Roast Vegetable Tray Bake

Whipped Feta · Serves 4 · Meal Prep

• • •

Ingredients

  • Tray 1 — sweet & dense
  • 700g Kent pumpkin (about ¼, skin on, 3cm wedges)
  • 4 carrots (halved lengthways, 5cm batons)
  • 1 onion (8 wedges through the root)
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • Tray 2 — brassicas & alliums
  • ½ green cabbage (3cm wedges, through the core)
  • 1 leek (halved, 4cm lengths)
  • 1 head broccoli (stem peeled & diced, head in large florets)
  • 4 garlic cloves, skin on, bashed
  • 4 tbsp olive oil (cabbage drinks it)
  • ½ tsp chilli flakes
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • Beans
  • 400g tin butter beans (drained, rinsed, patted dry)
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • ½ tsp smoked paprika
  • To finish
  • ½ lemon, zest and juice
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • ½ bunch parsley, chopped

Serves 4

Method

  1. Oven to 200°C fan. Toss the tray 1 vegetables with oil, whole spices, smoked paprika and a good pinch of salt. Spread on a large tray in one layer. Roast 10 minutes.
  2. Tray 2 in — toss the cabbage wedges, leek, diced broccoli stem and garlic with oil, chilli flakes, oregano and salt, getting oil onto the cut faces of the cabbage. Roast alongside tray 1 for 10 minutes.
  3. Add the last bits — broccoli florets (tossed in a little more oil) onto tray 2, paprika-coated butter beans onto tray 1. Roast both a further 12–15 minutes, until the pumpkin is caramelised, the cabbage edges are charred and the beans have blistered.
  4. Dress while hot — tip both trays into your largest bowl. Squeeze the roast garlic out of its skins and add it. Fold through the lemon zest and juice, vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and parsley. Taste for salt.
  5. Portion between four containers. Whipped feta and garnishes stay separate.

Ingredients

  • Whipped feta
  • 200g Greek feta (brine-packed, at room temperature)
  • 60ml extra virgin olive oil
  • ½ lemon, zest and juice
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • 3 tbsp warm water (to loosen — add a spoon at a time)
  • Black pepper
  • 1 tbsp tahini (optional, for body)
  • Garnish — added cold
  • Diced red capsicum
  • ½ bunch parsley, chopped
  • Toasted pepitas (optional)

Makes 4 servings

Method

  1. Blend — feta, oil, lemon, garlic, pepper and tahini into a tall narrow jug, then the immersion blender for 60–90 seconds, moving it up and down. Add warm water a tablespoon at a time until it turns silky and spoonable. The narrow jug is the trick: it keeps the mixture on the blade instead of climbing the sides.
  2. No yoghurt in this version — the olive oil emulsifies with the feta on its own. Closer to tirokafteri, and richer for it.
  3. No processor needed — and the KitchenAid is second best here. If you use it, that is the flat beater (the paddle), not the wire whip: break down the crumbled feta alone for a minute, trickle in the oil, then run it 4–5 minutes for a coarser, rustic whip.
  4. No parsley in the whip — blitzed herbs go grey and bitter by day three. It goes on at serving instead.
  5. Store in its own container in the fridge. Keeps a week.
  6. To serve — microwave a portion of the tray bake 2–3 minutes. Top with a heaped tablespoon of whipped feta, then scatter raw capsicum and parsley over the top. The cold, fresh layer on a hot base is the whole trick.

Cooking

  • Kent pumpkin skin is edible and worth keeping — fibre, and it holds the wedge together.
  • Cut cabbage through the core so the wedges don't collapse into leaves.
  • The broccoli stem beats the florets here: peel, dice, roast it early. Florets go in last or they turn drab.
  • Two trays, not one. Crowded vegetables steam instead of caramelising.
Dress the vegetables while they're still hot. They drink the lemon and vinegar in a way cold ones won't.

Storage

  • Brassicas turn sulphurous by day four. Eat these portions days 1–3.
  • Freeze at day 1 for more mileage, but accept soft cabbage on thaw.
  • Whipped feta keeps a week in its own container.
  • Capsicum and parsley stay raw and go on after reheating.

Equipment

  • Whipped feta is a blade job, not a whisking one. The wire whip on its own cannot do it — feta is too firm and it just flings crumbs round the bowl.
  • Room-temperature brine-packed feta blends far smoother than cold or dry feta.
  • The whip sets firm in the fridge. Out 15 minutes before eating, or loosen with a splash of water.

Swaps

  • Chickpeas for the butter beans, though butter beans are creamier.
  • Pomegranate molasses instead of red wine vinegar for sweet-sour.

Fibre

The butter beans are the main soluble fibre here — pectin and galactomannans, the gel-forming kind. Pumpkin and carrot add some. Cabbage, broccoli and leek are mostly insoluble bulk.

Psyllium sits alongside

  • 1 tsp stirred quickly into water and drunk straight down, late in the day.
  • Kept clear of the morning Lexapro — psyllium gels in the gut and can blunt absorption of anything taken near it.
  • Hold at 1 tsp for at least a week before considering 2.
Never add psyllium to the food. It turns everything slimy.