Carrot purée with caraway and feta

Today I hosted a potluck picnic on our sitting room floor. It was supposed to be on Parker's Piece, the squarish green area in the centre of Cambridge. But despite the aliterative pleasingness of the original plan, the British weather intervened in a rather predictable fashion. So we went with plan b - a rather fetching checked blanket on the floor in our flat. We left the windows open for a realistic outdoors feel.
One unexpected side effect of plan b was that all the leftovers were left behind, so I now have a fridge full of hummus, cous cous and cocktail sausages. That's my packed lunches for the week sorted then!
Mr Splorer's and my contributions to the picnic were extremely food blog inspired. We finally got round to making:

Muhummara

Romesco dip

and, Mr Splorer's contribution, the creamy, dreamy chocolate layer cake.

Not content with just two orangey coloured dips, I added a third, carrot purée - an old favourite from the Casa Moro cookbook.

I served my dips with Nigellan flatbread, a rather easy and delicious bread from How to be a Domestic Goddess. You can find the recipe here.

So, I hear you cry, what was the verdict on these recipes swiped from the wonderful world of food blogs (mainly The Pink Peppercorn)? Well, pretty damn delicious actually. It turned out that the muhammara and Romesco dip were pretty similar - both based on roasted pepper and bread and olive oil. So probably next time I wouldn't make them both! But they were both really yummy, though if I was forced to choose a favourite it would have to be the muhammara I think. The touch of heat (which was supposed to be added by dried pepper flakes but I didn't have any so used cayenne pepper) and the walnutty flavour just made it that bit more memorable.
And the cake? The cake was a triumph. Mr Splorer was so enamoured of it that he did consider hiding it away - it wasn't originally meant for the picnic. But he did decide to share, which was a bloody good idea as even after about 10 people have tucked in, we still have half the cake left. It's massive! It's also really dense and delicious. And the tip about making chocolate swirls using a vegetable peeler is a great one.
Anyway, here's the recipe for the carrot purée, slightly simplified. I highly recommend it - it's really easy and totally delicious. I've always messed about with the herbs and spices depending on what I've had in the house, but today I made it with caraway and mint, as it should. For possibly the first time ever!

Carrot purée with caraway and feta

750g carrots
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp caraway seeds
2 tbsp fresh mint
100g feta

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Slice the carrots into rounds no more than 2cm thick. Toss with half the olive oil and some salt and pepper and place in a roasting tin. Cover with foil and roast for about 45 minutes, or until completely tender. (I took the foil off for the last 5 minutes or so to caramelise the carrots a bit.) Remove and cool before whizzing in the food processor, with the caraway, half the mint and some salt and pepper. Spread onto a plate and top with the feta, crumbled, some extra olive oil and the remaining mint, chopped.

And just writing this has sent me back to the kitchen for bread, carrot purée and a nice little glass of red wine. It's great having a kitchen full of leftovers!