Roasted spring carrot salad with cumin and feta cheese

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This year is set to be the summer of salads, I’m sure of it. The heat here in England is incredible at the moment, our office temperature gauge said it was 29°C! Far too hot to be working.

At home we are relishing salad after salad, and I am enjoying creating these light, wholesome salads to fill our bellies. With this heat no one wants to eat much, just a few lovely salads and some grilled meat, or a bowl of simply dressed pasta with a side of green leaves. We have had friends round for barbecues and my parents visited for a day, so I have been perfecting my salad making skills. And when I say salad, I don’t just mean a bowl of leafy greens, I mean plates of spring vegetables, prepared with different flavourings and complimented with cheeses and herbs.

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The first of these salads that I’m going to showcase is a dish of roasted spring carrots with cumin and feta cheese. I serve this warm or room temperature, not hot. Like so many of my favourite recipes, this is so simple and easy to do – a real ‘no fuss’ dish. I discovered some bunched English baby carrots at my one of my local farm shops, which were a perfect size for what I wanted – if you can’t find baby sized carrots, just take normal sized ones and cut them into slender batons.

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Trim and scrub the carrots. Bung them in a roasting tin, drizzle with oil, add a grinding of black pepper and some salt, and finally sprinkle over a teaspoon or so of cumin. Give them a good toss to coat with all the yumminess an pop them in a moderately hot oven. They should only about 20-30 minutes, and are ready when they are tender.

Because I like to serve the carrots warm not hot, it means you can cook them in advance, turn the oven off and leave them to cool. When you’re ready to serve the salad, take a pretty serving plate, spread out the carrots over the plate, crumble over the feta cheese, sprinkle over some fresh thyme leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

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