Roasted beet, pumpkin and hazelnut salad with orange maple dressing

I have created a little bit of a Sunday morning routine of hitting a different cafe every week for a coffee and study sesh. Apart from the fact that I adore my once a week coffee treat,  I also get crazy inspired 1. I am obsessed with cafe and restaurant design and fit outs and 2. I love love love listening to random convos that I overhear. I have decided that it is my way of getting my hit of how society is tracking seeing as I am such a hermit when it comes to normal people news. I think I prefer my kind of updates though rather than finding out about a 20kg cat that saved its owner from a forrest fire. Riveting.

I have decided that I am going to start my posts as often as as I can with 'Stuff you overhear at cafes'...this one really made me smile!

Rudimentary cafe,  Footscray 

two girlfriends catching up for breakfast......

‘no this is about US connecting, I don’t need to connect with anyone else right now. I was tempted to post it on FB but decided no, because promoting this can make others feel jealous or left out.’ 17/05/15

Perfect :-)

Ok, now for food!

Roasted beet, pumpkin & hazelnut salad with orange maple dressing

Makes approximately 2 main serves or 4 sides

Get this stuff!

1 medium sized beetroot

1/2 butternut pumpkin (or any really)

1/2 cup quinoa (I used red)

1/2 cup hazelnuts

2 tbs coconut oil melted

Dressing

¼ cup olive oil

1 tbs maple syrup

3 tbs orange juice

1 tbs apple cider vinegar

½ tsp cumin

Cracked pepper

Now do this with it!

1. Wrap beetroot in foil and bake in the oven at 180 degrees for 1 hour
2. Drizzle pumpkin with 1 tbs of the coconut oil and toss to combine.
3. Place pumpkin on baking tray and bake in the oven with the beet for approximately 45 mins or until the pumpkin has softened. Make sure you flip the pumpkin half way.
4. While the vegetables are cooking prepare quinoa according to the packet instructions.
5. Remove beet from the oven and while wearing gloves,  remove the skin while it's still hot. Chop it into cubes, toss it in the remaining coconut oil and bake on a foil lined tray along with the hazelnuts (on a separate tray) for 10 minutes. 
6. Once all is ready, combine all ingredients in a bowl before dressing it up!

Here is the dressing situation......

Place all dressing ingredients in a jar and shake to combine. Pour over your combined salad just before serving and toss to combine. Season if needed

Tips and tricks 

• Roast your whole beet in advance. Saves massive time
• Have your pumpkin chopped up and ready to go a day or so before. Just keep in in a container or zip locked bag
• Make the dressing before hand too if you like
• You can substitute the quinoa for some brown rice to save time. You can also use pecans instead of hazelnuts which tastes equally awesome!