Roasted Sweet Potato & Pecan Salad with Mixed Leaf & Beetroot and a Maple-Balsamic Dressing

This is actually a revamped version of the Warm Butternut Squash and Pecan Salad that is already on the blog. After the Thanksgiving Weekend we just had I had quite a bit of both butternut squash and sweet potato leftover that needed using up. I first made it as is with the butternut squash and omitting the cumin seed and it was as good as it always was. Then I made it with sweet potato and decided to use a maple-balsamic dressing as opposed to roasting it with maple syrup and Oh.My.Word. This was delicious! I was just going to update that post but decided that this salad deserved it's own post, front and centre on the blog ;-) 

I'm usually not keen on beetroot but it went really well with this salad. I'm thinking that earthiness beetroot has was countered nicely by the sweet potato and maple dressing. Now, I cheated here and used a bagged mixed leaf that had shredded beetroot already added. You can easily add your own here and I do recommend it, however I'm afraid I'll have to direct you to searching on how to cook and add the beetroot elsewhere though as it's a vegetable I never work with! (Sorry - bad blogger!!) 

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we had a great meal and an altogether great weekend, you can read all about it on the daily blog. Also, do you like my little homemade pumpkin candles there? I found these mini pumpkins in the English Market here in Cork and just carved them out to house a little tea light. They were scattered on the table for Thanksgiving dinner, looked really good all lit up!

Roasted Sweet Potato and Pecan Salad with Mixed Leaf and Beetroot with a Maple-Balsamic Dressing

Serves 2 as a main dish salad

• about 270g peeled weight sweet potato, diced

• 2 tsp olive oil

• 50g whole pecans

• 180g mixed leaf, I bought one with shredded beetroot in it, or you can easily add your own. 

• 2 shallots, sliced

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• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

• ½ Tbsp maple syrup

• ¼ tsp Dijon mustard

•¹/_{8 tsp salt}

_{• 3 grinds of black pepper}

_{Preheat the oven to 200C. Toss the sweet potato in the 2 teaspoons of olive oil and spread out in a roasting tin. Roast for 25 minutes or until tender and slightly charred at the edges. Add the whole pecans when there is 5 minutes left.}

_{Whisk together all the dressing ingredients except the oil. Slowly add the oil whisking all the while until incorporated. Toss most of the dressing with the leaf and shallots then divide amongst two plates.}

_{Top with the warm roasted sweet potato and pecans and a drizzle of more dressing then serve immediately.} 

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Source: Dressing based on this recipe.

Nutritional Information: based on 1 serving.

Calories: 475

Fat: 36.8g

Sat Fat: 4.2g

Protein: 5.5g

Carbs: 36.7g

Sugar: 9.6g

Fibre: 6.4g

Sodium: 243mg

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