Mediterranean-style roast autumn veg

Take a trip to your favourite farm, market or greengrocer's store and pick out a selection of vegetables. You can see from the photograph that I chose some traditional (British) harvest veg (carrots, parsnips, onions and potatoes), a butternut squash for sweetness and then - with a nod towards the Med, home of the original dish - added an aubergine [eggplant], some courgettes [zucchini] and baby plum tomatoes.

You really can make this dish your own, simply by leaving out the ingredients you are not a fan of and replacing them with your (or your family's) favourites.

Quantities are equally arbitrary - buy as much or as little as you think your family will eat! It's entirely possible, for instance, to use 1 carrot, 1 small parsnip, 1 potato, 1 courgette and 1 small onion to make a substantial meal for a single person, or a side dish for two. Alternatively - and if you have a big enough roasting pan - you can roast several pounds of vegetables together and feed a large family for two days or more!

Note: For very small - or extremely large - quantities, you would probably need to adjust the cooking time a little.

If your oven needs pre-heating, turn it to a moderately hot setting now (400F/220C). For gas cookers, turn to Mark 6 just before you need it.

Peel and wash your root vegetables and tubers (potatoes, carrots, parsnips, swede [rutabaga], turnips, etc) then chop them all into chunks or thick slices. These can be anything from 1" to 2" and it's quite nice to vary the shape, but try to keep them all roughly the same size so that they will cook at the same rate.

If you are using celery or mini-corn, this would be a good time to include those, too.

Roughly chop one or two onions, slice a few garlic cloves (if liked) and pick some fresh herbs from your garden, if you're lucky enough to have any! (Most kitchen herbs will be fine; in this batch I used rosemary, sage and thyme. Tarragon, parsley and chives would work well, but go easy with the stronger herbs like bay and basil.)

Cover the bottom of a roasting pan with oil. To get that Mediterranean flavour, you need to use a decent olive oil, but I prefer a slightly lighter end result, so I mix approximately half-and-half with a vegetable, sunflower or grapeseed oil.

Scatter the chopped veg around the pan and season to your taste - I use plenty of freshly-ground black pepper, a little salt and a sprinkling of mixed dried herbs.

The root veg will need approximately 3/4 hour initial cooking time, so before this has elapsed, prepare your softer vegetables.

Wash and chop aubergine [eggplant], place on a separate plate and sprinkle with salt to release the bitter juices. Peel and de-seed squash and partially peel courgettes [zuccini], then chop both to a similar (not too small) size. If using mushrooms or peppers, prepare these now also. After 5-10 minutes, rinse and drain the aubergine pieces.

Take the roasting pan out of the oven, put the foil to one side while you add the new ingredients. Stir all together once again, then replace the foil and put the pan back in the oven for a further 3/4 hour.

15 mins before the end of cooking time, remove the foil, stir the mixture once more and return to the oven, uncovered, on the highest heat; this will allow some of the vegetables to brown nicely.

Note: You may wish to remove the fresh herbs at this point, as they will have become crisp.

Utterly delicious as a vegetarian meal in its own right, this dish can also be served with cous-cous, with hot, crusty bread or as a side dish with roasted meat or poultry.

I often serve it as an accompaniment to roast lamb or beef, as I find the deep, rich flavours of the vegetables a little overpowering for chicken or turkey.

This dish keeps well in the refrigerator for a couple of days and is excellent for re-heating, either in the microwave or back in the oven with a little water or stock to prevent sticking. It is also a good dish for freezing.