Roasted squash and celery with sour cherries, Brazil nuts and aioli

This dish is a good example of how creative you can be when making a salad. Forgetting rules about which ingredients you should use in a salad, or how they should be prepared, allows for creativity and invention. Next time you have vegetable that needs using up, create a warm salad with it, pairing it with two or three ingredients from your larder. Roasting the vegetables in this way will intensify their flavours, making them sweet and moreish.

Brazil nuts only grow in wild rainforests, meaning that the area where they are grown must be protected from deforestry. For best practice, buy organic, Fairtrade or FSC-certified nuts. For more information about certification, see page 238.

600g pumpkin, cut into wedges, with skin on
6 celery sticks, cut into 5cm lengths, leaves and butt saved
glug of extra virgin olive oil
60g dried sour cherries
80g Brazil nuts, lightly crushed

For the aioli
100ml yogurt (see page 224)
1 small garlic clove, crushed to a paste
dash of extra virgin olive oil
¼ unwaxed lemon, zest and juice

Preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF/Gas Mark 7.

Place the pumpkin wedges and celery on a baking tray, drizzle with the olive oil and roast in the oven for 30–40 minutes, or until they begin to char.
Meanwhile, to make the aioli, combine the yogurt with the garlic, a dash of extra virgin olive oil and the lemon zest and juice in a bowl. Serve the squash and celery in the baking tray drizzled with yogurt aioli, topped with the saved celery leaves, cherries and Brazil nuts.

This recipe is from Eating For Pleasure, People and Planet by Tom Hunt