Roasted baby vegetables with olive butter and feta

Roasting baby vegetables has never been so tasty, a great side dish as well as a main or starter, this can be used in so many ways.

Using olive butter in particular (as well as many other forms of homemade favoured spreads) to enhance the sweetness of vegetables is an old culinary trick.  But this works particularly well in this recipe as this also provides a further use for roasted tomatoes - also naturally sweet when roasted.

 

·         Take 150 grams each of baby leeks, carrots and fennel.   Top, tail (if necessary) and cut lengthways
·         100 grams of roasted tomatoes
·         Three good dessert spoons of olive butter
·         75 grams of feta, crumbled

Pre-heat your oven to 200c.

Place your baby vegetables on an oiled oven tray and place in the oven for about 10 minutes.  Then take this out and add your olive butter, tossing the vegetables before returning them to the oven, reducing the heat slightly to 190c, for a further 15-20 minutes.

Toss the vegetables again and then add the tomatoes and feta evenly over the top and bake for a further 5 minutes or so (remember the tomatoes only need to heat through).

The result is a rather sexy, savoury/sweet experience, which is really good served as a starter with toast, served with penne or lentils or with grilled fish or meat.