Salad for lunch; Roast Pumpkin & Chickpea

I’m very pleased to say that this beautiful pumpkin came from my garden :-). Now the truth be known I actually had very little to do with it. It is self sown from my compost, it’s always such a nice  surprise when something unexpected pops up in the garden Minus the horrid WEEDS of course. When this particular pumpkin vine started fruiting all of the baby fruit keep turning yellow and falling off, now I’m not really sure why but if you have any clues as to why this happens I’d love to know. I had pretty much given up hope of getting any edible fruit, but just didn’t have the heart to pull the vine out ( it did look pretty in my garden)

Earlier in the year Hubby and I went to Thailand for a holiday, and we left my mum and dad in charge of the house, garden and children. Well my dad must of been good luck as he was the primary caretaker of the garden (my mum has brown thumbs), because when I returned from Thailand we had fruit woohoo!!!!!!, and it was going strong. I have been patiently watching and caring for the little bundle of pumpkin joy since then. I have now finally got to eat it. Sorry dad, (he’s not here to enjoy it as my parents are off being grey-nomads in their caravan).

Lunch today for me needed to be quite substantial as this morning I went for a run, and that always makes me hungry. So I came up with this little salad; healthy, tasty, nutritional and delicious. I already had my oven on as I was roasting potatoes to makes goats cheese gnocchi for dinner tonight, and my beautiful home grown pumpkin was just begging me to eat it. So I chopped a piece up into wedges seasoned with some homemade chilli flakes fresh oregano from my garden and a little sprinkle of salt and pepper, a rub of some olive oil and in the oven she went. I also had some lovely truss cherry tomatoes ( these sadly are not from my garden, the weather has gotten too cold to grow tomatoes) so when the pumpkin was almost cooked I threw them in the oven to roast. And as for the chickpeas well I think pumpkin and chickpeas are a match made in heaven, plus they are full of energy to keep me going after my run. So with not too much effort at all I had a yummy lunch 🙂

RECIPE:

The Salad;

• 150g pumpkin chopped into wedges ( I used a Japanese pumpkin but butternut would work just as well)
• 1 Tsp olive oil
• pinch chilli flakes (optional)
• salt & pepper to taste
• couple sprigs fresh oregano
• 2 cloves garlic skin left on
• 6 vine ripened truss cherry tomatoes
• Handfull of mixed salad leaves
• 1/4 small red onion sliced
• 125g tin chickpeas drained and rinsed
• 50g fetta cheese

The Dressing

• 3 Tsp olive oil
• 2 Tsp lemon Juice
• 1 tsp finely chopped oregano
• the 2 roasted garlic cloves from the pumpkin tray
• salt & pepper to taste

For the dressing;

• peel the roasted garlic and finely chop
• place in a small bowl with with oil, lemon juice, oregano and salt and pepper
• whisk to combine

For the salad;

1. preheat oven to 180º
2.  place pumpkin wedges onto a baking tray sprinkle with chilli flakes season with salt and pepper, add the oregano sprigs and garlic cloves, pour over the olive oil and toss until all  combined and well convered
3. place in oven bake for 20 minutes or until golden, add tomatoes in the last 10 minutes of cooking time
4. once cooked leave to rest and cool slightly
5. place lettuce mix on a plate or in a bowl
6. arrange pumpkin and tomato on top
7. add chickpeas, onion,and crumbled fetta
8. drizzle over the salad dressing
9. Then serve

Tagged: chickpeas, Cook, fetta, Fruit, gardening, garlic, Home, home grown, lemon, Olive oil, oregano, pumpkin, red onion, Roasting, Salad, salad dessing, Tomato