Acorn squash salad

I think that this salad could well be served at Christmas. It's colourful, wholesome, comforting... the clue is in the mixture of warm and cold components: the squash, lentils and halloumi will be served warm and the salad leaves and pomegranate cold. Have a look below, how easy it is to compile.

Salad ingredients

1 acorn squash

1 tbsp olive oil for roasting the squash

½ cup green lentils

1 vegetable stock cube

250 g halloumi

1 tbsp vegetable oil for frying the halloumi

200 g mixed salad leaves

1 pomegranate

Dressing ingredients

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

4 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp thyme

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Method

Cut the acorn squash into slices, basically rings, and remove the seeds. There's no need to peel the squash. Then brush the slices with olive oil and roast at 180C for about 30 minutes until they are fully roasted. The roasting time can vary depending on the thickness of the squash slices and the oven's performance.

Rinse the lentils and cook them in water with the vegetable stock cube until soft, yet with some bite. This takes about 20-30 minutes. After that drain them.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and fry them in hot vegetable oil until they are golden brown.

Wash the salad leaves and remove the pomegranate seeds.

During the roasting and cooking, the dressing can be made. Just mix all the ingredients together.

Then assemble the salad. Make either a nice presentation on individual plates, or place the components nicely into a salad bowl and drizzle the dressing on the top.

Your VegHog