Halloumi Salad with Lentils

This journey started when a friend motivated me to lose weight. In my opinion, she is not fat at all but she was motivated to lose some weight before she went back home to meet her old friends. Her simple thoughts motivated me to get on this journey. Everyone who you speak to about losing weight, first thing they will say is “It’s all about the food”. Call it my ignorance or my opinion, I always thought eat as much as you like but you need exercise whereas the fact is: “It is 80% about food and 20% about what you burn in the gym”.

I started my journey last year and I have lost 12 kgs since then. The journey has been a roller coaster ride. Carb crashes, weak moments, strong moments….but it has been great. When I started my journey my biggest challenge was I couldn’t eat the same thing every day. There on started my experiments with salads. One of the experiment was the Halloumi salad with Lentils.

Ingredients:

400 g Chickpeas (boiled if fresh or canned)

400 g Brown lentils (boiled if fresh or canned)

Handful of spinach

1 pc Jalapeno chopped

2 onions chopped length wise

1 tbsp olive oil

1 pack lemon and pepper Halloumi

Salt and pepper to taste

Red chilli flakes for garnishing

Method:

For Salad:

1.     Add 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan. Add chopped onions length wise. Saute the onions till they are golden brown.

2.     Add Spinach leaves. Wait for the spinach leaves to wilt.

3.     Once the  spinach is cooked add chickpeas and brown lentils

4.     Cook it for 5 mins.

5.     Add the Jalapenos.

6.     Add salt, pepper and chilli flakes to taste.

For Halloumi:

1.     If you are using pre marinated halloumi just slice it and grill it using Olive oil spray.

2.     Alternatively, marinate the halloumi with pepper and lime and let it sit for 30 mins. Once marinated grill it using Olive oil spray.

Serve the salad with grilled halloumi on the top.