After a gloriously sunny weekend and a holiday coming up we are on our healthy mid-week kick again. I love feta as it is a low fat cheese but also has loads of flavour. The feta adds lovely creamy and salty notes to a salad. The roasted aubergine or eggplant was a revelation, I was looking in the frozen vegetable section in Waitrose and noticed they had a bag of already charred eggplant’s so we thought we would give them a try as sometimes using a fresh one’s can end up being a bit rubbery, the result was brilliant I would highly recommend using them.
Ingredients (serves 2)
For the salad
- 1/2 dozen slices of eggplant
- 40g of feta
- 1 small bag of salad leaves (1/2 a bag if a bigger version)
- Roughly blitzed pinenut’s, optional (we had some leftover from a salad last week)
- drizzle of olive oil for cooking
For the vinaigrette
- juice of a lemon
- 60ml olive oil
- 6 large basil leaves, chopped
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 2 tsp good quality balsamic vinegar
- grind of sea salt and pepper
Method
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan), once up to temperature drizzle a baking dish with olive oil and heat in oven for 5 minutes.
- Add the sliced eggplant to the heated oil and cook for 25 minutes, turning them over halfway.
- While the eggplants are cooking prepare the vinaigrette by adding all the ingredients to an empty jam jar and shake vigorously so all the flavours combine (or whisk in a small bowl) and place in fridge.
- Once the eggplants are ready drain off the excess oil and liquid by placing them between 2 sheets of kitchen towel and give them a pat.
- Place the salad leaves in a bowl, add the eggplants on top, crumble over the feta, drizzle with your vinaigrette and if using them finish off with a sprinkle of pinenuts.
- Serve, if you have extra vinaigrette store in fridge for up to 2 days.
spaulyseasonalservings.com 