Brown Rice Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash & Pomegranates

Hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving meal yesterday. We had our Thanksgiving party at our friend's house and we had some amazing food and great time chatting. I felt like I was in a food coma yesterday after eating all that food.

So today I have a healthy and light salad recipe to get back in track before the holiday and more noshing starts. This salad is very filling, colorful and tastes great. Using brown rice makes it fiber rich and fills you up very easily.

Roasting butternut squash makes it so sweet and delicious. Even though this recipe uses only 2 cups of butternut squash, I roasted the whole squash -- used some in the recipe, stored some more in the freezer after cooling and then snacked on the rest -- they taste amazing roasted with salt & pepper. Since this salad can be served warm or at room temperature, it can be part of a holiday dinner or buffet menus.

Recipe from Vegetarian Times Magazine:
Ingredients: Serves 4

Brown Rice - 1cup

Butternut Squash - 2cups chopped (from half of a medium size squash)

Red Onion - 1 small, chopped

Lemon zest - 1tsp, grated

Balsamic Vinegar - 1½tbsp
Pomegranate Seeds - ½cup
Arugula - 1 5oz. bag, coarsely chopped
Salt & Pepper - to taste

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 475°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Toss together butternut squash, 2tbsp olive oil, onion in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Roast the squash 15~20 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally.
• Cook rice according to package instructions. To the warm rice, toss in the lemon zest in a large bowl.
• In a small bowl, whisk vinegar and 1tbsp olive oil. Add this to the rice along with the pomegranate seeds.
• Stir in warm squash mixture and season with salt and pepper.
• Fold in chopped arugula and serve.

Linking this to Valli's 'Cooking from Cookbook Challenge: November -- Week 5'.