There are so many wonderful and endless possibilities with squashes and pumpkins at this time of year. We hope to test a few more spiced pumpkin dessert recipes over the next month and we stumbled upon a vegan chocolate pumpkin swirl brownie recipe that we are very keen to try too. But for right now we will focus on some lovely hearty autumnal salad dishes.

 

 

 

Apples can be a great addition to a salad, particularly at this time of year and they work beautifully here with the squash and cauliflower. You could swap out the cabbage for Brussel sprouts, or use another seasonal green such as kale. Raw Kholrabi would also be lovely as well as or in place of the apples if you prefer something less sweet. 

 

 

We added some quinoa to this afterwards for our evening meal which gave it a tasty nutty flavour as well as greatly enhancing the nutritional value of the whole dish and massively boosting the protein content. We highly recommend adding a grain to make it a more filling meal in itself- buckwheat would be great too, or spelt. We'll be sharing plenty more Autumnal healthy treats with you over the next month so be sure to look out for more reels with seasonal recipes!

 

Roasted Squash, Cauliflower, Apple and Cabbage Salad

(serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

1kg of squash of choice, cut into slim wedges, skin left on

1/2 a cauliflower (we were lucky enough to find a rare purple one)

2-3 tbsp olive oil

5 bay leaves, roughly torn

2 sprigs of rosemary, roughly torn

small handful of sage leaves, roughly torn

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

pinch of dried red pepper flakes

200g savoy cabbage- thinly shredded

2 seasonal eating apples, cored and cut into bite size wedges (unpeeled)

30g mix of pumpkin, hemp and/or sunflower seeds

100g cooked quinoa

 

For the dressing:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

 

Method:

 

Preheat oven to 180 Celsius (fan)

 

Halve the squash and scoop out the seeds but don't peel the skin. Cut into 2 cm wedges and place in a large baking tray with the cauliflower florets. Drizzle the oil over the veg and then scatter the herbs, fennel and cumin seeds, red pepper flakes and a generous pinch if salt and pepper. Toss the squash and cauliflower pieces very well and then roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden/brown and tender.

 

Meanwhile you can combine all the dressing ingredients in  a large bowl and season well with salt and pepper.

 

Slice the savoy cabbage very thinly- this can be done using a mandolin. Add this to the bowl of dressing and toss very well to coat all the cabbage.

 

Add the apple wedges to the roasted squash but remove the cauliflower florets if they are starting to look ready. Sed them to one side. Roast the apple along with the squash for another 15 minutes until the apple is tender. Finally scatter the pumpkin seeds over the squash and apple for the final few minutes of cooking. Take these out of the oven and then toss the cauliflower back in.

 

Spoon the marinated shredded savoy cabbage over the hot squash, cauliflower and apple mixture and then serve.