Mushroom, Red Pepper and Broccoli Roasted Salad

Summer makes me crave for foods which are light on the stomach - thin soups, cold pasta tossed with herbs, gourd vegetables, rasam and rice with bhindi sabzi (okra stir fry), koshambir (tempered salads with grated veggies), watermelon juice, buttermilk by the gallon, papaya and musk melon cubes, cold aamras (mango pulp) with chapatis....

.....AND raw mango - to me raw mangoes are inextricably linked with summer. Must be something to do with growing up in a "colony" in Mumbai which had about 5 mango trees -with atleast three of them bearing fruit every summer. So a gang of girls and boys would spend every afternoon of our summer holidays plucking fruit with the help of a contraption of long bamboo sticks tied together with rope, a knife tied to the end and a bag hanging under it. Then we would have a "kairi party" - salt, red chilli powder and a dash of lime juice (all stealthily taken from someone's kitchen) would be sprinkled over the cut pieces of mango and devoured. One particular summer when I was about 13 or 14, I ate so much raw mango that I had a severe stomach upset and was almost dehydrated! That spelled the end of mangoes that year for me....

So, tell me what are your favourite foods to eat during the summer - now and in your childhood?

The recipe I am going to post is not one I had during the summers of my childhood - I didn't even taste broccoli and mushrooms till much later. But it has become a favourite of mine - vegetables roasted in a little bit of oil and flavoured with herbs, spices and vinegar or lime juice. Infinite variations are possible and each one tastes a little bit different from the others - let your imagination flow!

I am sending this to Easycrafts Fun 'n' Sun event being hosted all this month at Simple Indian Food.

Mushroom, Pepper and Broccoli Roasted Salad

Ingredients:

Button mushrooms - 8-10 washed and cut lengthwise
Broccoli - 1 cup florets
Red Pepper - 1 (can be yellow, red or green) deseeded and cut into 1 " squares
Tomatoes - pulp removed and cut into 1 " squares OR cherry tomatoes halved
Spring onions - white part sliced OR Onions - separated into layers and cut into squares
Garlic cloves - 2-3 crushed

Olive oil - 1 1/2 tbsp
salt to taste
Freshly crushed pepper - 1 tsp
Mixed dried herbs - 1 tbsp
Freshly chopped mint or coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
Lime juice - 2 tbsp
Red wine vinegar - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Take a roasting pan or a shallow oven proof dish and mix all the chopped vegetables.
2. Drizzle 1 tbsp olive oil over the vegetables, season with salt, pepper and the dried herbs
3. Roast the vegetables for 8 to 10 minutes and then check whether it is a little tender but still a bit crunchy. If it needs a little more roasting, drizzle the half tablespoon of olive oil and roaste for 4-5 minutes more.
4. Remove from oven and drizzle the remaining olive oil if not already used on top of the vegetables and transfer to a serving dish.
5. Mix the lemon juice, vinegar, chopped coriander or mint and toss the salad briefly. Cool and serve.

Note: You can use almost any other vegetable in this salad - carrots, babycorn, peas and french beans go well - but root vegetables like sweet potatoes and potatoes will take longer to cook.

I am sending this luscious salad to the monthly event - No Croutons Required - hosted alternatively by Lisa and Holler. This month's edition is being hosted by Lisa and the theme is a salad or soup centred around mushrooms.

For a fresh salad without roasting vegetables, try this Babycorn, Cherry tomatoes and Sprouts Salad with Feta Cheese