Winter Salad with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Toasted Pepitas

Start by preheating the oven to 400°.

Using a sharp knife, slice your sweet potato into long strips like steak fries. Placed the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and coat with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of fresh or dried rosemary.

Roast of the sweet potatoes for 20 to 25 minutes or until the edges of the sweet potatoes becomes lightly browned and caramelized. Halfway through the cooking process take the time to flip the sweet potatoes over.

Pepitas are pretty tasty In their rough form but for a boost of nutty flavor, I like to toast them for a few minutes. Heat up a frying pan on medium high heat. Add the seeds to the pan and continually stir with a wooden spoon. Do not walk away from this because it's very easy to burn them. The process will only take 2 to 5 minutes depending on how well your pan distributes heat. Remove the pepitas from the frying pan as soon as you see them get a little color. If you're making a large amount of these toasted seeds store them in an airtight container once they are cool.

Place the bed of spinach or arugula on the bottom of your serving bowl. Add the toasted pepitas and dried cranberries.

If you're serving the salad warm, add the roasted sweet potatoes immediately to the salad after they come out of the oven. While the sweet potatoes are still warm, add the crumbled goat cheese. Toss the salad with the rosemary vinaigrette.

If you're making the salad ahead of time to serve at a party:

For a large crowd I triple or quadruple the recipe. If you're making this salad ahead of time for a gathering, wait for the sweet potatoes to cool before adding them to the greens. You could assemble all of the elements of the salad ahead of time as long as the sweet potatoes are cooled. Wait on dressing the salad until a half hour before serving.

Start by removing the fresh rosemary leaves from their stem. Place all of the vinaigrette ingredients, garlic, rosemary, sea salt, lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper, and honey into a jar and use an immersion blender to fully combine and emulsify. The dressing in this recipe makes the perfect amount for one large salad or two side salads.