Pumpkin Time Part 2 - Perfect Pumpkin Salad

Having roasted my pumpkin yesterday, I was planning to make this salad last night but we decided to head out for dinner instead. So today I got to enjoy my salad, with all the components made ahead, meaning no work apart from the tossing. This made it such a thoroughly enjoyable Saturday lunch I am going to start trying to have a salad planned and ready to go every week. Our Saturday mornings are usually pretty frantic, racing from one end of the city to the other according to the season and the sport the kids are playing. It was so nice at the end of that racing around, to sit down to something lovely, instead of the usual scramble to find something for lunch.

This Nigella recipe is from a compendium of chefs' recipes, and fits perfectly into the I heart Cooking Clubs theme this week of an autumn meal by Nigella. As it is Spring here, I can vouch for the fact that the salad worked just as well on a warmish Spring Saturday as it would on an autumn day. Nigella says she drew her inspiration for this salad from her very popular summer salad of feta and watermelon, replacing the sweetness of watermelon with te sweetness of pumpkin.

Roast Pumpkin, Radicchio and Feta Salad

from Nigella Lawson in "Off Duty: The World's Greatest Chefs Cook At Home"

900g peeled and deseeded pumpkin

1 tbl vegetable oil

1/2 red onion cut into fine half moons

juice of 1-2 limes (60 ml)

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

250g feta cheese, crumbled or cut into bite-sized pieces

1 radicchio headcut into bite-sized pieces

2 tbl oil

Cut the pumpkin into 6cm pieces and put them in a roasting tin with the vegtable oil. Roast at 200C for about 45 mins, until tender but not mushy. Allow to cool (this step can be done up to one day ahead). Steep the onion in the lime juice for 15 mins or longer (mine wound up steeping overnight and it was fine).

Put he pumpkin in a bowl with the feta and onions, radicchio and half the pine nuts. Gently mix it all (Nigella suggests using your hands for this). Mix the oil in the bowl the onions were steeping in, then dress the salad with this mixture. Sprinkle remaining pine nuts over the top.