8smallsweet potatoes, (about 1kg/2lb) washed and halved lengthways
Olive oil spray
To serve:
Baby spinach, or salad greens of your choosing
Instructions
For the crunchy chickpeas:
Preheat oven to 160C fanbake (convection).
Drain and rinse chickpeas before tipping them onto a clean teatowel to dry them off.
Transfer the chickpeas to a baking dish, drizzle over the olive oil then use your hands to rub the oil over the chickpeas. Season with paprika and salt.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, giving them a shake every 20 minutes or so. They're done when they're golden and crunchy. The chickpeas will also crisp up a little more once they've cooled.
For the sweet potatoes:
Turn oven up to 220C/430F fanbake (convection).
Arrange halved sweet potatoes on a baking tray and coat with a little olive oil spray, or rub with a little liquid olive oil.
Season with salt.
Bake for 20-30 minutes, until tender, blistered and a bit charry around the edges.
For the parsley pesto:
Make the pesto while everything else is cooking. Put all ingredients into a food processor and blitz to combine. You'll need to stop and scrape down the sides a few times.
Taste and adjust seasoning as needed, before scraping the pesto into a serving bowl or jar to store in the fridge.
The pesto will thicken a bit on standing.
To serve:
Arrange baked sweet potatoes on a bed of baby spinach or salad greens of your choosing. Top with dollops of pesto and plenty of crunchy chickpeas.
Notes
If you're not using fanbake (convection) then increase the oven temperatures by 15C or 25F.
If you don't want to cook the chickpeas and sweet potato separately, put the sweet potatoes into the oven when the chickpeas are about 40 minutes into their cooking time. When you remove the chickpeas from the oven, turn the temperature up to 220C/430F for about 15 minutes to finish cooking the sweet potatoes.