Roast vegetable and quinoa salad

'Tis the season.  Roast turkey, roast chestnuts, roast vegetables.  Maybe it's my sweet tooth, but nothing satisfies like a plate of roast root vegetables.  The way carrots, parsnips, onions, and sweet potatoes caramelize around the edges and grow soft in the center makes them like eating dessert for dinner, but wrapped up in the guise of a nutritious feast.  

I roasted a pan of vegetables to go with dinner and used the extras (which I barely restrained myself from eating) for a salad the next day.  I threw in some cloves of garlic -- the exact amount will depend on whether you have a meeting after lunch and how far away you want your colleagues to sit -- and added some cherry tomatoes at the end to concentrate and intensify their flavor.

As a textural contrast to the vegetables, I opened a can of chickpeas.  I had thought about serving my salad with couscous, but decided to make some quinoa instead.  I took one of the roasted cloves of garlic and mashed it into the dressing.  It was delicious, and good for warding off all those bloodsuckers at work.

Roast vegetables: potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips (all par-boiled), onions (quartered but still intact at the stem), garlic (still in the skin), roasted at 350 in olive oil with salt, for approximately 30 minutes.  Add cherry tomatoes for last 5 minutes.

1/3 C. quinoa, boiled in 1 C. water until cooked through

1/2 C. chickpeas

1 Tbsp. olive oil

Lemon juice to taste (1 tsp or more, depending on acidity of lemon)

1 clove roast garlic

Mix oil, lemon juice and garlic, then stir through quinoa and chickpeas.  Stir through enough roasted vegetables to make a satisfying lunch.

Serves 1.