Hello foodies! I have been heavily distracted by many things the last three weeks to the point where this post almost would not have happened. But I made it! It is delicious and I’m looking forward to you trying it out and giving me some feedback.
The team #onja challenge this week was to make something around the word rainbow. The thing with these challenges is they are open to interpretation, one does not have to make a literal rainbow, but I couldn’t resit. I love colourful food! Especially when it’s tasty. Take this confetti vegetable recipe I did last year for example, or this lovely purple cabbage salad… yum yum.
I settled on doing a warm salad, and decided to use at least one veggie that I’ve never used before — turnips! I’ve eaten them in restaurants before but never used them in a dish at home. So here is the mix I settled on: carrots, beets, turnips, cherry tomatoes, sweet corn (used canned sweet corn this time) and zucchini. Not pictured is avocado to bring the flavours together (cause avocados do that so well!) and fresh mint and goat cheese for sprinkling.
Chopped all the veggies that needed chopping (after washing and peeling off course), then tossed then in a bit of corn oil (can use whatever oil you usualy use for cooking) and salt, separately. Except for the turnips, I tossed those in coconut oil.
Then placed in the preheated oven at 180°C for 30 to 45 min. When they were in I realised that I had left out the tomatoes (-_-) so they went in in a separate pan. In hind sight, I should have put the beets, turnips and carrots in one pan (they need longer to cook, up to that 45 min mark), then the zucchini and tomatoes together in another pan (done in 30 min). So keep that in mind when you get ready to make yours.
Another thing to keep in mind is to lay all the veggies in one layer. Don’t pile, they will sweat and steam instead of roasting.
And now to serve, which I discovered was quite a challenge. It’s a warm salad, so it has to get to the table for guys to serve while it’s still warm. I didn’t manage that very well so ended up having to warm plates in the microwave after serving. Why? Because I was determined to serve my warm salad as a rainbow!! (^_^)
The veggies cooled while I was busy trying to figure out the best way to arrange the them. But read on, I have a better idea for the next time I do this.
What I really didn’t want was to serving the salad already mixed because the beets would colour all the other veggies and it would not look even a little appetising. It’s better for each veggie to be served separately. So the next tine I do this, I’ll quickly put all the veggies into small bowls of similar size and arrange the bowls in a line at the table to make the rainbow. That way they get there faster, and still warm.
So hubby had this for dinner last night and gave it a stelar rating! Yaaaaaaaay! I’ve been asked to bring back the husband rating so here it is.
Husband Rating:
This is awesome alone but if you’d like to add something, a boiled egg would be great. It would also go nicely with a steak or roast chicken if you fancy some meat.
Remember to check out all the other #onja posts from the team (links in blogroll on the sidebar and the onja page!
Blessed weekend everyone!
That plate of food is just the right amount of colorful. So inviting.Benjoes Grill Caterers