Winter squash salad
I was invited to a party and asked to bring a side dish. When I go to parties, I always make sure to take something that I’ll eat because many times, the side dishes provided are not my cup of tea. (Think potato salad, potato chips, macaroni salad - in other words stuff that’s fried or drowning in mayonnaise.)
Lucky for me, this particular group of friends are health-minded and the offerings ended up being superb. Technically it is still Fall, which means winter squash and dark greens, so I thought I’d make something with those ingredients. However, cooked sides don’t fare well at gatherings because who wants cold greens? Blech. So this salad recipe was born and I must say, it’s one of my prouder moments. This is tasty and hearty and feeds a crowd well. I’m not sure this’ll make it to my Thanksgiving table, but is is certainly worthy. I hope you’ll give it a try!
The original idea was to use Tuscan kale and pomegranate seeds but I didn’t have those things. What I did have was a bunch of collards and locally grown apples. So that’s what I used. This recipe is so versatile! You could use the originally designed ingredients, or you could sub butternut squash for the acorn. You can scale this by adding more or using less of any or all of these ingredients. If you try it with the Tuscan kale and pomegranate seeds, please shoot me an email and let me know how it turned out!
Ingredients:
1 acorn squash (if you can get it, choose a white one; it looks pretty with the orange sweet potato)
1 large sweet potato
1-2 Tbs butter-flavored olive oil (you can use plain, I just think the buttery flavor adds richness)
1 tsp dried dill
3/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
8-10 grinds black pepper
2-4 shakes smoked paprika
1 bunch Tuscan or regular kale or 8 collard leaves
Pomegranate seeds from 1/2 a pomegranate, 4 Tbs. Craisins or 1 small apple chopped
Optional: 12 whole or sliced pimento Biquinto peppers. Truthfully, any kind of peppers with a small bit of heat will do. The pimento Biquintos are tiny (pictured below), so if you use a larger pepper, you’ll need fewer of them.
Tahini dressing:
2 Tbs sesame tahini
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp salt
Mix all ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl with a fork. It will look stringy at first but should smooth out once you whip it for 30-45 sec.
Salad ingredient cooking and assembly:
Cut the sweet potato and squash into 1 in. cubes. To a large bowl, add the potato, squash and oil and stir to coat pieces with oil. Add the spices and stir again to coat. Roast potato and squash on the grill or in a 375 degree oven for 20-25 min depending on desired tenderness. The longer you cook these, the softer they’ll get.
Wash the greens. Pull the leaves off the stems and rough chop. I used 8 large collard leaves but if you use the Tuscan kale, I suspect you’ll need all the leaves in the bunch. Put the chopped greens in a large bowl. Add the tahini dressing and massage into leaves to soften. This will be enough to ‘dress’ your whole salad when it’s assembled.
Add the chopped apple, pomegranate seeds or Craisins and peppers to your greens and toss. Add your cooked squash and sweet potato and toss gently. Voila!
You can serve this warm, at room temp or cold.
