and combine well.
  11. When the cheese is baked, take it out of the oven, allow to cool some and then serve half the salad with half the roasted veg mash and goat's cheese.
http://twimii.com/recipes/half-baked-salad/

roasted chickpeas
To roast the chickpeas I didn’t use any oil. Just sprinkle them with some seasoning, pop them in a hot oven on a baking tray lined with paper and roast them for 20 minutes or so.
roasted but cool
So the potatoes were done about 15 minutes before the rest of the veg. This works out nicely because you want them a bit cooled before adding to the salad. The potatoes here have cooled on the plate for 15 minutes. The peppers are now well roasted – and I’m going to give them another 10 minutes on the table so that I can peel their skins off.
assemble salad
While the cheese is roasting on top of the mashed up veg, cut up your salad leaves, combined with the diced peppers and onion, add in the roasted chickpeas and cooled roasted potatoes, and combine with some vinaigrette.
half-baked-salad
Half baked salad.
half-baked-salad-plate
The honeyed goat’s cheese is what really made this great. If you can’t find any maybe just drizzle a tiny bit of honey over your goat’s cheese?

 

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