Chilli roasted veg with tofu, pearl barley and tahini

I was completely rubbish with What I Ate Wednesday this week - I've been here, there and everywhere, and doing lots of running (and therefore eating lots of boringly quick post-run meals like egg and beans on toast) and I just didn't manage to get myself organised.

But you can have a recipe for What I Ate This Evening instead! It's not even really a recipe, more a load of things thrown together, but it was gorgeous. I came up with it on Saturday evening and it was so nice I made it again for tonight's supper! 

Chilli roasted veg with tofu, pearl barley and tahini
Serves one fairly greedy person

Olive oil/olive oil spray/cooking spray
As much chilli as you like (I used a couple of blobs of that lazy chilli that comes in a tube)
150g butternut squash, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 orange pepper, deseeded and chopped into chunks
100g tofu (my favourite is Dragonfly smoked tofu) chopped into chunks
50g pearl barley
100g broccoli, cut into florets (I actually used half a pack of tenderstem and I could have done with more broccoli!)
Handful of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
Tahini sauce (I found some lovely tahini sauce in Waitrose, in a squeezy bottle!)

1. Preheat the oven to about 200C. Put your prepared butternut squash and broccoli into two separate plastic containers, with a little splash of water in each, and microwave until just tender (about three minutes for the squash and a minute and a half for the broccoli).
2. Put your olive oil/cooking spray, chilli and a bit of salt and pepper into a roasting tray, add the pepper, butternut squash and tofu, and stir or toss everything around so it's evenly coated with chilli.
3. Roast until the tofu is starting to brown and the pepper is softening, about half an hour.
4. Meanwhile, cook the pearl barley - it doesn't matter if it's ready before the veg, it'll sit quite happily in the pan with a lid on.
5. Remove the roasted veg from the oven, add the broccoli and tomatoes, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes, until everything's nicely browned and the tomatoes are bubbling.
6. Mix the veg into the pearl barley, pile onto a plate or into a bowl, and top with a nice drizzle of tahini sauce.

Eat! It's filling, hearty, autumnal, warming and absolutely delicious. Not to mention ridiculously easy.