This is one of the best inventions I’ve made this year. The feta melts slowly and beautifully with the heat of the asparagus and pumpkin.

You must use that special “top shelf” olive oil for this recipe. Something along the lines of this White Truffle Olive Oil. Mmm…truffles…

Ingredients
Bunch asparagus
half pumpkin cut into small cubes (about 2cm)
200g feta cheese, thinly sliced and cut into squares
handful of pine nuts
tablespoon butter
your best olive oil (like truffle oil)
regular olive oil
salt
pepper

Method
Heat your oven to 210. In an ovenproof tray heat some regular olive oil by placing it in the tray in the oven for about two minutes, then add pumpkin to tray, give the tray a good shake to coat the pumpkin in olive oil and put in the oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare your asparagus. Jamie Oliver showed me how to prepare asparagus. You don’t cut the ugly tips off, you break them by letting the asparagus tell you were - this may sound odd, but if you hold the asparagus in two hands close to the tip and snap it - it will snap in the right spot. Anyway, moving on…steam your asparagus for three minutes over boiling water.

While the asparagus is cooking, melt your butter in another saucepan over low heat and add the pine nuts. It’s a bit of a catch-22 here as you want high heat for the pine nuts, but butter burns at high heat, so I usually turn the butter up to mid heat as it will only need about 2 minutes to work with the pine nuts.

OK, now your pumpkin should be ready from the oven, remove from the tray and place in a bowl with asparagus, feta cheese and pine nuts in butter. Drizzle with your best olive oil and then mix really well so the heat from the asparagus and pumpkin starts to melt the feta.

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