Meatless Monday - pumpkin and cannellini bean salad with haloumi and kale. Plus good news for Loving Earth fans!

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I love simple, hearty salads, and I love sneaking beans into them whenever I can for extra bulk, vitamins and goodness. I have a longstanding love affair with pumpkin and haloumi (or pumpkin and marinated tofu for a vegan version), and cannellini beans provide a smooth richness without impacting on the salty-sweet salad. And kale is there for fun! You can use spinach or lettuce, but kale packs a nutritious punch again without overpowering flavour. Well, unless you cook it, but I've kept it raw here.

And now for the even funner part - I recently contacted Loving Earth after being a long-standing fan of their raw, sugarfree dark chocolate and asked if they were interested in partnering with me. The result is a very happy collaboration where I experiment with some of their products, creating fabulous new recipes over a series of weeks... and then packaging up a hamper of goodies like the ones I've used in my posts to give away to you!

I love Australian companies creating healthy, sustainable and fair products and the more I can incorporate them into my life, the better. I respect their efforts and their environmentally-friendly practices, and when it is funnelled into food that actually tastes good and is good for you, I want to encourage and support that effort.

So over the next week or so you'll see a couple of recipes featuring their product*, and an opportunity to win the goodies I've used. Then I'll do another two-week stint and a second giveaway of those products. EXCITED YET?!

Ok for pumpkin-beany goodness:

Serves 2

Ingredients:
250g pumpkin, sliced or cut into dice
125g haloumi, sliced
1 bunch kale, torn
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon Loving Earth Raw Organic Coconut Butter/Oil
2 tablespoons Loving Earth Raw Organic Agave Syrup (light)
Juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup Loving Earth Activated Organic Pumpkin Seeds

Directions:

1. Heat a baking tray in a 200C oven for a couple of minutes, until hot. Melt 1 tablespoon of coconut oil/butter on the tray and add pumpkin, tossing to coat. Sprinkle with salt. Bake 20-25 minutes until soft and golden.

2. When pumpkin is ready, arrange kale and cannellini beans on a serving plate.

3. Pan-fry haloumi about 1 minute each side until golden brown. Add to kale and beans with pumpkin.

4. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and drizzle over agave syrup and lemon juice.


*Disclaimer: I contacted Loving Earth directly with this idea as I really wanted to work with them. They couldn't have been more friendly and willing to help. They generously gifted me two of each product that will be used over this series - one for me and one for you! That's all, folks...

Linky bitz...

♥ The linky will be up every Monday morning, and will stay up until the following Sunday. It doesn't matter if you eat your meal on a day other than Monday - it's just an easy day to create the link.
♥ Grab the Meatless Monday button above and put it in your post, and even on your sidebar if you're feeling generous.
♥ Visit at least one other blogger and leave some love. This is so much more cool if we're in it together!


Where it says "Name", you might like to add the name of your dish instead or as well.