Warm Beetroot and Black Pudding Salad

Sometimes, the food that you throw together at the last minute can be the best food.  All it takes is a little imagination and a vaguely well stocked cupboard and you can find yourself in taste heaven.

Take for example this little number, which we decided to call a salad in defiance of the encroaching Autumn (and I know that its a warm salad, but to me, salad is always something eaten when the calender points closer to Wimbledon than winter.  Either that or the stuff you push to the side of your plate when you have pub-meals).

It has so many delicious flavours, from the earthy beetroot to the savoury black pudding, it's brilliant as a starter, or do what we did and just make huge portions because it's so nice, especially when served with garlic bread!


Ingredients
4 Beetroot
1 Butternut Squash
2 Cloves of Garlic
Handful of Fresh Thyme
300 g Black Pudding
250g Goats Cheese
Salad Leaves or Spinach


Method
Heat the oven to 200ºc.  Wash and scrub the beetroot and then cut into chunks about 2cm in size.  Put the beetroot in an ovenproof dish with some oil and roast for 30 minutes, along with the garlic and thyme.

 Peel and chop the butternut squash, cube that too, and then add this to the beetroot and roast for a further 20 minutes. Check to make sure that the vegetables have been cooked through.  They will be the most glorious bright red colour by now.

In a frying pan, fry the black pudding for about 5 minutes, until it's cooked and starting to brown around the edges, then remove from the heat.

Put a layer of salad leaves (or spinach on the plate, then a layer of the roasted vegetables, then crumble the cooked black pudding and the goats cheese on top.  Then it's ready to serve.  Enjoy!