Middle Eastern inspired vegan, gluten free, traybake. Roasted Carrot, Courgette & Quinoa with Pistachio & Mint

This is a one tin, chuck it in the oven, batch cook, nutritious, gluten free and vegan dish. It’s really, really tasty too.

If you’ve been following Nom Wholefoods for a while you know that I never make a recipe exactly how it’s written. It depends what’s in the fridge, who is eating it and what my budget is that week.

Of course, it won’t taste the same as the intended chef wrote it but it makes every meal an experiment!

I would be disappointed if you didn’t adapt my recipes to suit your needs and budget!

This is one you can really play around with. I originally took this vegan, glute free, traybake recipe from The Roasting Tin Dinner Around the World by Rukmini Iyer. It has most of the same elements!

I also made it much larger so it would last two family meals.

Cooking times will vary on your oven and exactly what goes into your tin.

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 400g Quinoa
• 150g Dried apricots, roughly chopped. I prefer organic apricots.
• 800ml Vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp Extra virgin Olive oil
• 3 tbsp Za’atar
• 300g Carrots cut into thin batons
• 200g Courgettes cut into thin batons
• 200g Pistachios chopped
• 3 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 1 tsp honey
• Handful of fresh mint (I don’t usually go to the expense of fresh herbs but I would splash out on these as it really adds to the wonderful mix of flavours.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 80°C fan/200°C/gas 6.
• Tip the quinoa, apricots and stock into a large roasting tin.
• Mix the olive oil, sea salt and za’atar with the halved baby carrots and courgettes on your chopping board, then scatter these evenly in one layer over the quinoa.
• Transfer to the oven and bake for 40 minutes. Check at 30 minutes, if the quinoa is drying out, add more stock.
• Meanwhile, mix the pistachios, extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest, juice and honey together and set aside.
• Once cooked, scatter the pistachios and mint leaves all over the vegetables, and serve hot or at room temperature.
• Swaps you could make:
  • Quinoa to millet, bulgur wheat or rice.
  • Carrots and Courgettes to any vegetable you have.
  • Apricots to chopped dates.
  • Pistachios to Toasted Cashew nuts
  • Za’atar to whichever dried herbs you like.