Winter has us loving roasted vegetables and winter salads are just the best to use them! Add some of our spiced nuts and you have an amazing, healthy and beautiful meal in no time. This can be a perfect salad to be at your Christmas table or as a treat for a light but lovely dinner.
Spiced Nuts
-3 cups almonds, pistachios, pecans or a mix of them
-3 tbsp runny honey
-1 tbsp butter
-½ tsp ground cinnamon
-½ tsp ground turmeric
-1 tsp Adobo Seasoning
-¼ cup brown sugar
-½ tsp salt
-½ tsp Tajin
1 Preheat oven to 170C
2 Place the honey and the butter in a saucepan and melt over low heat. Turn off the heat.
3 Add the cinnamon, turmeric and Adobo Seasoning and mix well. Add the nuts and coat everything.
4 Transfer the nuts to a baking tray lined with baking paper. Spread the nuts making sure they are separated from each other. Bake for 15 minutes, making sure you stir them every 5 minutes. The nuts should look brown but not burnt.
5 Remove the nuts from the oven and let them cold down for 3 minutes. While they are cooling down, mix the sugar with the salt and Tajin in a bowl.
6 Add the nuts to the sugar mix while they are still warm and toss them until they are perfectly coated. The nuts will still be sticky and hot. Transfer them back to the baking tray and let them cool down completely before storing them.
7 Once the nuts have cooled down, you can store them in a jar.
Roasted Quince & Fennel
-2 fennel bulbs
-½ quince cut in even wedges. If quince is hard to get, you can use pears instead.
-Olive oil
-Salt and pepper
1 Set oven to 180C
2 Remove the tips and bottom from the fennel bulbs and slice in half
3 Slice the quince or pears into even wedges and remove the core.
4 Arrange the fennel and the fruit wedges on a baking pan and brush with a bit of olive oil on both sides. Add a light sprinkle of salt and black pepper. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until they are nicely golden brown. Turn them halfway.
Cauliflower Mash
-½ cauliflower cut into big chunks
-1 tbsp butter
-Extra virgin olive oil
-Salt and pepper
1 Add the cauliflower to a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes or until cooked through.
2 Drain the cauliflower and leave for a couple of minutes so most of the moisture evaporates. Return the cauliflower to the same pot and add the butter. Mash until it resembles rice. Drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste.
Spinach Base
-100g baby spinach
-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-1 tsp pomegranate molasses or runny honey
-⅛ tsp garlic powder
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp black pepper
-1 tbsp shallot, finely chopped
1 Whisk the olive oil, lemon, pomegranate molasses or honey, garlic powder, salt and pepper until everything has been incorporated. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking. You can add more sweetness, olive oil or salt as you go. Once happy, add the shallot and mix well. Let it rest until you are ready to serve. Separate half of the dressing into a small bowl.
2 Once ready to serve, mix the fresh spinach leaves with half of the dressing. Leave the other half of the dressing to drizzle over your vegetables just after serving.
To Serve
-Spiced Nuts * Original recipe here.
-Pomegranate seeds *optional
1 Add a good amount of cauliflower mash to a plate followed by a generous bed of spinach. Place fennel and either quince or pear wedges. Add a little bit of extra dressing on top of the fennel too! Sprinkle with our spiced nuts. If you have pomegranate seeds, they are a perfect last touch!
Notes
- We have been enjoying our spiced nuts so much that we have been adding them to everything we can. They are perfect with this kind of winter salad!
- We were lucky to find quince at our local greengrocer but pears are a perfect substitute!
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