Well, it’s salad time of year, there’s no doubt about it! And, that means, it’s my favourite time of year, there’s no doubt about that! I just love summer…daylight savings, warm weather, sunny skies (most of the time!), outdoors and salads!
Mum has recently gone through a year’s worth of her Better Homes and Garden’s magazine subscription and ripped out all of the recipe’s she liked the look of. I had a quick flick through the pile and found a few that I liked also 
This ‘turkey, cherry and haloumi salad’ was one of the recipes I grabbed and thought it would be perfect to try out before Christmas and see if it would be worthy of using any leftovers. I can confidently say it would be perfect for using up your turkey leftovers (or chicken too).
Turkey is not something we used to eat a lot at Christmas time, or at any time, for that matter. For us, Christmas lunches mostly consist of a bit of seafood, normally prawns, crayfish if we are lucky (although we haven’t had crayfish for a long time…our luck must have ran out!!); ham; roasted chicken and salad. Most Christmases we have a ”cold” lunch, as opposed to having a hot roast lunch. And, I love it….it’s by far one of my favourite meals of every year 
DS and I missed the Aussie Christmas so much when we were overseas for Christmas a few years back that we even had a “cold” Christmas lunch of ham and salad, Aussie-style, whilst watching the snow fall outside from our hotel room in Banff (Canadian Rockies)….now that was something else!
Because I wasn’t prepared to roast a whole turkey to use left-overs for this recipe, I baked turkey drumsticks for about 40-45 minutes and carved the meat off of them to use in the salad.
This recipe is from Australian Better Homes and Gardens magazine:
The ingredients
Serves 4
1 bunch asparagus
2 tsp olive oil
180g (0.40 lb) haloumi, thinly sliced
50g (0.11 lb) baby rocket leaves
3 pre-cooked turkey drumsticks, meat carved off.
1 cup cherries, halved and pitted *
1/2 red onion, sliced
The dressing
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp garlic granules **
pinch caster sugar
* I used fresh cherries, because it is also cherry-season!!! Halving and pitting cherries is hard word (and a bit messy!), so feel free to use jarred/canned ones that are already prepared, but I’m not sure they’ll be as nice as fresh ones
** I cheated…after preparing the cherries, I didn’t have the energy to slice or crush or do anything with fresh garlic, so I used the pre-ready stuff!
The method
Cook your turkey drumsticks or use your already prepared left-overs.
Make your salad dressing first, so it has time for the flavours to combine while you make the rest of the salad. Combine all of the ingredients in either a screwtop jar and shake to combine (which I don’t have, but think is something I need!), or whisk all of the ingredients until combined.
Trim the ends off of the asparagus, place in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water for about 1 minute. Drain the boiling water and put your asparagus into a bowl of iced water for 2 minutes to cool. Remove the asparagus and pat dry with some paper towels.
Heat the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook the haloumi slices for 1 min each side, until the slices are golden brown. Place on top of some paper towel on a plate to soak up some of the excess oil.
Arrange the rocket, turkey, cherries and onion in a serving/salad bowl. Top with the asparagus and haloumi and drizzle with some of the dressing. Serve the rest of the dressing on the side.
Although I don’t eat meat, I sometimes eat poultry. This would be a meal I’d consider having; it looks really good. And it’s the first time that I hear about halloumi cheese. I wonder what it tastes like…
Haloumi is delicious! It’s a Greek cheese, quite salty but very nice fried with a squeeze of lemon on it!
OMG this recipe will be great to make next week when I have a lot of turkey left over hehe
What’s even better about it, is it’s nice and light so you don’t have to feel guilty eating it after all the Christmas calories!
Not only is it salad time of the year but it’s also bbq time which is a double win for me, firstly I get to enjoy the fast simplicity of putting together a salad for dinner and secondly my man takes over cooking duties on the bbq!!
I also love BBQ time of year! Aaaaaah….bliss!
Haloumi oh how I love thee, let me count the ways…. your pics make me hungry!
Isn’t haloumi the best! I love it fried with a bit of lemon squeezed on it! I do like most cheese though, there isn’t too many I’m not fond of!
Love haloumi too. Also love the sound of cherries and turkey together – beats boring old cranberry sauce! Yum.
The cherries were a bit dfferent to the normal cranberries…and I don’t think I’ve ever put cherries in a salad before either, but I really like it! Mmmmm….haloumi!!
This is absolutely delicious. I have never eaten Haloumi; and must. I run out of ways to utilize asparagus and this looks incredibly over the top. It is nice to have something different than cranberries too. The salad dressing looks and sounds over the top delicious too!!
Thank you Judy! It was a delicious salad….Haloumi is a delicious cheese! It’s very salty, but I like it
I am going to look for it on Friday. Have a wonderful holiday!
I will be roasting a whole turkey, so I’m always on the lookout for great ways to use it. I actually enjoy cooking a turkey on the grill in summer, too — something you might want to consider doing, since you have the weather for it. Anyway, really nice combo of flavors, and after all the heavy eating we’re doing, something lighter like this really is appealing.
I should try the turkey on the BBQ, do you marinate or put any salts/spices on it? It is great BBQ’ing weather at the moment.
The salad was very light and it really would be a great way to use up some left-overs!
I love halloumi too! What a georgous & tasty salad! Yummy yum, Ali!
Halloumi is the best, isn’t it! Went so well in this salad…definitely going to be a summer favourite!
Hi Ali, I searched and haven’t found haloumi yet. One of the stops I made looked at me like I was kidding on the name!! I am going to use another cheese or order it online
I will keep you posted on my cheese mission!!
Oh no! I can’t believe you can’t find it! I had a quick google and found that you could buy it from Amazon! Who would’ve thought! It’s a fairly different cheese, originates from Cyprus. Let me know how you get on
I am a Amazon girl and hadn’t gone there yet due to a busy time at work. This weekend I will check it out online and have it delivered to my front door instead. Thank you very much Ali for taking the time to look
No worries at all, good luck and let me know how you get on
If only I could send it to you from here!
Have a great day Ali!!