Spiced Sweet Potato and Lime Salad

Lately, my lunches have had a painful habit of consisting of cereal, heinz tomato soup, or baked beans. I will always stand by the fact that there's a time and a place for these comforting gap-fillers, but not every day, every lunchtime. In a brave attempt to steer away from these, I have been trying to concoct some interesting salads, without recipes, just what came to mind. This may work for some, but it appears I am not yet at this stage. I trialled and tested and, after a particularly disgusting avocado and sun-dried tomato failure, I stopped. I turned back to my recipe books and decided that, for me, creativity comes most easily (and successfully) when it can bounce off something else, and that's what I did here. By having a recipe at hand for inspiration, I could use it for flavour-combo advice (much needed judging by the avo/tomato mishap!), whilst still being able to add personal tweaks and additions.

Recipe inspired by 'Roasted Butternut squash with lime, sweet spices and green chilli' recipe in Ottolenghi's Plenty

Ingredients:

Serves 1 - 2

1/2 sweet potato

1 lime

2 tbsp natural yogurt

1tsp hummus (moroccan spiced if you can find it)

About 5 cardamon pods (or 1/4 tsp seeds)

1/4 tsp cumin seeds

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

A large handful of salad leaves

A few coriander leaves

1 spring onion

Method:

• Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees c.
• Slice the sweet potato (skin on) into 8 reasonably thin wedges - I cut my sweet potato in half horizontally then sat it flat-side down so I could slice down from the top, making it very easy to divide into 8 wedges.
• Use a pestle and mortar to crush the cardamon pods, then remove the papery 'shells'.
• Add the cumin and salt and grind to a rough powder.
• Add the oil and mix again.
• Brush this spiced oil onto your sweet potato wedges and place on a baking sheet.
• Cook in the oven for about 20 minutes until soft on the inside and crispy on the outside.
• Whilst they're cooking, stir together the juice of half a lime, the yoghurt and the hummus and set aside.
• Finely slice the spring onions and set aside.
• Using the remaining half of the lime, cut off the peel and slice into small wedges.
• Once the wedges are cooked, arrange on the plate with the salad, lime wedges and spring onion slices.
• Drizzle over the yogurt mix and top with the coriander leaves.

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