A Christmas Salad!

I don’t think this is intentionally a Christmas salad but it’s red, green and white and those to me are Christmas colors so I shall dub this the Christmas salad. My husband has renamed it the “Yum” salad and gives it a 10 out of 10. He actually had two helpings of it and although he does eat his veggies, he’s not a second helping veggies sort of person. So I was really surprised.

This recipe requires slow-roast tomatoes or “Moonblush” tomatoes as Nigella calls them. According to the recipe, you put the tomatoes in a really hot oven and then immediately turn it off and let it sit overnight or all day. I put the tomatoes in the oven in the morning and found I had to turn the oven back on again for about 10 minutes later on in the day cause they weren’t quite roasted enough. So I would keep an eye on them to get the right roasted consistency.

Moonblush Tomatoes
Source: “Nigella Express” by Nigella Lawson. Published by Chatto & Windus 2007.

Ingredients:

1 lb (about 24) of cherry or other baby tomatoes
2 teaspoons Maldon salt or 1 teaspoon of table salt
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the tomatoes in half and sit them out cut side up in an ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the salt, sugar, thyme and olive oil.

Put them in the oven, and immediately turn it off. Leave the tomatoes in the oven overnight or for a day without opening the door.

Slow-roast Tomatoes, Goat’s Cheese and Mint Salad
Source: “Nigella Express” by Nigella Lawson. Published by Chatto & Windus 2007.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb rocket or spinach salad
7 ounces of soft goat’s cheese
1 batch of moonblush tomatoes
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint (I omitted this as I didn’t have any.)

Directions:

Arrange the salad leaves in a large dish and then scoop out spoonfuls of the soft goat’s cheese and dollop it here and there.

Add the cooked-down, intensely red moonblush tomato halves.

In the same dish the tomatoes have been cooking in, whisk together the lemon juice and oil and pour over the salad.

Scatter with the chopped mint.

Serves 8