Roasted Squash with Quinoa & Date Syrup

I love Nigel Slater.
He is one of Great Britain's treasures.

He writes a weekly food column in their paper The Guardian and I always read it.

His book TENDER is beautiful, if you love vegetables (and heavy cream! because most of his recipes use it!) it's a must.

Here is a simple "pumpkin" quinoa salad.

Nigel uses sugar pumpkin, but you can use any squash you like, butternut, delicata or kabocha.

The dressing is lovely and is made with Date Syrup, a natural sweetener made from only dates.
I am loving this stuff and drizzling it on everything.

You can order it here.

Nigel serves this on couscous which is nice too.....but I had some cooked quinoa ready and waiting, so used that!

This is a nice, healthy wintery dish that is hearty enough for a main dish.

Roasted Squash on Quinoa w/ Date Syrup: (adapted from The Guardian)

pumpkin or any winter squash, sliced or diced
olive oil & Kosher salt
1 tbsp smoked paprika (pimenton)

1 cup of cooked couscous or quinoa
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro
bunch of scallions, chopped

For the dressing:

4 tsp date syrup
4 tbsp olive oil
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp grainy mustard

Mix up dressing ingredients and set aside.

Season the squash slices with olive oil, smoked paprika and kosher salt.
Roast on a parchment lined baking sheet at 400F for 25 minutes, turning once.

Remove from oven and plate on a bed of couscous or quinoa and drizzle w/ some of the dressing.
Add in scallions (cilantro is also great on this).

So good.