spring-a-ding-ding - Sweet potato, chickpea and risoni salad

Chucking fresh herbs in a salad, especially when you've grown the herbs yourself, is one of the best things! This is my favourite salad and I know that there are many salads similar to this one but I can honestly say I threw this one together out of desperation when I was pregnant with my first child. My cravings consisted of anything fresh: fruit, salads, asian broths - I had never been so healthy in all my life! One vegetable though I ate practically everyday was sweet potato. I couldn't get enough of it. So, this salad was born and we still LOVE it. Whenever there is a touch of warm weather I always throw it together for a quick and easy meal. There are no hard and fast rules with this dish, just make sure everything is beautiful and fresh and it will definately take you to a sunny place!

ingredients

1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
half piece of butternut pumpkin (if you like), peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 zucchini, chopped into 4 pieces
1 spanish onion, peeled and chopped
1 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup risoni, cooked
1 bunch coriander
1 bunch parsley
1 lemon
salt and pepper
extra virgn olive oil

how to make your sweet potato, chickpea and risoni salad

Pre heat your oven to 180C. Chop up your vegies and throw on a baking dish and drizzle with some extra virgn olive oil. Pop in the oven for about half an hour. You'll need to check them every now and then as the cooking time depends on what size you have chopped your vegies.
Heat up a frying pan gently with some olive oil and throw in your chopped spanish onion. Sweat over a low heat until very soft. Now pop a pot of water on the stove over a high heat. When boiling add your cup of risoni. (You could omit risoni and use cous cous instead)
Back to the onion, add the cumin and give it a stir until fragrant then throw in your chickpeas and heat through until soft.
When risoni is cooked, drain. Grab a large bowl, throw in: the onion,chickpea mix,the vegies and the risoni. Now throw in your roughly chopped herbs, some salt and pepper to taste and a good spritz of lemon juice. Give it a good toss, check seasonings and throw in a serving dish. voila!

Beautiful served warm straight away but also yummy cold the next day!