Summer or winter, (spring or autumn for that matter), a warm pasta salad can be a comforting flavourful dish. Instead of using a butternut as planned, I used carrots and sweet potato as I couldn’t get my hands on one. This isn’t a quick dish, as you need to roast your veggies and hazelnuts, but once they’re ready, it’s as easy as cooking the pasta and making the dressing.

Warm Pasta Salad – Recipe
250g bow tie pasta (uncooked)
mixes salad leaves (as much as you want!)
Baked Veggies:
40ml orange juice
10ml honey
200g diced carrots
300g diced sweet potato
(to use a butternut instead, skip the orange juice and honey, and just flavour with salt and pepper)
Savoury Hazelnuts:
150g hazelnuts
1tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 oil
Dressing:
150ml EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
4 1/2 tbs wholegrain mustard
juice from 1/2 lime
zest from 1/2 orange
120g cashew nuts (or use 4tbs of mayonnaise for a non-vegan version)
1tsp thyme
1/2 tsp pepper
1tsp salt

Preheat oven to 200˚C/400˚F.  Make the marinate for the veggies to bake in by mixing to honey and orange juice together and then toss the dressing with the veggies in a bowl. Lightly dress a baking dish with oil, place veggies in dish, cover with foil and put in oven for 25 minutes.
Next, put all the ingredients in a bowl for the savoury hazelnuts and make sure the nuts are evenly coated. Place on a large piece of foil, fold the foil around and over the nuts to make a neat package, and place in the oven for 20 minutes.

To make the dressing, put the cashew nuts in a food processor with part of the oil required for the dressing. Make the paste as smooth as you can. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with a spoon. To use mayonnaise instead, just mix all the ingredients together.
Once the veggies have been in the oven for 25 minutes, take the foil of the dish, and place under a hot grill. Stir the cubed carrots and sweet potato every few minutes until they are slightly crunchy.

In the meantime cook the pasta according to the packets instructions. Wash the salad, and pat dry ready to be mixed together. Once the pasta is cooked, wash down with cold water for 10 seconds. Mix the dressing and pasta together. Mix the veggies and nuts into the pasta (leave some nuts to garnish). Gently toss in the lettuce leaves, and serve immediately.

(Why not try a Mediterranean version with feta, olives, capers and sun dried tomatoes? Or garnish with some cubes of fresh orange?)