Spring Time Salads

I loooooooove Spring flowers, especially daffodils. Apart from looking pretty they give me the feeling that the warmer weather is on it's way and that makes me VERY happy.

It's funny how the change in the weather also changes the way you feel like eating. I've gone from craving and cooking soups to craving and making salads.

This one I thought I'd share cos it was particularly yummy and it's a good salad for this "in-between Winter and Summer" weather due to the roasted veg.

Ingredients:

A handful of Green Beans

A quarter cut of Pumpkin

1 Red Onion

4 Cloves Garlic

A handful of Spinach leaves

1 Can of Canelloni Beans

1/2 cup of cooked cous cous

Toasted Pine Nuts
A handful of parsley

1 - Turn the oven on to 180 degrees celsius. On a baking tray place chopped and peeled pumpkin, onion and wrap the garlic cloves in foil before putting them in too. Drizzle pumpkin with a little oil.
2 - Steam beans
3 - Rinse the canned cannelloni beans
4 - Make cous cous. I do this by putting 1/2 cup of wholemeal cous cous in a bowl along with a big dollop of butter and then I add 1/2 cup boiling water. Quickly cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave for a couple minutes. Once cous cous is soft, fluff it up with a fork.
5 - Start adding the other ingredients to the cous cous. Chopped parsley, beans, tin beans, roasted red onion, roasted garlic, roasted pumpkin, toasted pine nuts, spinach leaves and stir well. The pumpkin should almost fall apart a bit when you stir which is a good thing.
6 - Serve with a basic salad dressing (see below), a handful of olives and anything else you're craving. (I had left over mini quiche which I had with mine, yummo)

Basic Salad Dressing:
1 Tbs wholemeal mustard
2 Tbs brown sugar (I actually only use 1Tsp but I don't like a sweet dressing)
3 Tbs Balsamic vinegar or Red vinegar
3 Tbs Olive oil

1 - Put all ingredients into a container/jar with a lid and shake like mad!

It tasted devine and was filling too. It's the sort of salad that you could eat on its own or with something else like a steak or piece of poached chicken. Mmmmm, I wonder what salad I might make for tea now...