This salad was one of those happy accidents where I just kept chucking more good stuff into a dish.

I served it up at a socially distanced barbecue and got so many comments about how delicious it was I thought I’d try and recreate it for the blog.

The sharp tang of pomegranate nicely offsets the sweetness of the roast veg and it’s a great side dish for roast meat or fish, or a lovely light lunch all on its own.

You’ll need to get ahead with the beetroot as it takes a long time to cook.

Ingredients

4 raw beetroot

4 cloves garlic

300g baby topped rainbow carrots

350g butternut squash or sweet potato, peeled and diced

Two stalks rosemary

1tbsp cumin seeds

50g rocket

100g butterhead or baby leaf salad

150g cooked puy lentils

100g feta

2 tbsp pomegranate seeds

Handful fresh mint

For the dressing

2 tbsp pomegranate molasses

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil

Method

Heat the oven to 180. Remove the stalks from the beetroot, then put them (whole and unpeeled) into a roasting tin and pop them into the oven to roast for 1.5-2 hours until they are soft right through if you insert a knife into them.

While it’s cooking, prepare the other veg. Squash the garlic cloves in their skin with the back of a knife, then put them into a roasting tin along with the carrots, squash and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle well with olive oil and roast in the oven for 40 minutes, giving the pan a good toss every now and again.

Gently toast the cumin seeds in a dry frying pan for a few minutes until they begin to pop and smell fragrant, then set aside, while you make the dressing.

Whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl and season with a little salt.

When all the veggies are cooked, remove them from the oven and take the rosemary and garlic out of the pan.

Allow the beetroot to cool a bit, then pop them out of their skins and chop into large chunks.

Put the rocket and leaves into a large serving dish, and scatter over the lentils.

Spoon the veggies over the top, then chop the feta and mint and add it to the dish.

Scatter over the pomegranate and cumin seeds, drizzle in the dressing and serve.