Traditional Christmas recipes are great, but they’re not known for being particularly healthy or vegetarian/vegan friendly! Christmasses gone past I would have just eaten the vegetables in Christmas meal but I’ve really enjoyed creating new recipes this year from scratch, including this delicious one! This is perfect either as a centrepiece to a meal or some additional veg.

The puy lentils add plenty of protein and mixed with the sun-dried tomatoes give an amazing flavour to the squash. Drizzle in as much olive oil as you like!

Ingredients:

• 3-4 butternut squash, halved with seeds removed
• 150g quinoa
• 180g whole chestnuts
• 50g sundried tomatoes
• 250g read to eat puy lentils
• drizzle olive oil
• 50g pitted black olives
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees
• Oil the halved squashes and place in the oven to cook for 45 minutes
• Meanwhile, cook the quinoa according to the instructions on the packet
• When cooked, mix together all the ingredients in a bowl
• Remove the squashes from the oven and spoon out some of the insides. Mix these bits into the quinoa and add salt and pepper to taste.
• Spoon as much quinoa as you can into the holes in the squash halves and place back into the oven for 10 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and enjoy!