Eat Lemon Pepper Goats Cheese & Maple Pecan Salad

If you've ever felt salads are not enough to fill you up, then you haven't met this winner of a dinner (too much?).

We have been eating variations of this goats cheese salad for the last two weeks. I am really surprised the cheese we got from the Wild Food Market the weekend before last has lasted this long because it is absolutely delicious and we've eaten a lot of it! But it has, and this pairing between the lemon pepper goats cheese, roast tomatoes and salted maple pecans is heavenly. I only wish the weather would get better so we could enjoy this outside with a glass of white wine (I thought July was supposed to be sunny?!).

Lemon Pepper Goats Cheese and Maple Pecan Salad 

(serves 2)

50g lemon pepper goats cheese
50g whole pecans
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 apple
100g salad leaves (rocket and spinach in this case)
2 tomatoes
1 tbsp thyme leaves
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper to season

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Quarter the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. Roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the skin starts to wrinkle and the tomatoes soften.

Step 2. For this recipe, I used the lemon pepper goats cheese we bought at the Wild Food Market, however, this I acknowledge this might not be available to you. If this is the case, this easy recipe for lemon pepper from Simply Scratch can be used to roll your goats cheese in and looks just as good, however, I would omit the salt in the lemon pepper because I don't think the additional salt is necessary (we don't need more than 6g a day!). If you're making your own lemon pepper you might want to make it in advance as the recipe states it takes an hour to dry roast.

Step 3. Preheat a frying pan and toast your pecans for a minute, then add the maple syrup to the pecans. The maple syrup should start to bubble and caramelise, toss the pan so all the pecans are coated with maple syrup. Season the pecans with salt and leave to cool on baking paper. Make sure you space out the pecans otherwise they'll clump together in a gooey mass...tempting I know.

Step 4. To make the dressing, mix together 1 tbsp olive oil with 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar and thyme leaves, and season to taste.

Step 5. Arrange your leaves on the plate with the tomato quarters, pecans, and slices or crumbles of the lemon pepper goats cheese. Slice your apple into matchsticks and add to the plate. Go for a crisp apple, we used a Jonagold but there's all sorts of types out there, check out what your local grocers has to offer. Drizzle liberally with the dressing.

Step 6. Eat immediately or beware of others who may get there first!