Roasted Veggie & Quinoa Salad

One of my favourite sides has always been couscous salad, especially in the summer months when hosting barbeques or lunches. So I was quite thrilled when I discovered quinoa and that I was able to use it as a substitute for couscous. Quinoa is something I had never heard of until only recently. I’m not even sure if it’s always been so well known but I seem to hear it being mentioned everywhere these days.

My cousins and I are extremely close. We are a big family who meet every Sunday evening at my nan’s house, and god bless her, nan always prepares enough food the feed an army. At least I’m not the only cousin in the family who is a celiac so I don’t suffer alone watching my other cousins, aunts and uncles indulge in pizza and sandwiches and other delicious gluten-filled food. The evening always ends with the same comments, ‘Oh my God I ate so much I might be sick’ or ‘I always eat too much when I come here’, selfishly sometimes I think ‘HA! Serves you right for eating gluten!’ but that jealousy getting to me I guess. These comments always lead to the topic of diets and eating healthy. Whilst discussing diets and listening to family members making the same commitment every Sunday (Tomorrow Diet!), I recently discovered that there is more than one kind of quinoa and my cousin suggested that the red quinoa is even more tasty than the ordinary one.

Curious to taste the difference, I took a stroll down to the supermarket to buy some red quinoa, no idea how I had never noticed it there on the shelf before. I decided to prepare a roasted vegetable & quinoa salad for work today and was surprised to find that my cousin was in fact right, it is in fact tastier! Try it out, let me know if you agree. 

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Ingredients: 

- 1 courgette, cut into chunks
- 1 coloured pepper, cut into chunks 
- 1 red onion, cut into chunks 
- ½ an aubergine, cut into chunks 
- 1 tomato, cut into chunks
- 3 mushrooms, quartered
- 1 garlic clove, peeled 
- 2 tbsp olive oil 
- 100 g red quinoa
- 1 tbsp green pesto (or sun-dried tomato paste)
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar 
- 50g rocket leaves 
- ⅓ cup flaked almonds
- salt & pepper to season

Method: 

Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Place all the chopped vegetables and garlic on a large baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and place in oven for 20-25 minutes until tender. 

In the meantime, cook the quinoa in a saucepan of boiling water according to the pack instructions. 

Whisk together the pesto (or tomato paste) and vinegar in a small bowl. Place the roasted vegetables, quinoa, almonds and rocket in a large bowl and stir in the dressing. 

Can be served warm or cold. 

Recommendation: You can add on any vegetables you like to this dish or even remove any you don't like. It's a matter of taste really. You could even choose to add some feta cheese to the dish.